It’s 2015, and anything can happen. Will Back to the Future II prove to be an omen of good fortune for the Cubs? Wai Sallas says it’s time to forget the past and look to the future in the Friday Sports Dump.
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With a new year comes newfound hope for the future. We get to wash ourselves clean from a year’s worth of bad decisions and regrettable moments. Instead, we focus our attention on what we want to be, and what we want for the world.
In the first edition of The Sports Dump for 2015, we throw away a year’s worth of sports filth and come out the other end clean as a whistle.
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Goodbye Donald & Shelly Sterling, V. Stiviano and the scandalous, racist Clippers regime that embarrassed the NBA and its fans. Hello new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. David Stern’s replacement has already been a breath of fresh air in 2014. He brought swift resolution to the Clippers fiasco and has shown great critical thinking for the future, including a fantastic New York Times Op-ed on legalizing sports gambling. The NBA is in good hands.
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So long NFL Comissioner Roger Goodell and his merry owners who employ him. Let’s wipe the slate clean on a calendar year which brought almost one negative headline a month. Congratulations, Goodell, you made the NFL a 12-month discussion. Unfortunately, it was for all the wrong reasons. Here’s hoping players like Andre Johnson, Cam Newton, and Manelik Watson dominate the headlines, and we can enjoy watching the NFL next year without feeling dirty while doing it.
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Let the fire be extinguished on the Winter Olympic Games from Sochi. $50+ billion bought brought us Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “Gay Propaganda Law” and corruption that would make the mafia blush. Luckily for us, TJ Oshie, Mikaela Shiffrin, Meryl Davis & Charlie White, Sage Kotsenberg’s Bacon Gold Medal and Johnny Weir’s fashion statements reminded us why we tune in every four years for sports we only watch every four years.
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We’d love to eliminate FIFA all together. Soccer’s governing body got tired of bribery, scandal and corruption reports, conducted an independent investigation only to cover up that investigation leading to the independent investigator quitting. Cross-eyed? Not to be outdone, FIFA also found itself in a hailstorm of feminism as they continue to sell the Women’s World Cup being played on field turf rather than natural grass as it has forever. FIFA’s inability to admit when it is wrong has led to a legal battle with the world’s top soccer players. Luckily for FIFA, soccer is a beautiful game to watch on the grandest of stages, the World Cup. 2014 was no different as the entire nation jumped on the back of Tim Howard and Company for a wonderful ride. Unlike in year’s past, it seemed everything else stopped and for three weeks we were like every other country in the world, completely addicted to soccer. Howard gave us a match to remember, and memes to stand the test of time.
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Baseball will have a hard time filling the void left by now retired Derek Jeter. We hope it’s not by Alex Rodriguez, but more athletes like Mo’ne Davis and Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West who lit up the Little League World Series.
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We remember Chuck Noll, Jack Ramsay, Don Zimmer, Louis Zamperini, Jean Beliveau, Rubin Carter, Ralph Wilson, Tony Gwynn, Frank Cashen, Bryan Burwell, Rob Bironas, William Clay Ford, and Oscar Taveras.
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As 2015 begins, we’re all in the black. We all can start the year off the way we want.
Hopefully the year will end better than we hoped.
Here’s to 2015.
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Photo Credit: YouTube/screenshot
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