// BEGIN editorial data var i = 0; var spt_whatayear = new Array(); spt_whatayear.ID = "spt_whatayear"; spt_whatayear.ID_WB = 25769334; spt_whatayear.sPubDate = "8/16/2008 9:58:06 AM GMT"; spt_whatayear.navsectionID = "3032112" spt_whatayear.appFmt = 2; spt_whatayear.itemsPerPage = 1; spt_whatayear.appWidth = 624; spt_whatayear.appHeader = "A year full of surprises, relive some of the best moments in 2008"; spt_whatayear.appFooter = "By Mike Celizic"; spt_whatayear.appNavStyle = 3; spt_whatayear.bDhtml = 0; spt_whatayear.appLayout = 3; spt_whatayear.copyWidth = 500; spt_whatayear.copyMargin = 9; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","Introduction","Justin Morneau scores the winning run in the 15th inning of the All-Star game.","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Slideshows/_production/ss-080716-allstars/ss-080716-allstars-02.hlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "Ray Stubblebine", "Reuters", "273", "452", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

Is 2008 the greatest sports year ever? It was already well on its way to that distinction before the Olympics arrived. And now with Michael Phelps tying Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in swimming and shattering the all-time Olympic record with 13 gold medals – and one more on the table – it’s all but settled. This is the greatest year ever.

It began with the NFL playoffs and the underdog Giants plowing through to the Super Bowl, where they beat the undefeated Patriots. It continued with the return of the Lakers and Celtics to the top of the NBA and a return of the championship to Boston.

Danica Patrick made history by becoming the first woman to win an Indy Car race. There was that U.S. Open at Torrey Pines that gave us Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate battling through 91 holes before Tiger won. It was only after that epic victory that we found out he'd done it on a torn ACL and two stress fractures in his left leg.

Wimbledon rolled around and the consensus was that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer gave us the best final ever. On top of that, we had the Williams sister in the women's final returning to the top of their games together.

There have been a few great All-Star Games in baseball, but it's hard to top this year's 15-inning thriller. When you throw in Josh Hamilton's performance in the Home Run Derby and the setting in Yankee Stadium, it's as good as that show gets.

The British Open was supposed to be dull without Tiger Woods, but Greg Norman came with his AARP card and darned near won the thing.

And just when you thought there was no way to make it better, Michael Phelps ties Mark Spitz’s Olympic single-games record with seven gold medals in swimming.

Could there possibly be more ahead? How about if the Cubs were to win the World Series? And who knows what we’ll see during the college football season?

But no matter what happens the rest of the year, 2008 is already a sports fans dream, a year unlike any other."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","Michael Phelps","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo/_new/g-spt-080815-phelp-648p.hmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "", "Willis Parker", "Abaca", "273", "390", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

The seventh gold medal, the one that tied Mark Spitz’s 36-year-old record, came by the tiniest of margins – .01 seconds. Michael Phelps came from seventh place halfway through the 100-meter butterfly and beat Serbian Milorad Cavic on the last stroke of the race in a finish so close only an electronic timing device could tell the winner.
If the race had ended one inch earlier, Cavic would have ended Phelps’ quest to be the first athlete to win eight gold medals at a single Olympics. That’s how close the race was.
It was a perfect test of Phelps’ greatness. Before the 100-meter butterfly, he had blown away his competitors in four other individual races, setting world records in every one. But in the race that meant the difference between immortality and mere greatness, he had to reach down more deeply into his will and reserves than ever before.
Only one other of his first seven gold medals was close, and that was the 4x100 freestyle relay. In that race, American anchor Jason Lezak had to make up a deficit of more than four feet over the final 50 meters to beat French anchor – and eventual 100-meter freestyle Olympic champion – Alain Bernard by a whopping .08 seconds. That translates to about seven inches, a huge margin compared to the approximate ¾ inches by which Phelps won the butterfly.
One race remained, the 4x100-meter medley relay, and an American victory would give Phelps his eighth gold medal in Beijing and 14 overall. The 13 he now owns, which include the seven here and six in Athens, are already four more than anyone has ever won before.
But even without the eighth medal, Phelps is already being called the greatest athlete ever. For 2008 in sports, that’s just par for the course."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","Greg Norman","Greg Norman","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/NBCSports/Sections/Personal/Jervay%2C%20John/what%20a%20year/080720_Greg-Norman.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Andy Lyons", "Getty Images", "358", "239", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

Had Greg Norman won the British Open, it would have been even more amazing than Tiger's performance at the U.S. Open. In the buildup to Royal Birkdale, much had been made of Tiger's absence, with many asking whether the Open would even be worth watching. Then Greg Norman, playing as a former champion at the age of 53, teed it up.

He had barely been playing golf, spending more time hitting tennis balls with his new bride of three weeks, Chris Evert. And he admitted he had no expectations. But he was near the top of the leaderboard after the first round in brutal weather conditions, didn't go away in the second round and ended the third round with a two-stroke lead.

Okay, he didn't win. He did, in fact, have some Normanesque moments on the way to a third-place finish behind Padraig Harrington, who won the British for the second straight year. But Norman gave us four days of thrills and had 50-somethings all over the world running to their closets to dust off their clubs. Along the way, he reminded us that even without Tiger, there are great stories to be told."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","All-Star break","Josh Hamilton","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/NBCSports/Sections/Personal/Jervay%2C%20John/what%20a%20year/080720_Josh-Hamilton.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Jim Mcisaac", "Getty Images", "358", "239", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

Baseball gave its mid-summer showcase event to the New York Yankees as a tribute to the final year of Yankee Stadium, the House that Ruth Built. And if that had been the entire story of the game, it would have been memorable enough. But a sign that big things were afoot came on Monday night during the Home Run Derby. With such stars as Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and Albert Pujols sitting out the derby, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers took over. Once a can't-miss prospect, Hamilton had fallen into a drug habit that kept him out of the game and in and out of rehab, and banned from baseball from 2005 until last year, when he played for Cincinnati.

He was traded in the off-season to Texas and in his first full year was leading the majors in RBI. In the derby's first round, with his 71-year-old youth coach pitching to him, he hit an incredible 28 homers. Among them were a handful of 500-foot shots, including one that ricocheted off the back wall of the right-field bleachers. Hamilton was out of gas by the final round and lost to Justin Morneau, but his performance remained the story of the day.

The All-Star Game itself was preceded by an emotional pre-game ceremony that featured the largest collection of Hall of Famers anywhere outside of Cooperstown and a rare public appearance by Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. The break was topped off by an incredible, 15-inning game that saw the American League come back to tie the game in the seventh inning on a J.D. Drew two-run homer. The winning run scored on a sacrifice fly and a desperately close play at the plate with Morneau scoring the winning run for a 4-3 victory.

Given that the game was played for home-field advantage in the playoffs, this nearly five-hour masterpiece had to be the best every played."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","NBA Finals","Paul Pierce","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/NBCSports/Sections/Personal/Jervay%2C%20John/what%20a%20year/080720_NBA-Finals.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Gabriel Bouys", "AFP/Getty Images", "358", "265", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

Basketball fans had been dreaming about another Lakers-Celtics final for years, and when the regular season ended, those were the teams on top of their respective divisions. The Lakers were led there by Kobe Bryant with the help of mid-season acquisition Pau Gasol.

The Celtics had the Big Three Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and were far and away the best team in the league during the regular season. But it was far from certain the two old rivals would meet in the Finals. The West, especially looked up for grabs with just seven games separating top seed from the eighth seed.

When the playoffs started, the Celtics couldn't win a game on the road, losing six straight through the first two rounds and barely surviving the Cleveland LeBrons. But they picked it up on the conference finals, losing for the first time at home in Game 2, but then winning three of the next four to take the series in six.

The Lakers, meanwhile, took on the look of a juggernaut, sweeping Denver, beating Utah in six, then needing just five games to dispatch the defending champion Spurs and advance to the big dance with Boston. In the Finals, the Big Three forced their will on the Celtics, forging a 3-2 lead, before unleashing everything against the Lakers in the sixth-game clincher, a 131-92 blowout victory. It not only returned the title to Boston, but it marked the first time in history that the Celtics and the Red Sox were both reigning champions of their respective sports."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","U.S. Open thriller","Tiger Woods","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/NBCSports/Sections/Personal/Jervay%2C%20John/what%20a%20year/080720_Tiger-Woods.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Robyn Beck", "AFP/Getty Images", "358", "234", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

After failing to win the Masters, Tiger Woods underwent his third arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. He had intended to come back the week before the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, his favorite course going back to when he was a teenager, but the knee wouldn't cooperate.

He told the media nothing about his condition other than that his knee was still a little sore, but he also didn't play a complete practice round before play began on the longest open course in history. In the first two rounds, he was paired with Phil Mickelson, who couldn't live up to the hype of the grouping.

Tiger himself was far from in total control of his game. His play was erratic, but the brilliant moments through the first four rounds outbalanced the bad ones by the slimmest of margins. Still, he came to the 72nd hole needing a birdie to tie Rocco Mediate and force an 18-hole playoff. Woods got the birdie, barely sneaking a 12-footer with a little right-to-left break into the hole to do it.

Mediate, who had to win a playoff in a qualifying tournament just to get in the Open, was 45 years old and ranked 126th on the money list, as regular a guy as the Tour can produce, and the fans embraced him. The playoff on Monday showed by the USGA insists on another full round to break a tie and determine a champion.

Mediate went up early, then Woods took the lead before giving it back. When he teed it up on 18, Mediate needed a birdie to win and Woods needed at least that to tie. Mediate made par and Tiger made his birdie to push the 90-hole tournament to a 91st hole. There, Tiger made a routine par while Mediate bogeyed and Woods had his 14th major and his third career Grand Slam.

And it was only when it was done that he revealed he had done it all on a torn ACL and two stress fractures in his left leg. His doctors had told him not to play, and he had told them he was going to play the Open and win it. After it was over, he went under the knife to reconstruct the knee and took the rest of the year off while the rest of us were left to debate whether this was the greatest Open ever."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","Wimbledon","Rafael Nadal","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/ArtAndPhoto-Fronts/COVER/080707/g-cvr-nadal-6a.hlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Lewis Whyld", "AFP - Getty Images", "214", "284", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

When Roger Federer arrived at Wimbledon, it was to break Bjorn Borg's modern record of five straight All-England titles. He brought with him a winning streak on grass that started in 2003 and would grow to 65 matches. And the only person who could possibly stand in his way was the 22-year-old Spanish clay-court genius, Rafael Nadal.

Four weeks earlier, Nadal had won his fourth straight French Open title, raking the court with Federer, who won but four games in three sets, in the final. But Federer, holder of 12 major championships, was the king of grass. Analysts thought Nadal might come close, but few thought he would win.

But Nadal raced through the first two sets, setting up the unthinkable: a straight-sets victory over a man who has been called the best to ever play the game. Federer came back, winning the third and then fighting off two championship points in a fourth-set tiebreaker to even the match. There were two rain delays during the final, and darkness was descending on Centre Court as the two battled to 6-6 in the fifth and deciding set and then played four more games before Federer finally netted a forehand and Nadal collapsed on the turf in ecstasy at having finally beaten his rival on his best surface.

There have been many great matches, but even oldtimers like Bud Collins, who've been watching the game for a half century and more said this was the best ever. And, oh, by the way, the Williams sisters, who had in recent years seemed to be in decline, rampaged through the women's half of the draw and met in the finals for the first time in a grand slam since 2003. Venus won, beating little sister Serena for her seventh grand slam and second straight Wimbledon crown."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","Danica wins","Danica Patrick","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/NBCSports/Sections/Personal/Jervay%2C%20John/what%20a%20year/080720_Danica-Patrick.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Afp", "AFP/Getty Images", "358", "248", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

After becoming the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500 and finishing fourth in that race as a rookie in 2005, Patrick had performed well on the Indy Car circuit, but she had yet to win.

Going into 2008, some were wondering if she ever would. On April 20, in the Japan 300, she answered her critics. In the 50th start of her career, the 26-year-old driver and cover girl beat pole-sitter Helio Castroneves by just under 6 seconds to become the first woman ever to win a major auto race outside of the specialized world of drag racing.

In 2005, one of the reasons she lost Indy was because she tried to conserve fuel. In Japan, the wheel was on the other cars, as she won by managing her fuel and pit stops better than the field."; spt_whatayear[i++] = new Array("","Super Bowl","Eli Manning","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/NBCSports/Sections/Personal/Jervay%2C%20John/what%20a%20year/080720_NFL-superbowl.vlarge.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Elsa", "Getty Images", "358", "249", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); spt_whatayear[i-1].body = "

The fun started in the second round of the playoffs, when the Chargers upset the defending champion Colts and the other Manning (the much-maligned Eli) led the Giants to victory over the Cowboys and Jessica Simpson's boyfriend.

It got better when Eli out-dueled Brett Favre on the proverbial frozen tundra in Green Bay, winning the game in overtime after Favre threw what may or may not be the last interception of his career. The Patriots had beaten the Giants to stay undefeated in the regular season's final game in New York, and everybody figured the 18-0 Pats would make it 19-0 and force the Dolphins to make room on the undefeated-champion pedestal they alone occupied.

Everybody figured wrong. The Giants held a 10-7 lead in the fourth quarter when Tom Brady finally led the Patriots to the go-ahead touchdown. But Eli led the Giants back. The big play was a fourth-down scramble when Eli escaped what seemed like several sure sacks and heaved the ball to little-used receiver David Tyree, who trapped the ball against his helmet with Rodney Harrison mugging him and somehow held on for the first down that set up the winning TD pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds to play.

The Jets over the Colts in SB III may have been a more important win and bigger upset, but SB XLII had it all, a huge upset, a quarterback coming of age, great defense, and maybe the greatest catch in the history of the game."; // END editorial data