(Original Post - 12/20/06)
Here is an update, and rightfully so, to my Greatest Championship Moments
(Honorable Mention...this one gets knocked off the list). Michael Schumacher winning the 2000 F-1 Drivers Championship for Ferrari - The first of many for Schumacher (however not with Ferrari previous to '00, yet with rivals Benetton Ford) and in my life time and although I do not follow the sport closely anymore my entire family was joyed when this championship took place...this one ended 20 years of misery for Ferrari fans!
10. Syracuse winning the 2004-2005 Big East Championship after a 12 year hiatus - Don't remember much of the 1992 championship win, but this one again was long awaited for...
9. New York Yankees winning the 1996 World Series down 0-2 and coming back on 4 straight wins to win it in New York - After going through grueling years as a young Yankee fan, this win was one of the sweetest.
8. Chicago Bulls winning the 1996 NBA Championship with the Return of MJ - A sigh of relief and fulfillment when this championship took place.
7. Chicago Bulls winning the 1993 NBA Championship with John Paxon's shot in Phoenix in the closing seconds of game 6 - Were on the brink of loosing and going into a game 7 which they quite possibly could have lost and my brother and I never screamed more when they won!
6. New Giants winning Superbowl 25 with a Scott Norwide FG miss - 1st championship moment of my young life.
5. New York Yankees Winning the 2003 ALCS vs. Boston - One of the greatest games and spectacles in sports that I have ever witnessed.
4. New York Yankees Winning the 2000 World Series vs. the Mets - Shut up all Mets fans that I lived with while at Iona for a long time.
3. Syracuse winning the 2003 NCAA Championship - A life time waiting for, and when this monumental win took place I was the happiest I have ever been when one of my teams won. No greater win than this one better utters the words "we finally got one!!!"
2. Italy winning the 2006 World Cup - Long awaited and it means more when you only get to play for this championship of the world every 4 years.
1. SB XLII: Giants end a perfect season for New England - Nothing sums this up better than in the great words once spoken by Vin Scully..."the impossible has happened!" None sweeter in terms of winning a championship against a Boston team possibly ending a dynasty and making up for the '04 collaspe of the Yankees. A joyful day for all Giants and New York sports fans!!!
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5 comments:
1. (T) Giants Superbowl XLII
1. (T) Syracuse 2003 National Championship
3. Yankees 1996
4. Giants Superbowl XXV
5. Yankees 2003 ALCS
6. Syracuse 2006 GMac Big East Championship
7. Yankees 1998 125 Win season
8. Yankees 2000 over Mets
9. Syracuse 2006 Big East first in 12 years.
10. Giants Superbowl XXI
Ahh so after close thought you decided to have 2 number ones instead of a one and a close second!?!?!
The only thing to me that puts this SB as my sole number one was the result of possibly the biggest upset any sport has ever seen. I mean its still so tough to fatham that this NE team up until Sunday at 10:30 was being called the greatest the sport had ever seen. And they had won 18 straight games just in one season and to loose the last one that meant the most...I am still shocked, and will forever be...30 years down the road your kids will watch hilights of this and ask you how the hell did that happen. I think at that point it will be just like Namath beating the Colts which changed the league. In 30 years time this could have the same sort of affect.
Having been a Giants fan since Simms was a rookie I will bring up something that may be a bit blasphemous.
I don't think it was that big of an upset. In historical terms it will be described as such but consider...
- informal polls had 40% of the nation picking the G-Men
- they gave them a very tough game in week 17
- they won 10 road games in a row (11 now and counting) including defeats of the Cowboys which knocked them down twice and the beloved Packers in Favre's possible swan song
- they have the best front four in the league
- they have the deepest rookie corps in the league (big plays by Boss, Bradshaw, DeOssie, Ross, and Steve Smith).
Hey it doesn't take anything away from what we did. Nobody listened to me in the two weeks prior and by the end of the workday on Monday I'm sure people would have beat the s**t out of me had I crowed about Eli Magic one more time. But it wasn't as shocking as most of the nation thinks despite the Patriots' gaudy record.
Bald,
Your points are well taken, and I see definitely where you are coming from. Alot of people chose the Giants, I think, because it was a sexy pick and they wanted to root for the under dog (which when there is a 12 pt favorite, unless you are the fan of that team a lot of people will pick the dog). Plus the Giants hadn't won in many years so that has a tendency to play in peoples mind. But out of that 40 percent if you polled them again and maybe asked, do you really think the Giants will win or are you taking the Giants because you want to root for the underdog?...what's those percentages like?
NE once it hit the Baltimore game skidded a little but still managed to pull of wins and come back with ease against these Giants who played them probably the toughest in terms of an opponent all year in week 17...yet the Giants still came up short.
My point to counter act your point is given the magnitude of how good NE was all year, how unstoppable they were, and how they were about to pull of a 19-0 season, which had been flirted with but never to this extent since the '72 Dolphins...and any one who is any one, the so-called experts, crowned this team the best ever and never gave the Giants a legitimate shot.
I have to beg to differ with you on this one, there is no convincing me that this was not that big an upset...in 10/15/20/30 years from now this has the potential to be crowned the biggest upset ever and although I was not around for some of the other ones that made the SI list...I can't see anything being greater right now.
I think as sports fans, and I believe it was Phil Simms who said this the other day, we forget what goes on in the current day or seem to over look it and make light of it because its so fresh in our minds, yet I feel if you look back here this win will the biggest upset ever unless another two teams come into this same situation yet the point spread total is even greater.
HM Roy Jones Jr. defeating previously unbeaten James “Lights Out” Toney to win the IBF Super Middleweight Championship [Nov. 18, 1994] - RJJ is probably my favorite boxer of all-time and this was clearly his finest moment; plus, I’ve always rooted against the cocky Toney.
HM Affirmed winning the 1978 Triple Crown – Figures the first set of Triple Crown races I watch, and actually have a rooting interest in (17 year old phenom jockey Stevie Cauthen and my all-time favorite race horse, Affirmed), results in the very last Triple Crown winner.
HM 1990 Giants winning SB XXV – 1990 was the first year I watched EVERY Giant game with my uncle at the “Sloan Dome”, so watching that kick go wide-right was a pretty cool moment.
HM 1986 Amazins winning the World Series – Went from being what would have been the most heartbreaking loss I could remember since the ’Boys lost SB XIII to being the most exhilarating victory since the ’78 Yanks took home the crown. Fuck the Sawx.
HM 1986 Kansas Jayhawks winning the NCAA Basketball Tourney – Outside of MANY Syracuse triumphs over the years, this was by far the sweetest victory for me and my father; not so much because we liked “Danny and the Miracles”, but rather because of our complete disdain for the cocky, big-mouthed, punk of a Sooner coach, Billy “Fuckin’” Tubbs (asshole).
(10) 1985 Sooners winning the Orange Bowl and the National Championship – This was essentially the last time I rooted harder for the Sooners than I did for the Orange in college football, and was also the first time my favorite team ever won a college title in one of the big two college sports (its only happened twice).
(9) 1978 Yankees – Too young to remember ’77, but very conscious of this series; represented the first time I ever saw one of my favorite teams win a championship.
(8) 1998 Yankees winning the World Series – I rank this one higher than ’78 because of the fact that this 125-50 club was arguably the greatest team in the history of baseball, rivaled only by another great team from the Bronx, the ’27 Murderers’ Row Yanks.
(7) 1996 Yankees winning the World Series – 18 years was too long to wait, and this was the first Yankee championship that I was completely (not just “very”) conscious of.
(6) Johnny Mac beating Bjorn Borg 7-6, 6-1, 6-7, 6-7, 6-4 to win the 1980 U.S. Open – I was a fucking fanatical McEnroe fan, and this was the greatest match I had, or have, ever seen.
(5) 1992 Cowboys winning SB XXVII - Aside from maybe the ’78 Steelers and the ’85 Bears, this was the best team I have/had ever seen, and this was the first Cowboy Super Bowl win that I remember watching (only remember the post game of ’77 team’s victory).
(4) Team USA Hockey winning gold at the 1980 Olympics - I was going ape-shit jumping around screaming “Do you realize what we just did?!?!?!?”; particularly sweet after I had just watched the same Soviet team beat up on a team full of NHL all-stars at the ’79 Challenge Cup.
(3) 1994 Rangers winning the Stanley Cup - I’m not sure my heart rate has ever been higher than it was during the waning moments of game seven (130+ beats per minute).
(2) 2003 Orange winning the National Championship – I rank this one ahead of the Rangers Staley Cup vic because, while my father, who was pretty sick at the time, was never a big hockey fan, he was/is a massive Syracuse basketball fan, and this was the absolute, fuckin’ best; plus my puppy, Moose, was right by my side during the whole thing.
(1a) 2005 Spring Southern Tier Dodgeball League Championship - Cementing the notion that we were/are the finest dodgeball players that have ever lived.
(1) 1989 Chenango Valley Jr./Sr. game – The 30 point underdogs shocked the world.
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