Retro Year In Sports: 2001

The first year of the new millennium is bound to remain infamous throughout generations due to 9/11. That single day has had more impact on our country then any other in our lifetimes. The diversions we cover weren't immune to 9/11's wrath and that's something we'll unfortunately refresh you on later. 2001 had many other notable events, however.

In January, America’s least controversial president George W. Bush was sworn in. Apple unveiled the iPod while Microsoft became Sony’s biggest competitor with the release of the original XBOX (sorry Nintendo fans). The start of Wikipedia gave people everywhere a reliable (enough) resource to quickly look up facts sometimes sourced and sometimes pulled out of an ass.

In the sports world: The Monday Night Warsended as the WWF (now the WWE) bought WCW. At the Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt died on the final lap. He was running third behind eventual winner Michael Waltrip and his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. ESPN introduced sports’ non-horrendous answer to the horrendous CNN show Crossfire with Pardon The Interruption. And Will Smith received an Oscar nomination for his starring role as the title character in the year’s biggest sports flick, Ali.

What else? Afghanistan got invaded (that’s the only thing on here not “retro.”) Enron went bankrupt due to greed, incompetence, and take your pick of a third adjective. And Alex Trebek appeared without his moustache for the first time. Check out Retro Year in Sports: 2001.

If any of you have forgotten this completely forgettable league then we’ll remind you.

The XFL was WWE founder Vince McMahon’s challenge to the “No Fun League.” The problem was the XFL wasn’t nearly as extreme as advertised. For instance they got rid of fair catches but replaced it with an even "softer" five-yard halo rule. Also their coin tosses went like this, leading to a season ending injury on the very first one.

It both started and folded in 2001. The league’s half owners, the WWE and NBC lost a combined $70 million. Which isn't much worse then drafting JaMarcus Russell. Still it was a poor business decision not matched by McMahon until his wife tried and failed to be elected to the U.S. Senate. Twice.

The low TV ratings crushed the NFL’s “competitor.” Going up against the NCAA Tournament might not have been the greatest move in retrospect. This helped the XFL generate the lowest television ratings for a primetime event in U.S. history.

In the end, the league didn’t really work out well for anybody. Except for league MVP Tommy Maddox who got a second life in the real league. He threw for over 3,400 yards in 2003 for the Steelers.

The Colorado Avalanche beat the defending champion New Jersey Devils in a full seven game series to win the Stanley Cup. Hall of Fame, freak of nature, goaltender Patrick Roy won the MVP. It was also Hall of Famer Ray Borque’s only championship in the final season of his 23-year career.

Tiger Woods shot a -16 to win the Green Jacket and complete the “Tiger Slam” meaning he held all four of pro golf’s major titles at once. He beat American David Duval by two strokes. Duval then won 2001’s Open Championship before a complete and permanent nosedive in 2002.

Croatian Goran Ivanisevic beat Australian Pat Rafter in five sets to win Wimbledon. A.K.A. the only Grand Slam win of his career. He was the first Wild Card (in this case because he was very lowly ranked) to win a major by upsetting Rafter, the No. 3 seed.

Venus Williams won her second straight Wimbledon Title by beating Belgian Justine Henin.

The average price for NFL tickets raised (shocking) by over $4 to $53.64. For almost $82 you could line owner Daniel Snyder’s pockets to watch a .500 Washington Redskins team. The irony is not lost in a town that knows how to waste a buck.

The MLB average was $17.45 a ticket. The rich got richer while the poor continued to suck ass. The Boston Red Sox charged $36.08 per ticket while lowly Montreal (who moved three years later) charged $9.70. Minnesota who was slated for contraction after the season charged even less at $9.55 a ticket. Despite record revenues Bud Selig claimed Major League Baseball lost over half a billion dollars. It sounded like a book cooked argument to support his unpopular contraction plan.

In the NHL an average ticket was $49.86. The spirit of fan gouging had become so routine that the 4.5% raise in prices was taken as good news.

Average NBA tickets were, arguably, the most ridiculous. At an average price of $51.27 the league was charging over 203% more then they were a decade before.

Arguably the league’s only “bargain” was in Milwaukee where $33.16 (the cheapest ticket in the NBA) allowed you to see the Bucks who came one game away from getting smoked by the Lakers in the NBA Finals. The Knicks were the priciest in the league at $91.15 for an average ticket. For all the dedication those loyal fans showed they were treated to a first round bounce by the Toronto Raptors. To date it’s the only series win for Canada’s last remaining NBA franchise.

Alex Rodriguez’s ridiculous decade long $252 million deal set the tone for economics in baseball for the 21st century. Poor fans could pound sand while mediocre players (whose market value was driven up) could thank Tom Hicks, Texas Rangers owner/businessman/sucker who personally negotiated the contract with A-Roid. Just a little more then two years before the highest contract was signed at 7-years/$105 million for pitcher Kevin Brown. Brown headed west to Los Angeles to be a Dodger. In just 25 months the boneheaded Hicks more then doubled that. In all three seasons in Arlington, Rodriguez's Rangers finished last.

In the NBA Kevin Garnett reigned supreme as the highest paid player; however the Minnesota Timberwolves were knocked out in the first round for the fifth straight season. Opening night of the 2001-02 season began their quest, and eventual completion, of a sixth straight first round exit.

Peter Forsberg (Colorado Avalanche) and Paul Kariya (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) split the top spot in the NHL banking $10 million each. Forsberg went on to hoist the cup while Kariya’s injury laden squad missed the playoffs (which in the NHL is saying something).

Brett Favre signed the biggest contract in NFL history in ’01 by inking a nice round 10-year/$100 million dollar deal. It was hailed as a “lifetime” extension. We don’t need to go retro to tell you how that ended.

A stacked Duke team, which featured five future NBA players (including three drafted within the first six selections) beat Gilbert Arenas’ Arizona Wildcats 82-72 to win their third national championship. Perennial NBA role player Shane Battier was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

In the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers won four straight over the Philadelphia 76ers after losing Game 1. The most famous play of the series came from the runner-up squad when regular season MVP and scoring leader Allen Iverson popped an iconic shot followed by an iconic staredown. It was the only loss for the Lakers in the entire playoffs (15-1). The victory got Phil Jackson’s one championship away from his third career three-peat (spoiler: he got it).

Philadelphia battled through two consecutive seven-game series’ to get to the Finals. The Lakers were the total opposite sweeping the first three rounds of the NBA’s “second season.” To this day it’s still (on paper) the most impressive team playoff performance of all-time. In fact they won as many games in the playoffs (in 16 games) as the Chicago Bulls won all regular season (in 82 games).

In a season where they finished 63-98 it seemed unlikely Cal Ripken would do anything more then just whimper away from the game he played daily for 17 years. But Ripken was given one final tribute when he went yard in the big league All-Star Game. Though he probably shouldn’t of been in the game in the first place, Ripken’s bomb at least justified his award. Tony Gwynn wasn’t as fortunate.

On the way to his fourth NL MVP, Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in the least celebrated home run chase of all-time. Sammy Sosa hit 66 bombs after his previous career high was 40. Mark McGwire hits 70 home runs and nobody raises an eyebrow. Bonds hits three more and all a sudden it's obvious that everyone's using PEDs.

Led by Rookie of the Year and AL MVP Ichiro Suzuki the Seattle Mariners went on to win 116 games then they remembered they were the Seattle Mariners and lost the ALCS to the Yankees in just five contests.

The Arizona Diamondbacks won baseball’s ultimate prize in only their fourth year as a franchise. Thanks to Osama Bin Laden, the World Series was pushed into November for the first time in history. Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling split the Series MVP. The theme throughout the seven game dogfight was blown saves. Diamondbacks closer Byung-Hyun Kim showed his dedication to helping New York heal by blowing (key word) two saves in less then 24 hours. And Yankees closer Mariano Rivera (in the low point of his career) allowed two runs in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 to lose 3-2. Luis Gonzalez’s walk-off jamshot may be the single most iconic moment of baseball’s 21st century. All told, Arizona outscored New York 37-14 but still took seven games to close them out.

Also this happened.

Oklahoma beat Florida St. 13-2 in a defensive minded NCAA Championship game. In the 2001 regular season, Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch won the Heisman (it was a slow year). He set the Cornhuskers up to play Miami (FL) in the championship despite getting slaughtered by Colorado 62-36 and not even making it into the Big 12 Championship (thank the computers).

In one of the least entertaining Super Bowls in recent memory, Ray Lewis won the MVP as the Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants 34-7. Trent Dilfer proved you didn’t have to be an elite level quarterback to hoist the Lombardi. You just had to have a defense that set the all-time record in points allowed.

The biggest individual "accomplishment" of note during the 2001 NFL season came in the season's final week. Michael Strahan was given his, still standing, sack record. Given is the operative word as, in the name of competitive spirit, Brett Favre took a dive on the record breaking sack to give his friend an, almost, well deserved record.

9/11 had an impact on everything from overly obnoxious airport security to American flag sales (big and small). Sports were no exception.

Baseball was in the midst of their annual pennant races when fanatics attempted to get onto God's good side by killing almost 3,000 people. The Minor Leagues cancelled the rest of their playoffs and, like a Little League where no one loses, crowned co-champions. The Majors postponed their season by a week, ending their World Series just three weeks before Thanksgiving. One of the comeback’s brightest spots occurred in the city who wore the wrath of misguided fury the worst.

The NFL was just getting started with Week 2 when the attacks occurred. Like the MLB they cancelled the week's round of games and pushed the regular season and playoffs back. The events led to Arizona Cardinals all-pro safety Pat Tillman (only 25 at the time) to retire after the season and enlist in the army. Tillman was killed by friendly fire amidst suspicious circumstances three years later.

The Yankees made it to the Fall Classic to help the aching city (though they probably would of made it anyway). But as we already mentioned they lost preventing them from winning four straight titles.