The Biggest Sports Stories Of 2008

If the election of Barack Obama hadn't pretty much seized the word "historic" for all of 2008, I would have used that adjective to characterize the past year in sports. I'm hard-pressed to recall a year of such surpassing achievement and drama. The good news is that most of these stories were actually good news; last year, Marion Jones, Michael Vick, Barry Bonds, Don Imus dominated headlines—five of my top 10 stories in 2007 were tales of bad-news boys and girls. (Not that 2008 didn't witness stumbles, but Plaxico Burress's sins don't rank that high and O.J.'s ties to sports exist strictly—and ironically—in the realm of nostalgia.) The countdown starts this week with 25 through 11 and concludes next week with the top 10. My annual disclaimer: this list is no more definitive than the BCS rankings—just my opinion reflecting my tastes. Feel free to disagree and share yours in the comments.

25) Cash Crunch
Even as it still throws around record sums, the sports world is hardly inured to the global economic woes. NASCAR eliminated practice runs on the track, big spender Honda pulled out of Formula One, the LPGA lost several tournaments, the Arena Football League canceled its 2009 season and even Tiger Woods felt the pinch, as General Motors dropped its sponsorship of the country's premiere athlete. And the NFL is laying off employees. One wonders if the New York Mets stadium will really open this spring as CitiField? Upcoming Olympics—Vancouver in 2010 and London 2012—are feeling the squeeze, too. This story is a late-bloomer in 2008, but looms as a blockbuster in the coming year.

24) Who ' s Too Old? Not Papa Joe!
His critics insisted he should have retired years ago, that in his coaching dotage he was destroying his extraordinary football legacy at Penn State. But Joe Paterno, 82, led the Nittany Lions to a 10-1 season and into the Rose Bowl (with hip-replacement surgery in between). Paterno doesn't intend to let this 2008 revival be his crowning achievement; he says he plans to return for another season—his 44th—in University Park.

23) Tears of Hope
The U.S. women's softball team hoped to go out on top—four for four in Olympic gold medals. Softball had already been booted from the Games' roster of sports, collateral damage from a shot aimed primarily at baseball. But softball also suffered from the perception that the American women were simply too dominant. Japan, however, gave lie to that notion, beating the U.S. squad for the farewell gold. Ironically, the U.S. loss might be the last best hope for softball's Olympic future, as the game seeks reinstatement for 2016.

22) Chelsea Mourning
Chelsea had chased Manchester United all season in the Premier League and had fallen just short. Now it had a chance for redemption when the rivals wound up in the first-ever all-England Champions League final in Moscow. From the go, the game seemed destined to be settled by penalty kicks, and Chelsea seemed destined to prevail after none other than Cristiano Ronaldo, soccer's Player of the Year, missed his attempt. The championship lay on the foot of Chelsea's stalwart captain John Terry. But in a downpour, Terry slipped on his approach and slid his shot off the outside of the post—and the game slipped away too. Is there another sport where the greatest heroes—Zidane, Baggio, Beckham and now Terry—are so often recast as goats?

21) End of the Annika Era
She exited quietly, just as she always played the game. While Annika Sorenstam lacked the charisma of a Tiger Woods, nobody played the women's game better—she won 72 LPGA tournaments including 10 majors, and more than $22 million in her career—or with more class than the 38-year-old Swede. In 2003 she became the first woman in almost a half century to compete in a men's PGA event. The 2008 season should have been all about Annika. But the LPGA got far more attention for a clumsy initiative aimed at ensuring that its new wave of talented Korean players learned to thank sponsors in English.