2009's Most Memorable Sports Moments

The last year of the first decade of the new millennia has not disappointed in the sports arena. With new milestones being set in football, track and field and pro football, 2009 has not disappointed. As of this writing the NFL alone, has already seen two teams, the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts at a perfect 13-0 and both teams were strong favorites to finish the regular season with perfect 16-0 records, unprecedented in professional football. While we may not have the chance to watch two perfect teams playing in the Super Bowl surpassing one of the most exciting endings to a Super Bowl ever in February.

Records have been smashed in track and field, while NASCAR and professional tennis have winner's marks that may never been equaled much less surpassed. In college football, a team wins college football's most prestigious award, surprisingly, for the first time ever.

We've also seen scandals that have tarnished the possibly greatest golfer ever and the most American of sports has gone global with a non-American hemisphere player vaulting his team to a World Series win.

Yes, 2009 has been a very memorable year in sports.

10. A tie between Chicago White Sox's pitcher Mark Buerhle pitching only the 19^th perfect game in MLB history and New Orleans Saints' quarterback, Drew Brees, almost breaking the NFL single season passing record with 5,069 yards becoming only the second player in NFL history to break 5,000 passing yards.

9. Alabama's Mark Ingram's tearful Heisman acceptance speech. In the closest Heisman vote ever, the running back for the top ranked Crimson Tide, surprised many with the depth of emotion he displayed in accepting the award. With his father, a former NFL player in jail, Ingram rushed for a school-record 1,542 yards and was key in Alabama's win over the Florida Gators in the SEC Championship propelling them into BCS championship game against Texas. Surprisingly, he became Alabama's first Heisman winner.

8. Almost Two Perfect NFL Teams. Last week, the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts were both a perfect 13-0 with most experts predicting that both could finish the regular NFL season with perfect 16-0 records and possibly set up the first Super Bowl of undefeated teams. But, the Saints fell Saturday to the Dallas Cowboys, leaving only the Colts undefeated at 14-0. Still, never in the NFL had there ever been two teams with 13-0 records in a season and only twice before, with the 1972 Miami Dolphins and the 2007 New England Patriots, have teams finished the regular season without a loss.

7. Roger Federer wins record breaking 15 Grand Slams. In a Wimbledon final befitting the momentous achievement, Switzerland's Roger Federer barely beat American Andy Roddick, 16-14, in the marathon fifth set eclipsing Pete Sampras' record. That Sampras attended the match to witness his record being broken was a testament to the historic achievement and class of both players, two of the greatest to ever play the game.

6. Yankee's Hideki Matsui becomes the first Japanese-born baseball player to win World Series, Most Valuable Player. Driving in six run with a home run, double and a single in the clinching game against the Philadelphia Phillies and hitting .615 with three home runs and eight RBIs, Matsui was truly dominant. While baseball is a major sport in Japan and Major League Baseball has fielded several notable Japanese player and many, many more great non-Americans, it truly became an international sport with Matsui's performance and award.

5. Jimmy Johnson wins his 4th straight NASCAR Title. Not, Richard Petty, the late, Dale Earnhardt or any other greats have ever won four year end titles in a row. But, Jimmy Johnson, only 34, did with surprising ease with consistent driving the entire season. In the season ending 10-race Chase series Johnson finished out of the top 10 in only one race. As part of a racing team that also took second and third place, Johnson is poised to set a record that may never be broken.

4. Tiger Woods car crash and fall from grace. Never has a fender bender so sent a sport in disarray. Tiger Woods, arguably the greatest golfer ever and certainly the life's blood of professional golf for the past 10 years, set the golf world on its ear with the late night car crash and subsequent revelations of his numerous marital infidelities. Withdrawing from 2010's golf competition indefinitely, costing professional golf countless millions in viewers and dollars, it has been rare that a sports icon has fallen so hard, so fast.

3. Usain Bolt smashing the 200 meter and 100 meter sprint records in one year. The world's fastest man has done it again and, again, in the same devastating way he did it at the 2008 Summer Olympics. The 23-year old Jamaican crushed his competition as the ran a 19.19 200 meter and a 9.58 100 meter sprint smashing his own previous world records set at those Olympics by eleven hundredths of a second in both. Watching the videos again is just jaw-dropping as Bolt quickly pulls away from his world class competition early each time, leaving little doubt that he may be the fastest human of all time.

2. Santonio Holmes' last minute catch winning Super Bowl 43. In what many consider as one of the greatest if not the greatest Super Bowl. Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver, Santonio Holmes, caught the winning touchdown from Ben Roethlisberger with 35 seconds left in the game for a 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals. Well covered by two Cardinal defenders, Holmes barely got both feet down in the back of the end zone for the Steelers record breaking sixth Super Bowl win.

1. Vijay Singh's hole in one at the 16^th hole at the Masters. On the par three hole, Singh skipped his tee shot of the pond in front of the green then rolled it in for the ace. Any hole in one is amazing. Even for a professional in tournament play, it's a rare thing. But, doing it at the most prestigious golf tournament and bouncing the ball off of water is something we are not likely to see again.

A great start to the millennium.