2007 is almost done and sports fans around the globe have questions that remain unanswered.
One question has a chance of being settled in 2008 if the New England Patriots manage to finish the season and run through the play-offs to a Superbowl victory without a defeat. Unfortunately, many others will never be answered on the field of play and we are left to speculate on the hypothetical.If Pete Sampras was in his prime, would he be able to stop Roger Federer?
In November a series of three exhibition matches were played between Pete Sampras and Roger Federer. In case you missed it, Pete actually won the third match in straight sets. Of course, we are talking about an exhibition series where Roger is not being forced to be too serious and after he has played an entire season. His body was probably ready for some rest. Nonetheless, the fact Pete won a match leaves one thinking that he might, afterall, be the greater player in his prime.
Pete played in the period of Jim Courier, André Agassi and Boris Becker. Quite honestly, without trying to detract from how great of a player Federer is, I don’t think Roddick or Nadal are in the same league as any of those named above and when you throw in Patrick Rafter and Michael Chang it is clear that men’s tennis in the mid-to-late 90’s was saturated with great talent despite the dominance of Sampras.
Did England really belong in the final of the Rugby World Cup?
Anyone who knows anything about this will automatically say "Of course not!". However, to ignore the leadership and experience of this team is a bit short-sighted. Once New Zealand got done with their traditional brain-fart in the knock-out stages, the tournament became anyone’s to win.
England might not have been the best team there, but they were a team that knew how to win games and they had a lot of players hungry for a last "hurrah" before retiring. Although South Africa ended their Cinderella run in the final, the English deserved their last moment of glory before their team enters a decade of obscurity.
Can any champion in cycling be taken seriously right now?
If Americans think baseball has a problem, they should look across the pond at the mess of professional cycling in Europe. As Floyd Landis continues to deny doping in the 2006 Tour de France, nobody really knows anymore who to call the winner. Michael Rasmussen gets kicked off the Tour this year while leading the race and it has gotten so bad that T-Mobile, among other sponsors, will no longer let their name be associated with the sport.
This year has also been the year that many greats of the past including Eric Zabel (Green Jersey Winner) and Bjarne Riis (Tour Winner) have come out and admitted doping during their professional careers. You want to know if your precious baseball statistics are worth anything? Try figuring out a complete new order of finish to all these races and stages once all the drugged cyclists’ names are expunged from the records.
Who would win a pick-up game between the Timberwolves and the Golden Gophers?
It must be a relief to have a decent college team in Minnesota because in the post-Garnett era the pro team really bites. While Kevin suddenly has a cast around him in Boston his former team is completely flat and will be lucky to finish the season with double-digit wins unless someone steps up fast.
In the meantime, while not yet ranked in the top 25 for lack of a win over a quality opponent, the Gophers are probably good enough to make the Big Dance in March and, with Tubby Smith finding new life after Kentucky, his team is at least more fun to watch than his in-state peers on the pro circuit.
Has any city lost a game on the same day in all 4 major American sports leagues?
I don’t know the answer to this one and am counting on the sport geniuses reading these pages to help me out. On May 13th the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Pistons and the Detroit Red Wings all lost bringing me to this thought. I’m sure it’s not the first time that one city has lost in 3 sports on the same day and it won’t be the last, but it could happen in all 4 of the major leagues.
It would have to happen to a city participating in the MLB play-offs as only October allows for a crossover of all sports and it remains a question that nags at me as my attempts to ask the question in Yahoo! Answers left much to be desired.
Will this year’s NCAA season be the final straw to bring us a play-off in Division 1 college football?
You really think I could title an article like this and not talk about the biggest controversy in North American sports? Like the Patriots, the outcome of this will be clear at some point, although it might take more than a year to implement. Nonetheless, if this year doesn’t drive the NCAA to make any changes you have to ask yourself what would.
In a funny way, the fact that Ohio State and LSU made it to the title game might be the reason nothing happens. These were two of the strongest bets at the start of November and, despite the roundabout way they got there, most sports people not affiliated with one of the other contenders seem content that it’s them. Best case scenario for preserving the status quo would be Georgia beating Hawaii in a nailbiter and Illinois knocking off USC in the Rose Bowl. Suddenly the BCS people will look like geniuses. Of course, OSU needs to be competitive this time.
Could the NFL have scheduled a worse match-up for their Wembley appearance?
It was bad enough that the NY Giants are just slightly above average, but they managed to get Miami in the midst of the worst season ever for an NFL franchise. Even though Miami somehow managed to win and avoid joining the 1976 Buccaneers as the only NFL team to lose every game in a season, they cannot hide from the fact that they are not an expansion team as that Tampa Bay team was.
The pathetic Dolphins aside, the type of game played was not what foreign thrill seekers unfamiliar with the peculiarities of American football wanted to see. The Cincinnati Bengals and Detroit Lions would have provided more of the fireworks needed to make this a keeper. As it was, the NFL got a sloppy slugfest that certainly didn’t attract any new fans and should have NFL executives running back to the drawing board before scheduling this again any time soon. Unfortunately, those in charge probably don’t even recognise what was wrong about this game.
Who would win a dance-off between Floyd Mayweather and Laila Ali?
This one was too fun to pass up. Boxing is giving way to Ultimate Fighting and just about anything else where the violence is more out of control, so they have to pump up their stars by sending them on PR trips into reality TV.
The obvious answer is that Laila wins hands-down as she finished 3rd in her year while Floyd only made it to the 4th round. However, who can figure the voters and Floyd might be feeling pretty confident after his TKO of Ricky Hatton. The bigger question might be which one of them would win if they got in the ring together.
Was Team U.S.A. the best team in this year’s Women’s World Cup of soccer?
You might find this a strange question considering they didn’t make the final and only finished third. However, a strong argument could be made that they didn’t bring their best game to the semi-final match against Brazil and that their South American opponents played the perfect game at the right time.
The dominance of Germany in the final (and the same dominance demonstrated by the Americans in the 3rd place game against Norway) begs the question to what could have happened if the final had been a U.S.A. -vs- Germany match-up. We’ll never know.
And, with a couple of exceptions, we’ll never know the answers to any of these questions…as fun as they might be to ask.
