2007: The Year In Sports - Way To Guh, Ohio!

by Espen Jockovitch

The 2007 sports year can best be described as a year of near-surprises - a year full of gritty upstart teams that gave everything they had to win more and go farther than any of the self-glorifying wet-sausage-fart-in-a-suit sports analysts ever gave them a chance to go... before they got ground into braunsweiger a la jock-strap in the well-greased tank treads of a juggernaut in the end. To recap the Year That Could Have Was, you need turn your eyes to but one location: the State of Ohio.

January 2007: The BCS Championship Game featured an undefeated and largely unchallenged The Ohio State University Buckeye football team led by Heismann Trophy-winning quarterback Troy Smith against the SEC Champion #2 rated Florida Gators. In what felt at the time a theme-setter, OSU's Ted Ginn, Jr. returned the opening kickoff all the way to the Gator House, giving the Buckeyes a 7-0 lead 15 seconds into the game. In what proved to be a more accurate theme-setter, Ginn immediately injured himself jumping around in the end zone, and Ohio State never saw the lead again.

The Florida Gators outran, outblocked, outhit and outcoached the Buckeyes for the final 59:45 of the Championship Game, entirely pasting the former #1 41-14 - a score that "close" only by virtue of the sportsmanlike mercies of Gator Coach Urban Meyer.

[Side note: Troy "Heisman" Smith, after spending more time in the title game on his back than OSU's chapter of the Delta Gamma sorority at a week-long Intra-Greek kegger went on to hit the buffet circuit before getting drafted late in the fifth round by the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens went on to a 2007 campaign that featured a nine-game losing streak (including an overtime loss to the 1-15 Dolphins), a 5-11 overall record and the unceremonial shitcanning of their former-Super Bowl-winning coach Brian Billick.]

April 2007: The OSU Basketball Buckeyes, led by three freshmen, stormed their way through the Big Ten season and tournament earning a #1 seed for the NCAA Championship Tournament. Although their inexperience showed and the Buckeyes did struggle on occasion, they made their way into the Final Four by handily defeating a talented and much ballyhooed (though lippy and a tad light above the neck) Memphis team.

Once in Atlanta for the Final Four, the Bucks showed their grit in grinding out a hard-won semifinal against Georgetown, earning them a shot at their first national title in 46 years against... wait for it... the Florida Gators - the Gator team that returned its entire starting five from their 2006 NCAA Basketball Championship. Surprisingly enough, a Buckeye team led by three freshmen and a sophomore were outclassed by the returning National Champions, losing 84-75 in a game that was really never that close.

[Side Note: All three Buckeye freshmen declared eligibility for the draft in June of 2007, most notably center Greg Oden who was chosen first overall by the Portland Trailblazers. Oden went on to twist his knee in a warmup so severely that it required season-ending surgery two months before the season began.]

June 2007: The Cleveland Cavaliers posted a 50-win regular season, rode a #4 seed into the playoffs, swept the Wizards, made light work of the Nets, and upset the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals by winning four straight games after falling behind 0-2 to punch their first-ever ticket to the NBA Finals.

The Cavs faced the Western Conference Champion San Antonio Spurs , who squished them like gnats in four straight games. As a matter of fact, this articlet about the 2007 NBA Finals lasted longer that the actual 2007 NBA Finals.

[Side Note: LeBron James, home-grown hero and Mr. All-Everything for the Cleveland Cavaliers, made a national TV appearance at a Cleveland Indians playoff game... in Cleveland... against the Yankees... wearing a Yankees cap, thus committing the only unforgiveable sin in Cleveland sportsdom. Before that day, were LeBron caught ass-raping the alpacas in the MetroParks Zoo, local sportswriters would say those saucy Andean ruminant sluts were asking for it - now King James actually has to produce something.]

October 2007: The Cleveland Indians, fresh off their sixth straight rebuilding year in 2006 where they finished 78-84 and dead-except-for-the-Royals last in the AL Central, somehow with duct tape and bailing wire posted a Major-League-Baseball-best 96-66 record in 2007 winning their division and home field advantage in their Divisional Series match-up against the heavily-favored New York Yankees. With the help of 90-degree October weather and an invasion of Canadian Soldier flying ants, the Indians eliminated the Yankees in four games and advanced to face the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series.

Before FOX Sports could dust off its AL East-issue kneepads and Listerine the Yankees and Red Sox jizz out from between its teeth, the Indians took a 3-1 lead over the Red Sox with Game 5 to be played in Cleveland -although viewers could hardly tell by FOX's in-depth coverage of large-breasted and/or famous people in the stands only on occasion being interrupted by live baseball broadcasts. At that point however, the Red Sox decided that enough was enough from these pesky young upstarts and decided to earn their $130 million paychecks. To this day, the Red Sox haven't lost another baseball game; leaving one little, two little, 25 little Indians in their wake, scattered and scarred with rent flesh and protruding bones like so many dessicated walleye on the shores of Lake Erie.

[Side Note: Indians pitcher C. C. Sabathia won the AL Cy Young Award and manager Eric Wedge took the AL Manager of the Year Award for 2007, thus futhering Major League Baseball Writers' Special Olympics-like tradition of making sure every team wins something.]

December 2007: The play of the Cleveland Browns from their 1999 return to the NFL through the 2006 season can only be described as "shitty," (I would describe it as "wretched", but the Browns could never come up with the needed "W"), and their 2007 season opener against the Steelers looked like more of the same. A shameful home-field 34-7 scrotum-squashing at the hands of their blood-deep rival forced the Browns into trading their starting quarterback to Seattle for a handful of magic beans just to show the fans that the team meant business. The Browns winning nine of their next 13 games brought that point home to the fans in spades. Suddenly a team who flipped a coin to determine its starting quarterback in the preseason is 9-5 and in control of its own playoff destiny.

Never give control of ANYTHING to a bunch of overachieving, energetic, n00bz - the first thing they'll want to see is if they can blow the tits off it. Turns out they could - and they did. A performance against the Bengals in Game 15 reminiscent of the Trent Dilfer days featuring four first-down interceptions (including two in the last minute of the fist half which Cincinnati converted into 13 points) led to a 19-14 loss and an eventual early exit. The Browns won their season finale to give the New Age Browns their first 10-win season and cliched the coveted 20th pick in the 2008 draft - the lowest pick a team can get without actually making the playoffs.

[Side Note: The Browns season ended two days ago. Give them time to do something stupid - they're still cleaning out their lockers, for crying out loud!]

So the theme for 2007: Feel-good stories with the real-world more-experienced/better-funded/more-talented establishment team pecker-slapping the Johnny-Come -Latelys-all-the-way-back-to-training-camp endings. I'm sure this year's Buckeyes are praying for the writer's strike to end quickly so the snot-nosed backer-inners to next Monday's 2008 BCS Championship Game get that Hollywood ending would will have them hoisting the crystal.