Skip to the content

The Story of the Year

ESPN The Magazine gets a handle on 2008 in one blowout story.

by Chris Jones

Getty Images
There's simply not ONE story of the year, right?

As The Magazine says goodbye to 2008, we entrusted Chris Jones to chronicle the best storylines of the entire year in a one massive yarn. The resulting prose spanned over 14 pages in The Mag, but it's been broken up into 11 chapters for your web-viewing pleasure. We've even added a bonus, behind-the-story feature, exclusive to espnthemag.com, in which the author sets a few scenes from his travels, using his old receipts as a guide. So go ahead and read on. You'll laugh, you'll cry, but most of all, you'll remember.



Story of the Year, Part 1: Yankee Stadium
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 1, on the closing of Yankee Stadium. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. Before the last game at Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter sat in his sock feet. Teammates had filled the space in front of his locker with baseballs, jerseys, photographs and lineup cards, and he was making treasures out of ordinary objects by writing his name on them. That night, even the heroes in the room had given themselves permission to believe in the things they used to believe in, to be kids again.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 2: Michael Phelps
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 2, on Michael Phelps. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. Two thousand eight was a memorable year in sports, maybe the greatest ever. Giants-Patriots. Kansas-Memphis. Celtics-Lakers. Tiger-Rocco. Federer-Nadal. But because so much transpired, it can sometimes seem as if none of it did. Watching sports this year was looking at art in the Louvre: When you're overwhelmed, even the Mona Lisa begins to pale.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 3: Lance Armstrong and David Tyree
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 3, on Lance Armstrong and David Tyree. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. Lance Armstrong stood on a stage in a hotel ballroom in Manhattan and clapped Bill Clinton on the back like an old friend. In front of them were more than 50 heads of state, countless diplomats in crisp white shirts, Bono and Al Gore. But at that moment, the attention was on only these two different-seeming men and their efforts to change the world.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 4: Annika Sorenstam
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 4, on Annika Sorenstam. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. Most people, at some point in their life, wonder what it would be like to start over. Not long ago, I was driving through the desert into West Texas. In El Paso, I looked across the muddy river to Mexico. The bridge to the other side wasn't long, and the Mexicans hadn't bothered to occupy the tiny guard post. I walked across, and I was in a new country, gazing at a new horizon. I could have kept going, and nobody would have been able to find me. If Yankee Stadium could vanish, why couldn't I? I tried to imagine the strange brand of courage it would take to disappear.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 5: Josh Hamilton
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 5, on Josh Hamilton. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. For Josh Hamilton, forgetting has never been an option. His tattooed arms tell his tale better than any archive could, gallons of ink drilled into his skin and laid bare for the world to see. With October's first chill cooling the Chapel Hill air outside, he sat in the storage room of a local bookstore, where he was doing a book signing, wearing only a T-shirt. He knew there was no point in trying to hide his backstory. He also knew 2008 will be remembered as the year his tattoos started to fade, the year people saw something other than that long period when he was lost. On July 14, Josh Hamilton was found.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 6: Venus and Serena Williams
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 6, on Venus and Serena Williams. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. Of all the great stories of this year, the resurgence of Venus and Serena Williams was the most overlooked. After their domination at the All England Club—the first time they had met in a Grand Slam final since 2003 and the fifth time Venus had won Wimbledon—they snagged doubles gold together in Beijing. Serena then went to New York and won the U.S. Open without losing a set. (Her toughest opponent was Venus in the quarters.) After being ranked as low as 140 two years ago, Serena was once again the best women's player on the planet. In almost any other year, the Williams sisters might have basked in a long glow. Instead, even for them, 2008 was a flash that was doused too soon.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 7: Boston Celtics
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 7, on the Boston Celtics. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. And now, so do the Celtics. Chances are, if you've run into Kevin Garnett—if you've even caught a glimpse of Kevin Garnett from across an airport terminal or in a steak house—you remember him. You've probably had to remind yourself that you're both the same species.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 8: Rocco Mediate and Tiger Woods
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 8, on Rocco Mediate and Tiger Woods. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. In the middle of working on this story, I learned I'd passed an online test that put me in the final round of auditions for Jeopardy! Along with 30 other potential contestants, I was summoned to a Toronto hotel for a written test and a make-believe game. Going into it, I liked my chances. But in the room, I was surrounded by people who knew more than I did, whose brains worked faster, who believed in their heart that they could play the game and win. Jeopardy! was their Super Bowl, and most of them were Mannings.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 9: Sidney Crosby
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 9, on Sidney Crosby. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. Mediate wasn't the only unlikely highlight in a year that favored overdogs. Foundations of hope were laid in places that hadn't had much reason to cheer. Even cities like Pittsburgh saw their way out. Until 2008, Sidney Crosby had always been the future. But after he, Evgeni Malkin and the rest of the youthful Penguins—with the notable exception of 118-year-old Gary Roberts—reached the Stanley Cup Finals to face the Detroit Red Wings, Crosby became, even in defeat, something like the present. He found himself in a space he had never before occupied, one that sheltered him from questions about what would happen next. For seven blessed weeks, he didn't have to think beyond now. "When you're on a run like that, you don't have time to think about what you're doing," Crosby said. "You're in a bubble."
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 10: Thurman Munson's old locker in Yankee Stadium
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 10, on Thurman Munson's old locker in Yankee Stadium. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. That final night in the Bronx, all I could think about was Thurman Munson's locker. It had sat empty in the clubhouse since his plane crashed in his hometown of Canton, Ohio, nearly 30 years ago. I was 5 when he died, and I can remember his death. I hadn't had a chance to meet Munson—to this day, I can only imagine what he would have looked like in the flesh, baboon-assed and glowering—but I felt as though I knew him, and I had believed he was immortal. When you're 5, life is one long beginning; endings are reserved for adults.
Read More


Story of the Year, Part 11: The 2008 World Series
"The Things We Forget" is a chronicle of 2008 in sports. It is presented in 11 parts. This is Part 11, on the 2008 World Series. At the bottom of this piece, you can navigate to the other 10 parts. The road ended in Philadelphia. Specifically, it ended in the bottom of the sixth inning in a cold, heavy rain. Until the umpires waved their arms and the groundskeepers pulled a white tarp over the soggy infield, the Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays had been engaged in the least memorable World Series in recent history. Before the playoffs began, there were so many possible story lines. The Chicago Cubs could have played the Chicago White Sox; the Boston Red Sox could have played Manny Ramírez. Instead it was, Who is playing what?
Read More



 

 


ESPN.com: Help | PR Media Kit | Advertise On ESPN.com | Sales Media Kit | Corrections | Contact Us | Site Map | Mobile | ESPN Shop | Jobs at ESPN | Supplier Information
©2009 ESPN Internet Ventures. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and Safety Information/Your California Privacy Rights are applicable to you. All rights reserved.