As part of their 25th Anniversary, ESPN has put together this list of top 25 sports related topics of the last 25 years. I caught an episode on ESPN Classic that listed the top 25 sports films. For the most part I agreed with their selections except,

I agree with Bill Simmons that Bull Durham is a chick flick, same thing with Jerry Mcguire. They are both romantic comedies that happen to have sports in the background.

More importantly, how could they have a list of sports films and leave off When We Where Kings? That's just wrong.

xaxat, my guess is that they left of When We Where Kings for the same reason they left off Hoop Dreams -- they're both documentaries. Of course, the fact that they let one OK movie (Miracle) and two mediocre ones (The Rookie, Remember the Titans) on the list and all three are Disney productions (the same Disney that owns ESPN) is a complete coincidence. [/sarcasm]

That list was a complete joke. Rudy should never be as disrespected as it was (#24). Miracle wasn't on the list btw.

The one thing I can't stand about this series in particular is how they have to recap the ENTIRE list after EVERY break. It takes so much time away from actually talking about the list. I really like "The Headlines" though.

I was actually screaming at the television early on in the show until I realized that this was just for the last 25 years. I think the overall awfulness of the list speaks as much to the dearth of quality sports films in that span as it does to how stupid and short-sighted the people were that compiled it.

To me, a glaring omisssion was the early Tom Cruise film All the Right Moves. I've heard from more than one person from western PA that said that film perfectly encapsulated the way of life in a small town that worships their high school football team. Added bonus: A young, naked Lea Thompson.

I'm just glad the '93 Mets didn't make the Worse list. As a fan, I really did not need to visit that dreadful season. Some Mets fans wake up in a cold sweat after having nightmares of that.

Speaking of the Mets...bad enough the '86 squad made it on the list before the first commercial, but the only other baseball team there was the '98 Yankees. I hate those guys. I still think that in a fight, the Mets would kick ass. No, I mean literally kick their ass. Remember Ray Knight's sucker punch on Eric Davis? Good times.

Gotta remember to watch the Movies episode, if just to see Bill Simmons. I love his work.

Bill Simmons's view from here.

This week is the Top 25 Blunders.


The Top 25 Movie List should be in there somewhere.

I'm gonna assume that Spike Lee's massively underrated He Got Game came in at number 26.

Somebody tell me again why Finding Forrester is on this list. I mean, besides the great line about the black guy being the dawg now.

Possible, but you'd have Darryl Strawberry taking on... Darryl Strawberry. At least the '98 Yankees had Graeme Lloyd and Jeff Nelson, who could hold their own.

I think Jerry Maguire is both a sports movie and a romantic comedy, and a darn good one of each, making it one of the best date movies ever. In particular, I think the look at sports as a business, unromanticized, makes it stand out among sports movies.

I thought the list of best movies was bad, but the greatest blunders list topped it. How could they leave off all of the blunders that actually mattered in the last 25 years? There was no;

• Colorado-Mizzou "5th" down (kept CU's title hope alive)
• Chris Webber's timeout in the NCAA tournament (sealed Carolina's title)
• Phil "heads-tails" Luckett (influenced outcome of a playoff game)
• Eric "Sleepy" Floyd (sealed another Carolina title)
• And of course Bill Buckner!

How in God's name do they leave off Buckner? That should've been #1 instead of the Cal/Stanford trombone game. That wasn't a blunder; that was a miracle. Buckner booting that ball on the 1st base line and killing Red Sox Nation's hopes once again should've been #1-5.

Of course, my #1 blunder (as a 3rd generation STL fan) would be Don Denkinger calling Jorge Orta safe at first in Game 6 of the '85 WS. Either that, or Joaquin Andujar's meltdown the next night, costing the Cards Game 7 and giving the underachieving and undeserving Royals a title.

Is there something wrong with me that I cracked up at the "it looked like a pillow exploded" line?

And yeah, there's no excuse for having two "OF forgot how many outs there were" plays on there. And I'm considering if they should've had two "bird gets hit with ball" ones, too... the tennis player giving the first one its last rites was funny, but Randy made for a better visual.

The worst blunders show was horrible. I can't believe I stayed up half the night to see the top five. How the hell is Chris Webber not on that list? I thought it would be number one.

I was expecting to see Buckner, but then I wondered if maybe errors don't count as blunders? There weren't really other big physical errors, so I can even excuse the Buckner omission. But Webber/Michigan? Please.

And what's with no NFL highlights? Who wouldn't turn those over? Having blunders described didn't do anything for me, nor did hearing the list at every commercial break (as mentioned above).

Total crapfest.

One of the many ways this show annoys me, in addition to the fact I hate the host and don't agree with most of the choices. They barely have any time to go over each item. If I didn't already know the events or teams listed, I'd be clueless as to why they're ranked where they are.

No kidding. NFL Films is too good for the likes of a retrospective show? (Then again, considering how bad this show was...) I wanted to see Leon Lett's two blunders, especially Beebe's knock-away, so I could laugh and laugh and savor the sweet, sweet schadenfreude. Instead -- audio commentary and a still-frame photo? Bite me.

I was getting mighty sick of those chorus girls or who-damn-ever they were with the numbered placards. Must everything be sexed up? I did whoop aloud when No. 19 was briefly represented by Joe Sakic's uniform sleeve, on the other hand. Go, Avs!

But of course they must continue to suck up to the Lakers with a Kobe Jersey everytime #8 comes up.

The Headlines is so much better than this garbage.

Dear ESPN Asshats,

I know sports is the domain of the red-blooded, testosterone-overflowing male but there are some of us of the fairer sex who love sports too. Crazy, I know. I'm not saying you have to get rid of the babes entirely, but I think closeups of women's body parts and shots of them suggestively fondling balls doesn't lend itself very well to a countdown of the top 25 teams of all time. Then again, maybe you thought the guys needed a distraction from what a sham the countdown was (the 49ers made the best team list 3 times? Puhleeze.) and what better way to do that then plenty of T&A? Considering viewers are shunning your network in droves, you might want to work a little harder to keep all your sports fans happy.

Love,

Me

cc: Coors Brewery

Who comes up with these lists? On the 25 Greatest Sports Films, how can a League of Their Own or Ali outrank Rudy? (And I'm not a Notre Dame fan).

Marry me, michelec.

I didn't watch the movies one, and now I'm glad I didn't. Ali beat Rudy? Who was passing around the bong that day?

ITA about the "blunders" that should have made the list, especially Webber and Buckner. But also, a number of these events weren't blunders, but just wacky plays. Like Mulholland throwing the ball and glove, or O'Neill's kicking the baseball. A blunder is a mistake, and if anything those were examples of quick thinking and athletic skill.

Unit hitting the bird was rated as a blunder? Top 25 wacky flukes, sure, but hell, it didn't matter. It was in a Spring Training game, wasn't it?



What about the manager (McNamara, I think?) who had Buckner in the game at that time solely because he was a veteran and the manager thought he deserved to be on the field when the Sox won? That would be a good example of a mental blunder.

I find myself tuning in to see just how awful these lists are. The problem is that it's almost unwatchable, what with the constant jump cuts, the shots of bored babes straight out of a Robert Palmer video, and various other annoying quasi-MTV techniques that seem designed to cover up for the fact that they lack the footage for many of the entries (especially football). Then of course there are the time-wasting recaps before 20, 15, 10, 5, and 1, the stupid ringleader guy, and the usual Stuart Scott faux-homeboy nonsense.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the lists! Stuart Scott ends each show by saying something like "Let the arguing begin." Perhaps this is why they like to leave off the most obvious choices? Not to include Buckner on the list of blunders, when there were a ton of other baseball entries (many of which were not, in point of fact, blunders), is mind-boggling. No other blunder is so seared in the minds of baseball fans (especially all those Red Sox fans on HBO's Curse of the Bambino who could recite Vin Scully's "A little roller up along first" play-by-play in its entirety).

And they managed to omit the 2003 Detroit Tigers from the worst teams list... yes, the team with the worst record in the history of the American League, the team that barely avoided the worst record in the history of the majors... Could've been #1 on the list, but the brilliant minds at ESPN didn't even put them in the top 25.

OK, enough ranting.

It's ESPN. Bill Simmons is embarassed that he took part in the Best Movies list. Speaking of, I never thought of thinking of him with a Bahstan accent. He's from Boston, I know he's from Boston, but that never came to me.

Exclusion? Try the 1984 Tigers. As dominant as the '86 Mets, but they only lost one postseason game.

As for the babes...I got a feeling that there will be long-term consequences. You're watching Classic, the Cal/Stanford game is on, Cal's lateralling like crazy...and you got a boner. It's gonna happen, and the placement of the babes will be to blame. But I did like the kiddie paintings for the worst teams.

Didn't that team have not one but TWO 20-game losers? Breaking poor Brian Kingman's heart? Definitely should have been on there. Worse than the 1988 Orioles, I'd say.


Good point. All through the Yankees' run in '98 announcers were comparing their record to that of the '84 Tigers, and the Tigers were never much in doubt as the Series winners. However, if you get into postseason records, how about the '99 Yankees, who only lost one game in three rounds?

When they're finished with all these lists, is ESPN going to have special shows with fan response, featuring everything they left out?

I never imagined Simmons with an accent either.

Posting while drunk usually ends badly.

ITA!! That annoyed the ever living crap outta me.

I did enjoy the two Leon Lett blunders being an anti-Cowboys person. Ha!
The #1 was debatable but pretty good choice. At least they had coverage of that one since it was a college game! Why even bother to do these lists if you don't have all the footage available? Weird.

I only started watching this ep at #5, but I swore that if "The band's on the field!!" wasn't the #1 then the folks at ESPN were clueless.

Does NFL Films have exclusive rights to historical footage? That's the only reason I can think of that would explain why there were no clips of Lett. They might have a policy like NASCAR had (has?) that allows ESPN to use clips on "news" shows, but prohibits their use on "entertainment" shows.

Close... Mike Maroth went 9-21 that year, crushing Kingman's soul like opponents did 34 of his pitches, but Trammel shut down Jeremy Bonderman with a 6-19 record. Bonderman was only 20 then, though, and Maroth came in at a decrepit 25.

And yeah, them not having footage of the NFL ones is inexcusable. Although the one about the ref "giving him the business"... at least that explains Ed Hochuli's take on reffing.

You want to talk about Blunders, what about Chuck Knoblauch during the 99 ALCS? Hitting Olberman's Mom, arguing at the ump while the ball is just sitting on the field. That was easily 2 they couldve put on.

Actually, the ump argument was in the 1998 ALCS. I believe it was a random June game in 2000 when he hit Keith Olbermann's mommy. You're totally right, though. I was shocked the 1998 incident didn't make it in, especially since the Yankees lost the game, arguably because of it. Knoblauch was totally right about the call, IMO, but he should have finished the play first, then argued.

I think they may have put a similar incident on the list, when David Cone did essentially the same thing while with the Mets in 1990, but between the two, I'd go with Knobby's, because it was a playoff game!

I finally saw some of this show today. I think the list is awful. Unit hitting the bird is not a blunder. O'Neill kicking the ball is not only not a blunder, but amazing presence of mind. And, to echo what others have said, not having the footage of Landeta or Gramatica is inexcusable. No amount of annoying showgirls and opera guys will make me overlook that.

Did some research:

The Knoblauch vs Ump argument was Game 3 of the ALCS, Indians won to make it a 2-1 series.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/...08/blauch_head/

I couldn't find any stories about the Mother Olbermann incident, but I narrowed the date down to May 27th, 2000, based on an article I read that was posted the week after and knowing that the game it happened in was a Fox Saturday game.

I haven't seen that part of the show, but this could, conceivably, be a blunder, if they called it the bird's blunder, and not Big Unit's. Because, you know, that definitely was a blunder on the bird's part.

The reason there is no NFL footage is because the NFL would not allow any footage to be used for the who's #1 series. I am also pretty sure (though not 100% positive) they wouldn't allow footage for the entire ESPN 25 initiative. If you watched the Then and Now show that started everything off back in June you would have noticed there was no footage either. I haven't watched the headlines shows so I can't say for sure on those.

What is the deal with bleeping out the word "sucks"? I don't get that. They did it consistently throughout the Who's Number 1? Biggest Flops.

I understand now why all the footage for NFL "flops" was from the players' NCAA days (or still pics).

I must admit I usually don't like Jason Whitlock but he kinda cracked me up with Todd "Marijuanavich".

Get ready to hate "The Headlines" next week.

The story after #8: "9-11 Attacks Shut Down Sports"?

Kobe's rape trial. As if we aren't sick of it already.

I gotta admit, I like this episode. Probably becauese I'm a sicko that really gets off on schadenfreude. It reminded me of a lot of WTF? moments that I had hearing about the athletes on the list as in WTF, you blew out your million dollar arm in a bar brawl? Or WTF, Mandarich showed up to camp 20 pounds lighter, steroid withdrawl perhaps? And of course, WTF, the XFL?

ESPN really needs to hire you, xaxat, to helm either Sports Schadenfreude or WTF Moments in Sports. It'd be far better than the current Number One series, and I would TiVo it religiously. How can we make that happen?



Good God. I'll be leaving my TV off that day. (I live in Colorado. So. Sick. Of. It!) But they really should've made the Kobe story #8, just for symmetry.

I've been reading the guy's columns for two years, and I still haven't seen him on TV. I almost don't want to try to catch the movies list show to take away the mystery.

I don't know what to make of the "Top 25 Sports Commercials" episode. Aside from "Terry Tate," Dennis Hopper and the Honorable Mention "Bud Bowl," it seemed to be the Top 25 Commercials featuring Athletes/Coaches as themselves.

Some were really great (Mean Joe, Bob Uecker, Tiger's golf-ball bounce, ESPN Y2K), but some were just meh. Did we really need multiple commercials for each of MJ's endorsements? (I think the only one missing was Hanes.) That Jordan vs. Jordan commercial was covered solely by commentators saying how fake it looked, so how did it get voted so high? (This is the same argument I have about the inclusion of Ali on the movie list; nobody had anything nice to say.)

I was disappointed not to see some of the "joy of sport" uplifting comercials done by Nike, Gatorade, Adidas and the like. I would have killed to see that Nike "Motion" commercial from a couple of years back where the guy jogging segued into the marathoner who segued into the basketball player who segued into the high jumper and so on and so on, all set to music.

Major word, SeanC. I was puzzled by a number of the Top 25 sports commercials.

Of the MJ commercials, Hanes was missing as was Ball Park Franks (yes, Mr. HeavenLy and I kept track as well).

I thought the Terry Tate commericals sucked. I don't believe Reebok used those commercials more than a year. The Clydesdales kicking the football? I don't think that was even the best sports commercials during that Super Bowl. Bah on their inclusion!

While I commend ESPN for its restraint in NOT including more of their SC commercials, I do think that there were lots of SC better than the ones selected for the Top 25. I also commend ABC/Disney for not forcing ESPN to include the "I'm going to Disneyworld" commercial.

It wasn't clear to me what the criteria was for inclusion on "sports commercials." Was it a cameo by an athlete? Was it sports related product? Not clear. In my mind, I like the Nike Motion commercials (phenomenal), the Microsoft Great Moments at the Office commercials (hysterical), and I also like an old Visa commercial with Steve Young, Jerry Rice, and George Seifert at a karaoke bar.

Parcells singing "Groovin' on a Sunday Afternoon" was pretty decent as well.

Wasn't John Elway in that, too? Seifert doing some hip-wiggling to "Bossa Nova" cracked me up.

Why wasn't the Nike commercial where that street baller did all those tricks in there? That and "Charlie, come on out and get your whoopin'." (Plus, when I voted on SportsNation, the Y2K test was 8th. The next day I see the program, and it's 18th. How the hell did it drop 10 spots in one day?)

I don't think the SportsNation poll has any real connection to the show's list. I think these specials are voted by a 100-person panel of journalists and sportsy people (if I recall from the Top 25 Sports Movies debacle a few weeks back). Besides, check out the Times Square backdrop behind Stu Scott: he did his hosting duties well before summer, so at least the major results (number ones and all) have been decided for quite a while.

One play I was missing was the Texas high school football game with five on-side kicks for a touchdown and the team still losing on a last second kick return for a touchdown, all the while the good ol' boy announcers are going crazy. It was a Dan and Keith staple.

What about Vinatieri? Twice?

These lists have generally had at least one horrendous omission per week.

Worst Teams: No 2003 Detroit Tigers
Biggest Flops: the entire 1986 NBA draft
Great Records: No Rickey Henderson's steals records
Biggest Chokes: Picking a regular season game over Duke blowing a 19 point second half-lead in a regional final, or Maryland's two horrible chokes against Duke in 2001. And no room for any of the times hockey teams have blown 3-1 series leads.

It's hard to take this series seriously with the lack of NFL footage. . .