This year has been a sports fan's feast. The Wimbledon men's final Sunday, the unforgettable Rafael Nadal-Roger Federer duel, is only the latest gem, after the Super Bowl, the NCAA men's basketball title game, Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Game 4 of the NBA Finals and the playoff for the U.S. Open golf championship.
Can it get any better?
Maybe. But a better question is: Can 2008 make us forget 2007?
Probably not. But this year does offer a soul-stirring reminder of why we are all addicted to sports. It provides a chance to display what is best in us as humans and more often than we sometimes realize, we make the most of that chance.
Just because it often also draws out our worst doesn't mean that is the norm. But after last year, you're forgiven if you thought so.
Last year was the year of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and everything in and around baseball's Mitchell Report. It was the year Marion Jones lost her Olympic gold medals. The year Michael Vick's underground dogfighting empire was dragged into the light. The year the NFL suspended Adam Jones, Tank Johnson and Chris Henry. The year of Spygate. Of Tim Donaghy, of Don Imus, of former Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong.
Last, but far from least, it was the year two active NFL players, Darrent Williams and Sean Taylor, were killed.
It was the worst year in the history of American sports. In varied ways, it made everybody remotely involved look bad, including fans and media, whose reactions to it all too frequently revealed them to be as small-minded, selfish, cowardly and hypocritical as the miscreants.
After a year of struggling with the complexities of where sports and society intersect, thank goodness for the simplicity of this year.
Not that 2008 has been perfect. The activities of last year (Clemens, Donaghy, even a surprise Imus-Adam Jones joint venture) keep bleeding into this year.
But at least with the great moments this year, there has been very little moral relativism to wrestle with. The rules have been simple: Each side brings its best and sees how it turns out. The New York Giants and New England Patriots did just that. So did Kansas and Memphis. The Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate. Nadal and Federer.
