Up at 6am

2008 has been very good to sports fans. We’ve already seen some pretty damn memorable moments a little more than halfway through the year, and fortunately for us, most of them have come in championship games or matches.

Football:
Our generation will forever remember Super Bowl XLII with all of its ridiculous sub-plots. The Giants not resting their starters in Week 17 with hopes to end the Patriots regular season with a loss. The Patriots going into the Super Bowl with 18 straight wins, and the Giants going into the worlds largest stage with nine straight road wins. Then the game happened and we’ll all remember the two-touchdown underdog Giants marching down the field, being lead by none other than Peyton Manning’s younger brother on that all-or-nothing drive. Peyton’s kid brother gets the ball down 14-10 with 2:39 left to play and we’re all thinking “this isn’t his territory. This is Tom Brady territory, this is where guts and determination leads to championships.” Oh, but it was. 12 plays, 83 yards, and a go-ahead touch down – and that unforgettable 32-yard Manning to David Tyree pass where Eli willed his way through the arms of Adalius Thomas Richard Seymour and Jarvis Green, who all had a hold of his jersey before he was able to lob a pass in the air that seemingly hung in the air for three minutes to David Tyree – who was able to grab the ball with his right hand, hold it against his helmet as he was brought down by a Rodney Harrison whose chance at grabbing that ball was just as good as Tyree’s. That game will not soon be forgotten.

Basketball:
Fast forward to April. We’ll all remember that NCAA Tournament Championship with Kansas and Memphis (or Stephon Curry’s performance through the first four rounds). With about eight and a half minutes left to play in the game, Memphis’ Derrick Rose pulled up and drilled a three pointer that would give the Tigers the lead, a lead that we all thought they would hold for good. The lead was ironically extended to nine points on a couple of Robert Dozier free throws with about two minutes left to play – and that’s when things went terribly wrong for the Tigers. All tournament long Memphis Coach, John Calipari, was telling pundits that his team would be able to continue to win even if they continued to miss they free throws. He was right, they missed free throws, but they continued to move past teams. Two minutes left to play, with a three possession lead, all they had to do was knock down free throws and they were home free with a mid-major title for Calipari and his Tigers. 1:15 left to play, the lead is down to four after a Darrell Author jumper and a Sharon Collins trey, Chris Douglas-Roberts steps to the line and clanks the front end of a one-in-one. 0:16 left to play, the lead is down to two after another Darrel Author score and Chris Douglass-Roberts steps to the line with the opportunity to ice the game. He bricks both free throws. 0:10 seconds left, lead still at two and Derrick Rose steps to the line with another opportunity to ice the game and misses the first and makes the second free throw. 3-point lead. Kansas ball. With just nine seconds left on the clock, Kansas guard Mario Chalmers pulls up for the game-tying three. Water. Overtime. Kansas would go on to dominate over time. That game will not soon be forgotten.

Golf:
Mid-June. Torrey Pines Golf Club. Tiger Woods vs. his knee vs. 153 other golfers. Tiger Woods wins in Tiger Woods-like fashion. Obviously, we’re beyond the point of amazement when Tiger wins a major because he wins them at such high rates, so, under normal circumstances, we would talk about how great he is for a day, have Skip Bayless and (insert random unsuspecting columnist here) debate weather or not he’s the greatest ever, then it would be over with. These were not normal circumstances. Let’s consider all of the sub-plots of this tournament that mattered before it even started. Woods had a minor surgery on his left knee that forced him to sit out of all competitions for two months, there were questions about his game after his sub-par (no pun intended) performance at the Masters – and he was paired with Phil Mickelson for the first two days of the tournament . Woods first day was shakey, he finished one over and four shots off the lead. The second day he finished three under, and by the end of the third day – a day where he ended with two eagle puts and a chip in birdie – he had a one stroke lead going into the final day of the Open. On that final day, Woods limped around from hole to hole, he grimaced with every shot and allowed Rocco Mediate to take a one stroke lead as he went into his final hole. He birdied it, sending the tournament into a playoff. During the playoff, Woods mounted a three stoke lead over Mediate, but found himself down by one stroke going into the last hole – and again – he drained another clutch birdie. After Mediate missed a put in sudden death, Woods claimed his 14 th Major, and it was one of his most dramatic. That tournament will not soon be forgotten.

Tennis:
This all brings me to the 2008 Wimbledon Final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (best believe I was up at 6:00 a.m. to watch this, I’m a huge Nadal fan). There is nothing better than watching two of the worlds best (in any sport) compete, going blow for blow, on the sports biggest stage because it’s just not something we get to see often (except in Tennis because these two are consistently seeing each other in French Opens and Wimbledons) – and that’s exactly what we got on Sunday afternoon.

I’m a huge Nadal fan, so it was imperative that I got up to watch this Wimbledon Final. After Spain won the UEFA Championship (yes Marcus, I watched the game, I’m a fan of all things Spain for a reason unknown to me) I half jokingly told my friend John, probably the only friend I have who is actually a tennis fan, that Nadal would win Wimbledon because of this momentum theory our friend Ricardo Martinez came up with. After the University of Florida won the 2006 NCAA Championship (bastards), Ricardo told us that Florida would win the BCS Title as well solely on the momentum of their basketball championship. Then he correctly predicted (again) that the Gators would win their second consecutive NCAA Tourney because of the momentum from their football title. There really was no reason for telling you that story other than the fact that I wanted you to know about the momentum theory (something that I may explore in depth in another blog) and that I used it to pick Nadal in this final because he’s Spanish (and so you won’t be surprised when Spain wins more gold medals than every country in this year’s Olympics).

Have I seen better tennis played before this match? Probably, I mean, I did grow up during the Pete Sampras era. But did I enjoy a match more than I loved watching this one? No; and it wasn’t because Nadal won, because if that were the case, I would have enjoyed that French Open beat down much more. I enjoyed this match because there were no easy points, there were no easy sets – this was no easy match. After Nadal went up two sets to none I honestly couldn’t believe it. He was one set away from stopping Federer’s streaks of 65-match winning streak on grass, 40-match winnings streak at Wimbledon and – most importantly – his streak of five straight Wimbledon titles. This was of historic proportions. It was hard to fathom, especially after Federer finally got his first set – and even more at the end of the fourth.

That fourth set tie-breaker and the whole fifth set was the reason I enjoyed this match more than any other. We had this 22-year-old kid (it’s scary that I’m almost old enough to call 18-year-olds kids) matched up against this unbeatable force on grass in a tie-breaker for the title. Not only that, but he’s up five points to two with both of his serves. I was nervous, but he was borderline scared out of his mind. His first serve, double fault. His second serve is returned by Federer to his backhand, something that he’d normally destroy, he lofts it into the net. 5-4 Nadal and Federer has serve. Both men hold on their serves and the score is 7-6 Nadal. Federer would go on to win the tie breaker 10-8. After the match was over I thought this was this was a crucial moment for Nadal. Watching the way he botched both of his service points while leading 5-2 was akin to watching Darius Washington miss two of three free-throws with Memphis down two to Louisville in the Conference USA Championship. Those free throws broke my heart, even though I wanted Louisville to win (I was a huge Francisco Garcia fan then), I wanted Washington to knock down that last free throw, just to send it to overtime, and if Nadal would have gone on to lose this match, I’m sure those two service points would have gone on to haunt him the way those free-throws haunted Washington for the rest of his career (I think he’s in the D-League right now).

The match lasted four hours and 48 minutes. There were two tie-breaks and the fifth set was won 9-7. There were three rain delays, Nadal was bothered by a knee injury and it was on the sports biggest stage. Does it get any better than that? I don’t think it does – well, at least not in tennis. I was riveted by this match, and if it comes on again on ESPN Classic (I’m 100% positive it will), I will watch it again, no matter how much Skip Bayless says it wasn’t even close to be the greatest match ever (which it might not have been, I don’t know) but it was the best I’ve watched (and also the best John McEnroe has ever seen) and it’s been the best sporting event of the year thus far, which is saying a lot considering the three previous events mentioned in this blog and the myriad regular season games that I watched from beginning to end on the edge of my fucking seat. This match was one for the ages. I know most of my friends will disagree simply because they aren’t tennis fans, or will disagree because my favorite player won, or will disagree just to disagree – but for me, and everyone else who watched that match, Nadal v. Federer will not soon be forgotten.

Stay Hideous
-PB

(Word count to date: 31,730
69 days and 68,270 words to go)