A Glance Back at the Year in the Sports World
BY ZACHARY PRETZER

This school year, there were quite a few memorable and not-so-memorable moments in the world of sports. I feel that as the Review’s sports editor, it is my duty to remind you of the excitement, tragedy and embarrassment that professional and college sports provided us this year.
Perhaps due to the fact this school year covered the completion of last year’s professional baseball season and that another season of Major League Baseball is underway, there have been more headlines in baseball than any other sport. 

The most publicized happening of the year in baseball were Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez’s ludicrous signings of $250 and $150 million dollars. Even though this occurred well before the season started, fans still haven’t forgotten about it, as they recently threw dollar bills at Rodriguez when he played against his former team, the Seattle Mariners. During the first week of the season, the most talked-about event was how in his first game with the Texas Rangers, Rodriguez tripped on his shoelaces not once, but twice. 
Another subject of heckling by fans has been Chuck Knoblauch, who at the end of last season and the beginning of this year couldn’t even manage to complete a solid throw from his position at second base to first base — and this is coming from a guy who has won his share of gold gloves in the past. Knoblauch has now become a fun player for fans to heckle, as he has been moved into the left-field position by the New York Yankees.
In last season’s World Series, the New York Yankees and Mets played in the much talked about “Subway Series.” Of course, like always, the Yankees prevailed, but there were plenty of great stories within the series such as Yankee hurler Roger Clemens throwing a bat Mets catcher Mike Piazza broke back at him. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around, with the batter throwing the bat at the pitcher? Nonetheless, the series was the media’s dream and a big hit among viewers.

An event that wasn’t such a big hit with sports viewers was the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Due to the fact that all of the events were on tape and 15 hours behind, the games weren’t especially popular in the United States. There were great stories in the games, though, as Michael Johnson won two gold medals and retired, leaving his mark by winning only gold in five Olympics and nine World Championships. Marion Jones didn’t win the four gold medals she was hoping for, but her husband did manage to get busted for steroid use and was banned from competing in Sydney. On a humorous note, the United States’ basketball team almost lost to Lithuania in their semi-final game, and won the gold medal in very unconvincing fashion. The Sydney Games showed a great improvement in gender equality, as five new sports were introduced for women in the games: the modern pentathlon, water polo, pole vault, weight lifting and the hammer throw.

Another event that had early promise but ended up being a bomb was the XFL, which was created by the owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon. The league’s ratings dropped in half after the first week of the season — must not have been enough cheerleader locker room footage.
In the world of professional football, the Baltimore Ravens and (cough, cough…) owner Art Modell won the franchise’s first Super Bowl Title, in what was perhaps one of the most boring championship games ever known to man. Hell, even the half-time show sucked, as it paired up Britney Spears, N*Sync and Aerosmith — now there’s a good combination of musical talent. During the off-season in the NFL, Minnesota Viking superstar Cris Carter called it quits after becoming only the second receiver in league history to have 1,000 receptions, the Buffalo Bills cut fan-favorite quarterback Doug Flutie, the San Francisco 49ers announced they will release receiving legend Jerry Rice, and a few NFL misfits decided to commit a few murders as well. The NFL’s new message seems to be clear: see ya’ later veterans, hello criminals and thugs.

The professional hockey season has been especially interesting. NHL great Mario Lemeiux, the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, decided to come out of retirement and attempt to lead his team to a Stanley Championship. This is perhaps just what the NHL needed, especially after happenings last year such as Marty McSorely attempting to brutally cut an opponent’s head off. Lemeiux and the Penguins are currently tied with the Buffalo Sabres, 3-3, in their NHL Playoff series.

The NBA hasn’t seen any of its owners come back and play yet, but perhaps the return of Jordan is the only thing that can save the league’s growing unpopularity. The league is in dire need of cleaning up its image, especially after players such as Allen Iverson release rap albums that are 99 percent profanity.
In professional golf, Tiger Woods proved that he is the dude, as he won his fourth straight major, winning The Master’s championships. 
Anna Kournikova once again highlighted the women’s tennis season, and former star of “Jen-Jen Mania,” Jennifer Capriati, made a huge comeback to climb up the rankings. Kournikova, who has yet to make the headlines because of actually winning a tournament, stood out in the media this year because of her bra commercials, as well for a computer virus that spread across the world in the form of a picture of her.
Tragically, the racing world lost a true legend in Dale Earnharndt. Earnharndt died in February, when his car crashed into a wall during the Daytona 500.

A greater part of the excitement in the sports world year this occurred in college sports. Duke University reclaimed its dominance over the rest of the country by winning the National Championship in basketball, and the Notre Dame women’s basketball team won its first title in school history by defeating Purdue by two points. Before all of the March Madness began, however, perhaps the most highlighted event in all of sports was the firing of former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight. Knight has recently jumped back into the coaching scene, as he will coach Texas Tech next season.
Finally, the next biggest event that occurred in the college setting this year was the dropping of Swarthmore College’s football team, which brought about the question of whether or not Oberlin College would be next to axe the sport.
This year in sports proved to have many high moments and low moments, and who knows what could be in store for the sports community when we arrive back at campus in the fall. Perhaps Minnesota and Philadelphia will be playing each other in the World Series, and maybe Mike Tyson will regain his Heavyweight Championship. Anything can and will happen in sports, so just enjoy the competition this summer, whether it be baseball or professional pool, and be ready for another intriguing year of sport in 2001-2002.

Sometimes, Being Second (or Tenth) Best is Fine
BY JACOB KRAMER-DUFFIELD

It’s kind of liberating, really, being a fan of a mediocre baseball team. My team in this particular case is the Baltimore Orioles, but I suspect it is a more general thing than just this team, this season. A little in the way of explanation, first.
I grew up with a mediocre team. Sure, I loved and played lots of sports, but baseball was always number one. Growing up in Maryland, the Orioles were my team, and Cal Ripken, Jr. my hero. But I arrived a little too late for the glory days of the Orioles, who were perhaps the most consistently feared team in baseball from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. Their last World Series win came in 1983 —when I was four. For most of my childhood, the only consolation for the Orioles’ mediocrity was that the Yankees’ awfulness was at least as evident. 

There was that miracle year of 1989, when before the season I went down to spring training and got the autographs of unknowns like Brady Anderson, Curt Schilling, Steve Finley and Gregg Olson (if you don’t remember, he used to have the best curveball –– ever). They had lost 107 games the year before, and nobody expected anything. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the rending heartache that more than half a season in first place would cause —especially when, on the final weekend of the year, the O’s had a chance to win the division during a series against first-place Toronto. Two one-run losses ended that hope on the next-to-last day of the season. 
All of a sudden, my team was good. What to do? Well, hope for better, that’s what –– and that’s where the trouble started. They sucked again, for the next four years. Just say the name “Glenn Davis” to any O’s fan, and their face will noticeably start to twitch. Then came the robbery of 1994 — the strike. Then, all of a sudden, the fucking Yankees were good again. A collective groan went up all through Maryland and Massachusetts. 

And then there was the tension of rooting for a contender. It’s excruciating, really; almost every night of the summer from seven until 10 at night, you sit there, glued to the radio or TV (with the volume turned down; or at least used to…again, ask any O’s fan), and tie all of your hopes and dreams to this stupid game. But you can’t help it. And the next day, depending what numbers are in what places in the box score, you either trudge through the day in at best frustration and at worst despair –– because your team lost –– or in utter elation, because your team won.

This was my life from 1994 until 1997, when the Orioles were good. Other teams were suspect, or evil, or downright cheaters. Think of the Yankees again: 1996 ALCS, Game 2 –– Jeff Maier, that punk little kid, stole our World Series right there. I still get angry. That isn’t rational; it’s a bloody sport. The outcomes of games are completely irrespective of whether or not I am watching or whether I am rooting hard enough. It is a game decided by highly-paid athletes completely unaware and uncaring of my existence. Many of them are stupid and awful people. But nothing —nothing (well, maybe a presidential election) — can have such an immediate effect on my blood pressure and general mental health well-being as a disastrous choke by the boys in orange, white and black. 

But it’s all okay now. The Orioles have blown it, big time, over the past several years with some of the worst personnel decisions in baseball history; (thinking about Mike Mussina makes me cry. The man wanted to stay, damnit) and now they suck again. Well, don’t suck so much as are thoroughly mediocre. The Devil Rays suck. The O’s are merely mired in fourth place in the best division in baseball, behind three very good teams, all potential league champs. That’s fine; I can sleep at night now. I can appreciate every last hit that Cal gets, and pray that he makes this season his last. I can think of days far in the future when the kids who are showing flashes of brilliance really are brilliant. That’s the beauty of a baseball season; with 162 games over six months, there are a billion little chances for flashes of hope even in the worst season, even in the season that’s over before it starts. 

No other sport is like that, really. Unless you’re really awful, there’s always a shot at the playoffs in football. A missed extra point here and a bobbled interception there are all the difference between 6-10 and 10-6. So the whole season is always nerve-wracking, with a whole week for the salt to dig into the wounds of a frustrating loss before a chance for vengeance. In basketball, well, you’re just doomed to watch an incredibly long season of boring action. It’s kind of like hell except that Bill Walton’s still here. And I love hockey, but I really think you can’t fully understand or care about it when you grow up with “winter” from mid-December to early February and five inches of snow.

Nope, baseball is unique. The .400 hitter in August never gets to October because the great gods of baseball just know that he isn’t Ted Williams. The surprising rag-tag June division leader never makes the playoffs, because they just don’t have sixth and seventh starters working long relief in the pen all year until someone one through five goes down. The Cubs and the Red Sox, well…ask a Cubs or Red Sox fan. Let’s just say that I’m pretty damn glad my team’s dry spells are measured in half-decades, not centuries. 
Baseball is not just like life, baseball is life. As with measuring the quality of a life, the quality of a baseball team is not measured or determined in single days, or even in weeks, or even in months, but over the course of years. But as true as that is, the real joy of baseball happens in moments: the rookie hitting a homer his first time up; the career minor-leaguer getting that first start in the bigs; the veteran hanging on for one more year and delivering late-inning pinch hits every five days through the summer. Just how in life, it’s the little things: the great sunset, the perfect late spring day. The home run you hit in little league. The last time you play catch with dad. For the real fan, baseball and life are so intertwined as to be nearly inseparable. And for me, a few years not to worry about winning and to appreciate the little things will be just fine.