I don't have a top 10, but I will add the first one to the group.
1- Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes.
This was my first thought. Most people are unaware of just how amazing a feat Big Red accomplished in that race.
For raw athletic power, Secretariat stands alone..
Elway, third and six. ( This one’s for John)
O J in the bronco.
Curt Flood walking out of court a winner.
Changed professional sports forever. (Not saying it was for the best, but forever.)
On Saturday Feb. 6, 1971 one Alan Sheppard hit two golf balls a feat that to my knowledge has never repeated.
He used a six iron.
As there was no danger of him hitting any foursome down range, he saw no need to exclaim “Fore”!.
:^}
Cal - Stanford - The play to beat the band.
Don Larson 1956 World Series perfect game
Hank Aaron #715
“The Catch” Willie Mays in Baseball, Dwight Clark in football, both in San Francisco.
1980 Miracle USA Olympic hockey team vs. Russians.
First 300 Homerun hitter/300 Base Stealer in history. Also first 400/400, first 500/500, and he beat Hank Aaron’s homerun record: Barry Bonds.
Immaculate Reception.
Roger Bannister first 4 minute mile.
Nadia Komenici getting the first of several perfect 10 scores in olympic gymnastics.
Okay, Secretariat.
Jackie Robinson being the first black professional athlete on a major league team.
Is aviation a sport? Lindbergh’s first solo flight across the Atlantic. Wright brothers first demo flight in 1908 — they originally got into gliding because “surely it is the king of sports”. First nonstop flight around the world by Dick Rutan. Montgolfier brothers first to rise in the air in hot air balloon. Recently, the first supersonic parachute jump.
Cal-Stanford game where the band comes out onto the field because they were so sure they won & one of them got smashed at the final part of the touchdown.
Crossover athletes are interesting, like Babe Didrickson, Bo Jackson, maybe even Arnold Schwarzenegger — first Mr. America (won more than once) to become a movie star then a guvernator.
So, so many classics ... but I can’t believe it’s been 124 posts (this one included) without anyone yet mentioning Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary.
http://espn.go.com/espn/espn25/story?page=moments/51
Kerri Strug fights off pain, helps U.S. win gold
ESPN rates it as #51, but it is higher in my mind.
April 15, 1947, Ebbets Field.
The beginning of the end of a great wrong, and like the 1936 Olympics, a moment when a sporting event quite literately transcended sports to signal a change in the way this country looked at itself.
In no particular order:
Carlton Fisk’s Game 6 HR waved fair
Immaculate reception
Miracle on ice
Thompson’s HR (The Giants win the pennant)
Mazeroski’s HR to win series
UNLV destroys Duke in NCAA final
Jack Morris’s 10-inning Game 7 win
Joey Kocur’s breakaway goal in Cup finals less than 6 months after being stuck playing for beers
Carl Hubbell strikes out 5 Hall of Famers in a row in the All Star game
and...you’re dead right...Secretariat!
Dallas finally beating the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX.
I love big Red....actually own a chestnut 17.2 hand thoroughbred myself....tattoo lip and all
But number one for me as a boomer....
1980 USA HOCKEY GOLD
after that......
Kenny Roberts mastery of motorcycle flat track, superbike, USA grand Prix and Euro and world grand Prix late 70s and early 80s and a few years ago when King Kenny timed a best qualifier on a Yamaha TZ 750 TWO STROKE at aged 60 at the dirt Indy Mile.....most here have no idea what I’m talking about
Next
DiMaggio streak
Next
Wilt Chamberlains 100 point game
Next
Alabama over Miami in Sugar Bowl 1993....class over thugs
Next
Aryton Senna and Dale Earnhart killed respectively in F1 and NASCAR
Showed even guys who seemed invincible could die...sadly....just how dangerous
Just a few off the top of my head
Ted Turners repeated World Cup wins
Another big but obscure one.....huge really
Reinhold Messner’s nightime solo sans oxygen Everest summit...
self ping for later