Thursday, December 07, 2006

The top 40 sports figures of 2006


Our homie Mr. Irrelevant has put together a list of the most-talked-about sports figures from 2006. He asked about 50 bloggers (including us) to submit their top 10 most-covered figures from the past year.

It's a great list and we strongly encourage you to go check it out. Below is our submitted ballot and commentary that we emailed Mr. Irrelevant's way last week. Also, each sports figure is linked to our archives on that certain person (or horse).

Enjoy!

1. Barbaro - Who thought a horse could be the butt of so many jokes? We had a letter from Barbaro, wrote a letter to Babs in the hospital, and had more glue jokes than you'd expect from a sports blog. When lacking a story to write, hey, just check in with Barbaro. It's bound to get a laugh.

2. Joe Buck - The only thing positve we wrote about Mr. Buck was that we said a nice word about his father. Yeah, that's it. If a sports blog could have a villain, Buck would be ours.

3. Jenn Sterger (Cowgirl) - The quickest way to get an SI column? Skimpy clothes and plastic surgery. Sterger's Mailbag at SI On Campus led to plenty of fictional letters to her. But hey, she went to Florida State and knows that a football field is 100 yards. Those credentials speak for themselves.

4. Norv Turner - When Norv was the coach of the Raiders, we started a Norv Turner Update, letting readers know that he still, somehow, had a job. When he was fired from Oakland, it was a sad, sad day. But his hiring across the bay in SF was a joyous occasion. It's not so much that we ripped Norv, we like to think of it has employment information.

5. Dennis Green - DENNIS GREEN IS WHO WE THOUGHT HE WAS! That is a mediocre-to-bad coach who couldn't un-sink the Arizona Cardinals' ship. And Green's press conference? Let's just say it was like a train wreck: we couldn't turn away. His humorous, yet pathetic news conference and inevitable firing has led to a weekly post at The Big Picture called The Dennis Green Survival Rating.

6. "True" Ramonce Taylor - The former Texas running back got busted by cops at a pecan farm and possessed five pounds of marijuana. He's been a running joke for anything drug- or pecan-related.

7. The Mexicos - Michael and Marcus Vick, if only people knew the truth. We had all sorts of fun with Michael, err..., Ron and then with Lil'Mexico stomping on someone's leg and then pulling a gun on some teens at a the local Mickey D's. The wonderful Ronmexico.com has a feature where you can type in a name -- we did our name and some famous athletes -- and you get your Ron Mexico-like alias. Great stuff. Just like Mike and Marcus Vick.

8. Erin Andrews - Our signature feature is "Would you do..." where we pick a female sportscaster or sideline reporter and evaluate whether or not readers may like to, well, do her. Andrews has been the most popular and has led to other coverage of her and her reportings. She's hot and knows sports. What's not to like?

9. Bode Miller - The big drinking, big partying, big losing skier got plenty of attention during the Olympics. Miller said some strange things, had a poor showing in the 2006 Winter Games, and then signed a one-day contract with a baseball team as some promotion. Ugh, Miller wouldn't exactly be our first choice as a publicity stunt. Unless it was for tequila, of course.

10. Ricky Williams - We touched on Williams plenty of times, though we don't think we once mentioned him actually playing football. That says it all about our grass-loving friend.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am dissapointed that "Ned" did not qualify for this list.

The Big Picture said...

shit, I'm totally with you, Peralta. We just didn't cover him enough -- he was a short-lived thing I guess.

But certainly good for a huge laugh!

The Big Picture said...

shit, I'm totally with you, Peralta. We just didn't cover him enough -- he was a short-lived thing I guess.

But certainly good for a huge laugh!or a huge laugh!

Anonymous said...

I absolutely despise Joe Buck