Flacco Catching Flack

Joseph Vincent Flacco was born on January 16, 1985, in Audubon, New Jersey. That's in South Jersey, a 15-minute drive via the Walt Whitman Bridge from the Philadelphia sports complex. Joe grew up there, so he knows what it's like to live, and play football, in a place where the Winters are cold.

He attended the University of Delaware. That's in Newark -- pronounced as if it was two words, "New Ark," not "New-erk" like the large New Jersey city of the same spelling. Delaware Stadium, where he played his home games, is a 45-minute drive from the Philly sports complex, and, in the other direction, an hour's drive from M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, home of the NFL's Ravens.

He is about to complete his 5th season for the Ravens, in Baltimore, which can get cold in Winter. He has quarterbacked the Ravens to the Playoffs in each of those 5 seasons. In 3 of them, including this one, he has led them to the AFC Championship Game.

The Ravens play in the AFC North Division. Which means, every year, they have 2 meetings with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Yet the Ravens have finished 1st in the Division the last 2 seasons, and 2nd in the 3 before that. He has now led them into a Super Bowl. He has led them to Playoff wins over Peyton Manning's Denver Broncos in Denver, and Tom Brady's New England Patriots twice in 3 tries, including in the AFC Championship Game just played, in Foxboro no less.

Joe Flacco cannot be called a wimp.

Or... can he?

Perhaps because he is a native of New Jersey -- albeit the side of the State that tilts toward Philadelphia, rather than the one that tilts toward New York -- he was asked about next season's Super Bowl being held at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, just outside New York City. MetLife is an open-air stadium in a cold-winter city.

It will be the 1st time the Super Bowl has been played in such a venue.  Of the 1st 47 Super Bowls, counting the one that will be played at the Superdome in New Orleans this Sunday...

* 15 were held in Florida -- 10 in Miami, 4 in Tampa, 1 in Jacksonville. Sun Belt.
* 11 were held in California -- 7 in the Los Angeles area, 3 in San Diego, 1 near San Francisco. Sun Belt.
* 9, including this one, were held in New Orleans. Sun Belt. The last 6 of those indoors.
* 3 were held in Texas -- 2 in Houston, 1 outside Dallas. Sun Belt. The last 2 of those indoors.
* 2 were held in Atlanta. Sun Belt and dome.
* 2 have been held in the Detroit area. Cold Winter city, but both games under domes.
* 2 have been held in the Phoenix area. Sun Belt. The last of these indoors. So will the 2014-15 one be.
* 1 has been held in Minneapolis. Cold Winter city, but under a dome.
* 1 has been held in Indianapolis. Cold Winter city, but under a dome.

Why in a Sun Belt city, or under a dome -- or both? Because the NFL bigwigs want the biggest game of the season to be held under ideal conditions. They are detail freaks who would fit in just fine in the military. They want to eliminate the possibility of any condition that would make the loser say, "Well, we would have won, if only (something that was out of our control hadn't happened)."

Super Bowl VI in 1972, at the old Tulane Stadium in New Orleans, had a game-time temperature of 39 degrees. That was the worst weather they've ever had for a Super Bowl to this day. Other than that, the coolest one was Super Bowl VIII in 1974, at Rice Stadium in Houston (it had a lot more seats than the climate-controlled Astrodome), 50 degrees at kickoff.

They never even had precipitation for a game until Super Bowl XLI, at the Dolphins' stadium (whatever it was corporately named at the time) in the Miami suburbs, in 2007. In that game, there was a light rain throughout. (Though Chicago Bears fans shouldn't blame the weather for their team's defeat: The Indianapolis Colts were simply the better team, and it was Peyton Manning's time to finally get a ring.)

But some of the NFL's greatest games have been played in cold weather. The 1950 NFL Championship Game, a thriller won by the Cleveland Browns over the Los Angeles Rams in Cleveland, was played on a frigid Christmas Eve. The Giants played 6 NFL Championship Games in 8 years from 1956 to 1963, 3 at home at Yankee Stadium, 1 in Baltimore, 1 in Green Bay, and 1 in Chicago, and all were cold, including the legendary 1958 game that gets called "The Greatest Game Ever Played."

Then there's the NFL Championship Game at Green Bay's Lambeau Field on New Year's Eve 1967, known as the Ice Bowl. It was -13 degrees at game time. That's without the wind chill factor. Still an official NFL record. With it, it was about -39. When the set was setting by the end of the game, and with the south end scoreboard casting a shadow over the end zone that Packer quarterback Bart Starr snuck in, to give the Pack the win over the Dallas Cowboys, officially, it was -48. I've seen one source that says that, with the wind chill, it was -55.

When the Giants beat the Packers in the 2007-08 NFC Championship Game at Lambeau, and it was officially -4 (-24 with the wind chill) and snowing, but it was a great game.

So it is possible to play a great football game in cold weather.

But here's what Flacco said, when asked about a Super Bowl being played outdoors in New Jersey on a February 2:

I think it's retarded. I probably shouldn't say that. I think it's stupid. If you want a Super Bowl, put a retractable dome on your stadium. Then you can get one.

Other than that I don't really like the idea. I don't think people would react very well to it, or be glad to play anybody in that kind of weather.

The average high temperature for East Rutherford, New Jersey on a February 2 is 39 degrees. The average low is 22. The average amount of precipitation -- rain or snow -- is 1/8th of an inch.

Look, I wouldn't want to attend a football game in cold weather. I have. The 1st NFL game I ever saw live was a November 3, 1996 game between the Giants and the Arizona Cardinals at Giants Stadium. I was way up on the southwest corner of the upper deck, and it was freezing up there. The Giants won, 16-8.

I was at the December 30, 2001 regular season finale at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, when the Eagles jumped out to a huge lead, but the Giants fought back to within 24-21, before the Eagles stopped a furious last drive to hang on. The Vet was an awful stadium: Whatever the temperature was on the outside, it was magnified on the inside. I'd been to Phillies games where the Vet became an oven, but this time it was an ice tray.

I've been to a few frigid games at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey. I was there when East Brunswick High School, my Dear Old Alma Mater, won its 1st State Championship in the Playoff era, in 2004, defeating powerful Jackson Memorial. It was cold.

It was worse when EB won the next one, in 2009, at The College of New Jersey in Ewing. We played Brick Memorial and it snowed throughout, making it difficult to run and almost impossible to pass. We managed to win, and our players spent much of the postgame making snow angels on the field. I was pretty well bundled up, but my toes were very unhappy.

Each of those games was played on a December 5, so neither cold nor snow was a surprise, although EBHS had been playing varsity football for almost half a century, in temperatures ranging from beastly hot to bitter cold, in driving rain and nasty wind, but never snow until that 2009 title game.

And I was at MetLife Stadium for the international soccer friendly between the U.S. and Argentina on March 26, 2011, a 1-1 draw against one of the best teams in the world. (Yes, Lionel Messi played for the Argies in that game. Yes, he dribbled brilliantly. No, he did not score, missing or getting stopped on 5 attempts.) It was freezing, and a nasty wind blasted across the Meadowlands parking lot, as it has so many times before, and around the stadium. $1.6 billion, and they couldn't fix the most glaring problem with the old stadium, the wind?

So would I attend Super Bowl XLVIII at the Meadowlands? If offered a free ticket, maybe. If offered a discounted ticket, no.

But would I watch such a game on television? You bet.

Would Joe Flacco want to play in such a game? No.

Flacco is catching flack for his comments. It's bad enough that a football player suggests that he's afraid of something -- in this case, the weather, over which he has no control. But to use the word "retarded"? That is absolutely unacceptable.

I was rooting for the Ravens to win this game. Not because of any ill will toward the 49ers: They're a great organization in a great sports metro area, and I have a lot of respect for what the Joe Montana and Steve Young era teams achieved. But I really like Baltimore as a city, and they've got Rutgers star Ray Rice. (That their icon, Ray Lewis, is retiring after the game has nothing to do with it.) So I had been inclined to lean toward the Ravens.

UPDATE: This was before the incident that got Rice blackballed from the NFL.

But after Flacco's comments, I don't know. Maybe I should still root for the Ravens to win, but hope that Flacco gets clobbered. Just once. Just to send him a message.

After all, the 49ers know about playing in cold weather. They still -- for at least 1 more season, as their new stadium is set to open in 2014 -- have to play in Candlestick Park.

Then again, San Francisco is the one city I know of that has baseball weather during football season, and football weather during baseball season.

I guess Flacco is lucky he grew up across the river from Philly, and not across the bay from San Fran. Not that the Oakland Coliseum isn't without its bad weather days. As NFL Films' Steve Sabol put it, "The Autumn Wind is a Raider."

*

By the way, I looked up a list of the coldest games in NFL history, to see if the Ice Bowl is officially the coldest game ever -- and it is.

Number 2 was the 1981-82 AFC Championship, at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. You'd expect the other Ohio city, Cleveland, to be colder, since it's right on Lake Erie, and Number 4 was the 1980-81 AFC Divisional Playoff that the Browns lost to the Oakland Raiders, the infamous "Red Right 88" game. But Cincinnati?

Well, the stadium was right on the Ohio River, which is pretty wide, and a wide river can make for nasty Winter wind -- I know, having been to Devils games in Newark on the Passaic, and to Montreal on the St. Lawrence in January. The '82 game set a record for worst wind chill, -59, but the official game-time temperature was -9. Bad enough if you're from Cincinnati. The opponents were the San Diego Chargers, who'd just come off a Humidity Bowl in Miami, that 41-38 overtime classic that gets remembered as the Kellen Winslow Game.

Number 3 was a Playoff game at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City on January 7, 1996, between the host Chiefs and the Colts. It was -6 -- at least there wasn't much wind. The Colts' quarterback that day? Jim Harbaugh, now the coach of the 49ers, and brother of current Ravens coach John Harbaugh. The Colts won.

Joe Flacco, your head coach is from Toledo, Ohio, which is on Lake Erie. He went to Miami University in nearby Oxford, Ohio. He coached at Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. And at the University of Pittsburgh. And at the University of Cincinnati. And at Indiana University. All in Big Ten Country, if not in the Big Ten Conference itself. All in the Snow Belt. (And the Rust Belt.)

He was an assistant coach for the Eagles in Philadelphia for 10 years, including that frigid 2001 season finale I attended at Veterans Stadium that decided the NFC East title, the Eagles holding off a furious Giants comeback. And now he works in Baltimore, same as you.

As George Steinbrenner taught us, A good leader doesn't ask his men to work any harder than he does. And say what you want about the Harbaugh family, but they are not afraid of cold weather, or the football played therein.

Joe Flacco, you're from New Jersey. Sure, we complain about the weather, but we deal with it. And we do not use the word "retarded" unless we're a qualified medical/psychological professional. Be resilient. Be Jersey Strong.

Joe Flacco, man up.

Year-End Awards 2012

The following is taken from the 4 major North American sports -- baseball, football, basketball and hockey -- plus boxing and the Olympic Games.

It does not count any other sports, including soccer (which is, nonetheless, an occasional topic on this blog). If you're looking for Lance Armstrong or any golfer, you're not going to find him here.

It goes from January 1 to December 31 (well, December 29, but what are the odds of anything huge happening in what's left of the 29th, or on the 30th or the 31st?), and is not limited to the seasons that began in 2012.

The envelope, please:

Best Clutch Athlete of the Year: Eli Manning, quarterback, New York Giants.  Keep in mind, that, while the Giants seem unlikely to get into the Playoffs for the season whose regular season is about to close, at the beginning of this calendar year, he led the Giants to defeat the Atlanta Falcons, an achievement which looks even better now that the Falcons have the best record in the NFL this season.

Then he hung 37 points on the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau Field in January (the Pack had never allowed more than 27 in a home postseason game before), including 17 in the 4th quarter. Then he led an overtime drive that brought the Giants victory in overtime over the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick. And then, for the 2nd time in 5 years, led a game-winning drive over a favored New England Patriots team to win the Super Bowl.

Worst Clutch Athlete of the Year: Robinson Cano, 2nd baseman, New York Yankees. In the regular season, his OPS was .929, good enough to get him 4th in the American League's Most Valuable Player voting. In the postseason, he reached base in only 4 out of 41 plate appearances -- a single, 2 doubles and a walk. That's an OPS of .244. In fact, Robbie's career postseason OPS is .686, hardly enough. In other words, Alex Rodriguez is not alone in postseason failures for the Yankees.

Best Coach (including baseball managers): Jim Harbaugh, San Francisco 49ers. Last season, he got the Niners into the NFC Championship Game. This year, he has them one win against a pathetic Arizona Cardinal squad away from another NFC West title. And he has done this in spite of a quarterback controversy. I wonder if Rex Ryan has noticed.

Worst Coach: Bobby Valentine, Boston Red Sox. Sure, he got a pig in a poke. But it's hard to imagine a manager taking a situation that bad and making it worse. He did.

In 1961, singer Robert Velline, under the name Bobby Vee, hit Number 1 with the Gerry Goffin-Carole King "Take Good Care of My Baby." In 2012, Bobby V proved he couldn't take good care of crybabies.

Best Coaching Decision: Tom Coughlin, New York Giants. His decision: Sticking to the plan that beat the Patriots 5 years earlier.

Worst Coaching Decision: Davey Johnson, Washington Nationals. His decision: Letting the Nats' management's decision to put Stephen Strasburg on the shelf stick. Washington hadn't had a team in MLB's postseason in 79 years -- since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was new, since Kong was King, since well before the foundation of the NBA and before most American sports fans cared about the NFL and the NHL.

The Nats lost the National League Division Series to the St. Louis Cardinals, 3 games to 2. In the 3 games the Nats lost, they allowed 12, 8 and 9 runs. Davey and the Nats' brass could have limited Strasburg to relief duty. I wonder what they would, now, give to have Strasburg pitch just one inning. Specifically, the top of the 9th of Game 5, in which Drew Storen allowed a double, 2 walks and 2 singles, to turn the game from 7-5 Nats to 9-7 Cards.

The Nats were 1 out away from winning the series. But they chose not to risk Strasburg, not even for one inning, and thus did they throw away what would have been the 1st postseason series won by a Washington team since 1924. Since Calvin Coolidge was elected President!

Best Executive (not owner): John Elway, executive vice president of football operations, Denver Broncos. He brought in Peyton Manning, and made the Broncos AFC West Champions, and dumped off Tim Tebow on the hapless Gang Green.  he Broncos now look as good as they have since Elway himself was last taking snaps for the Broncos.

Worst Executive: Mike Tannenbaum, general manager, New York Jets. Now, I don't know if Mark Sanchez would have had a better season if Tim Tebow wasn't hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles. But Tebow should never have been brought to the Jets, and that decision destabilized the team terribly.

Best Transaction (includes trades, waiver pickups, free agent signings and "addition by subtraction"): The Detroit Tigers trading 2 guys you don't need to know about and a draft pick to the Miami Marlins for Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante. That trade made the Tigers American League Pennant winners.

Worst Transaction: A collective award to the Miami Marlins, owner Jeffrey Loria and his stepson/lackey David Samson. They had a new ballpark, a big new acquisition in Jose Reyes, and with the New York Mets in disarray and the Philadelphia Phillies going through an injury crisis, there was a fantastic chance for the Marlins to finish first in the National League Eastern Division for the 1st time. (They have won 2 World Series, but got in as a Wild Card team both times.)

Instead, the Marlins took all the money and ran their best players out of town -- including, last month, to the Toronto Blue Jays, Reyes. Loria & Samson are not the sole reason, or even the biggest reason, that the Montreal Expos no longer exist, but they have now broken up the Marlins twice. At least, the first time, they waited until they'd won the World Series.

Best Rookie: Robert Griffin III, quarterback, Washington Redskins. No rookie quarterback has led a team to an NFL Championship, ever, with one exception 75 years ago: Slingin' Sammy Baugh of the 1937... Washington Redskins. Griffin is playing like a seasoned veteran, with poise and sense. Maybe he won't lead the 'Skins to this season's title, but if he doesn't finish his career with a ring, I will be shocked. (UPDATE: He didn't, and I'm shocked.)

Worst Rookie: Austin Rivers, guard, New Orleans Hornets. He forewent his last 3 years of eligibility at Duke University to enter the NBA Draft, thus forfeiting at least part of a pretty good education he could have gotten from Mike Krzyzewski, and also forfeiting as many as 3 decent shots at the Final Four and the National Championship. Just because a man has the right to do something doesn't mean he should do it.

Drafted by the New Orleans Hornets, he's shooting 35 percent. Per game, he's got 7.8 points, 2.6 assists and 2.5 rebounds (that's offensive and defensive combined). I don't want to pile on a kid who's only 20, and who could still turn out okay -- he's certainly got the genes for it, being the son of Doc Rivers, the Boston Celtics coach and previously a pretty good player -- but I've seen 2 websites that have called him the worst rookie in NBA history. NBA history goes back 66 years, nearly 2/3rds of a century.

Best Comeback: Peyton Manning, quarterback, Denver Broncos. From not playing at all in 2011 to playing in 2012 as if he'd never missed a game from a Hall of Fame career. I was thinking that, due to his injury being to his neck, it would be better for him to retire rather than risk worsening the injury. Looks like I was wrong -- and I hope I stay wrong.

Worst Comeback: Bobby Valentine. His comeback made that of Davey Johnson, the only other man to manage the Mets to a Pennant in the last 39 years, look like genius.

Biggest Collapse: Texas Rangers. As bad as the Yankees going from 10 games up to tied was, they still won the Division; as bad as their postseason debacle was, it was still in the postseason. After back-to-back Pennants, the Rangers led the AL Western Division by 5 games with 9 to play. And they had a "Borg losing streak": They lost 7 of 9, including losing the last 3 to the team that was chasing them, the Oakland Athletics, failed to win the Division, and then lost the Wild-Card play-in game to the Baltimore Orioles.

Turncoat of the Year: Barry Zito, pitcher, San Francisco Giants. He pitched very well for the Oakland Athletics, but they didn't win a Pennant while he was there.  He went to the cross-bay Giants for big money. He was awful, and although he got a ring when they won the 2010 World Series, he was really just along for the ride.

That was not the case in 2012: The Giants would have won the NL Western Division without him, but not the World Series.

Dishonorable Mention: Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, who seem to have betrayed their father George's commitment to winning, because the cost is always worth it and comes back. (Since I've excluded soccer, I can't give this to Robin van Persie.)

Most Original Thinker: Josh Gorges, defenseman, Montreal Canadiens. You may not have heard of him, but you should. An alternate captain for Les Habitantes, he went on Twitter to ask hockey fans to join him at an ice rink in the Montreal suburb of Verdun this past Wednesday afternoon -- being a part of the British Commonwealth, Canada celebrates the day after Christmas as a holiday, Boxing Day.

Dozens of people came out, and that greatest of all hockey cities, starved for their sport, got a taste of what they were looking for. For them, Josh Gorges was Santa Claus. Or, since it was a Commonwealth country, I should say "Father Christmas." Or, since it's a majority-Francophone city, "Père Noël."

Most Stagnant Thinker: Gary Bettman, Commissioner, National Hockey League. You would think that the only Commissioner ever to cancel an entire season, thus bringing universal scorn upon him, would have learned to never, ever do that again. Alas...

Best Sports Theater: Daniel Craig, in character as James Bond, and Queen Elizabeth II making their way from Buckingham Palace to the London Olympic Stadium during the Opening Ceremonies.

No, that wasn't actually one of the world's most famous actors and an 86-year-old head of state paratrooping out of a helicopter... but Craig just might be the toughest 007 ever. And the Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, was in the British Army in World War II, serving in a motor pool. I'll bet she's still handy with a toolbox.  She could, quite literally, fix your wagon and clean your clock.

I have to hand it to her: At an age that "Ol' Perfesser" Casey Stengel didn't live to be, and at which "The Grand Old Man of Baseball" Connie Mack was hopelessly senile, and at which Queen Victoria (whose record of 64 years on the English throne she could surpass in 4 years) was dead for 5 years, Elizabeth not only still does her job, she seems to still love her job.

Worst Sports Theater: The New York Yankees' postseason. It is still difficult to believe that the Yanks actually won a postseason series. The Yankees, as a team, were their usual Bronx Bomber selves in the regular season, with an OPS of .790. That dropped to .611 in the AL Division Series and .488 in the AL Championship Series.

If the old song is wrong, and in Heaven there is beer, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle have got to be downing some brews and discussing what the hell happened.

Most Bang for the Buck: The Oakland Athletics. At $55,372,500 dollars, they were only $128,000 ahead of the San Diego Padres for lowest payroll in MLB. This was after a salary dump. Lots of people, myself included, thought they were headed for a historically bad season, which I would define as the kind of season an expansion team might have, 107 or more losses, without actually being an expansion team. This, I thought, might be the nail in the coffin for the A's staying in the Bay Area long-term.

Instead, the A's won 94 games and the AL West, and pushed the Tigers to the 5-game limit in their AL Division Series. Had they won that series, I have no doubt that they, too, would have beaten the Yankees in the ALCS. Alas, they still haven't won a Pennant since 1990, meaning general manager Billy Beane is still looking for his first flag. "Moneyball" worked again, but it still hasn't done what every baseball team should be trying to do: Get into the World Series, and maybe win it.

Least Bang for the Buck: The Philadelphia Eagles. True, the Red Sox got 93 losses for their $173 million. But after what happened the preceding fall, they were expected to be dysfunctional. The Eagles? Hell, they're always dysfunctional, but I don't think anyone expected the kind of talent they supposedly had to put up a 4-12 season. (They're 4-11 going into the final game, away to the Giants, and I'm guessing that, even though the Giants need a lot of help in addition to winning this game to make the Playoffs, it will be ugly for the Broad Street Birds.)

Best Sports Writing: Bill Madden, for his New York Daily News column last week showing why the Yankees should still be the favorites for the AL East title in 2013. He's right: The Red Sox are still a mess, the Orioles have already downgraded, the Blue Jays are unlikely to go from 89 losses to 89 or more wins even with their new acquisitions, and the Tampa Bay Rays are still letting key players go to cut costs.

Meanwhile, the Yankees still have the Division's best attack, its best defense, its best starting rotation, and, if Mariano Rivera is anything like he was at the start of the 2012 season before he got hurt, its best bullpen.

Worst Sports Writing: Joe Posnanski, currently of Sports On Earth. He's probably still distraught that his hagiography of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had its ending rewritten without his consent. He still managed to write a book that made Ratface look like a hero. Which he most certainly was not.

Most Overreported Story: The fuss over the Jets' quarterback situation. I know, it's the biggest position in the biggest sport, and in the biggest city/metro area, but, come the heck on. If the Jets were imploding, going from a Playoff contender to a team on the verge of not making it, it would be different. But this is way too much hype for a 6-9 team.

Most Underreported Story: The San Francisco Giants. They're not even the most-reported team named Giants that won a World Championship in the calendar year. With all the talk about the 49ers' quarterback situation, and the Golden State Warriors getting a deal for a new arena a short walk from the Giants' AT&T Park, the Giants were, for most of the year, not even the most-talked-about team in the Bay Area. Or even, with the situation with the A's, their payroll slash, their bad ballpark situation, their possible need to move, and their amazing comeback, the most-talked-about baseball team in the Bay Area.

And what about all the talk about basketball legend Magic Johnson buying the Los Angeles Dodgers, and all the money he's spent on them, and all the talking he's done about them? That may pay off next year, or the year after, but this year, the Dodgers were the most-talked-about team in the NL West, maybe the whole NL, in the regular season. And you know what? The Dodgers didn't make the Playoffs. The Giants did, and won the whole thing. For the 2nd time in 3 years.

That's not a dynasty, but it's something the Yankees last achieved in 2000, and it's something not achieved by any other team, including the Red Sox in their recently-ended period of glory, since the Blue Jays won back-to-back titles in 1992-93. And not in the NL since the back-to-back titles of the Cincinnati Reds in 1975-76.

The Giants deserve our praise. At the least, to borrow the words of their greatest-ever player, Willie Mays, they deserve a "Say Hey!"

Bummest Rap: That Alex Rodriguez is the reason the Yankees have (except for 2009) failed in the postseason since 2004. True, he's blown it in many at-bats, but he's had lots of help, from guys whose regular seasons suggested that they should have done far better. And in the games that he didn't play in this October, nobody else picked up much slack.

Fairest Rap: That Davey Johnson and Dusty Baker are great regular-season managers but lousy postseason managers. Between them, in 35 seasons as managers, they have reached the Playoffs 12 times, but won only 2 Pennants. Their won-lost records in postseason games? Davey, 25-26; Dusty, 19-26. (In both cases, that doesn't count the canceled 1994 Playoffs that both were on course to reach, Davey with the Reds and Dusty with the Giants; but it does count the Giants' loss to the Chicago Cubs in the 1998 play-in game required when those teams tied for the NL Wild Card.)

If the Mets hadn't pulled out that 1986 NLCS Game 6 in Houston, or if John McNamara hadn't screwed the pooch in the bottom of the 10th in Game 6 of the World Series, they'd be 35 combined seasons as managers with no rings. As I've said before, the 1986 Mets won it all in spite of Davey, not because of him, and the Nats aren't going to win it all with him. Dusty? The Reds are a good team, but they're not going to win it with him.

Most Shocking Moment, On-Field: Juan Manuel Marquez, and his knockout of Manny Pacquiao. It's been said that all great boxing champions must one day hit the canvas, and the Pacman is 34, hardly young in boxing. But I don't think anybody, even Marquez, expected the demolition that Marquez laid on him.

Most Shocking Moment: Off-Field: Jovan Belcher, linebacker, Kansas City Chiefs, killing his girlfriend, the mother of his baby daughter; then driving to the Chiefs' practice facility adjoining Arrowhead Stadium, thanking head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli for what they'd done for them, and then killing himself in front of them. As the Chiefs and their fans have found out, there are worse things than finishing a season 2-14.

My Favorite Moment: Adam Henrique's overtime goal to beat the New York Rangers and send the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup Finals for the 5th time -- all in the 18 years since the Rangers last got that far. That the Devils were so weak in the Finals against the Los Angeles Kings (and somehow still stretched it to a Game 6) does nothing to diminish the fact that we beat The Scum!

My Least Favorite Moment: The only reference to college sports in these awards, aside from the Posnanski book about Paterno. It's the Rutgers football team's huge choke against the University of Louisville, at home, with sole possession of the Big East Conference title in their grasp.

And, just last night, they blew a 10-point 4th quarter lead against former Big East opponent Virginia Tech in the Whatever The Hell Sponsor's Name Is On This Game Bowl in Orlando. Oy vey.

Most Defining Moment in Sports in 2012: The Mets letting R.A. Dickey go. All he did was give them their 1st 20-win season for a pitcher in 22 years, their 1st Cy Young Award in 27 years, and belief from their fans every 5th game all season long.

And when he wanted a contract that would, essentially, be the last of his career and have properly rewarded his services, what did they do? They collaborated with the media to publicly question his character, and they traded him to a team in Canada. (Toronto may be the 2nd-largest city in North America -- the 3rd-largest if you count Mexico City -- but in baseball publicity terms, they might as well have been sending him down to Triple-A.) It's like they were saying, "Thanks for everything you did, sucker, now here's your hat, what's your hurry?"

Sports Personality of the Year: LeBron James, forward, Miami Heat. He got the ring, he got the Gold Medal, he got the historical validation, he got the monkey off his back, and he got the publicity that comes with all of it. Like him or not, he was the year's biggest story.

Sports Person of the Year: Bruce Bochy, manager, San Francisco Giants. As I said a few days ago, he has been both a World Series-winning manager and a charitable person, figuratively and literally, and hardly anybody notices.