I’m calling this list The Good Stuff because that’s what I thought when I saw these things happen: That’s the good stuff. That’s what sports are all about. They might be moments, or teams, or individuals, but they made me happy. Here goes. I know I missed lots of things. Some readers are going to be mad at me. Maybe you! It’s all fair.
The 2022 Minnesota Vikings. A good end-of-year-list needs inexcusable recency bias; if something happened in January or February, it’s like it never happened at all. (I don’t have anything on here from the Beijing Winter Olympics, which feel like they happened 18 years ago.)
do feel these Vikings are hilarious good stuff. Nearly every game they play is some kind of bizarro world catastrophe redeemed by a miracle finish. They won a game after the Buffalo Bills fumbled in the end zone. They won a game after falling behind 33-0 at the half. They won this past weekend on a franchise-record 61 yard field goal. They may be the best 12-3 team in NFL history—and the worst. Viking fans are going to watch the playoffs hiding under the couch, which is pretty much their standard practice. These Vikes are joy and heartbreak in one purple potion. I love them very much.
That Argentina goal. The Second One. Honestly, we could jam this entire column with material from the World Cup final between Argentina and France. You could do the Apex Arc of Lionel Messi, perhaps the greatest to ever do it, now complete with the trophy that eluded him. You could do Kylian Mbappé, brilliant in defeat—nearly pulling France all the way back with three late goals. But I’ll go with the team energy of that first-half goal from Argentina’s Angel Di Maria which Messi started with a pass to Julian Alvarez while his back is turned. Everything that’s great—and harrowing—about soccer, in one beautiful burst.
The Roger Federer and Serena Williams Farewells. Tennis has lost an epic pair of champions to retirement, and I don’t think the sport has yet processed how significant it is. First Williams went out with an emotional run at the U.S. Open which threatened to be brief and melancholy but turned into something much more upbeat, as she pulled out a pair of emotional victories before succumbing in a third-round three-setter. Also: She hasn’t definitively said she’s retiring! So who knows.
Federer’s goodbye was definitive: Knee trouble made a major tournament impossible, so he went out with a This is Your Life farewell at the Laver Cup in London. Fed was crying, the fans were crying, Rafael Nadal was crying, the rest of the Big Four (Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray) were on hand for the weepy finish. Federer was the aesthetic pinnacle of modern tennis; the sport will still have champions, but it will not be as graceful or stylish. Every time I watch an ugly two-handed backhand shoveled into the tape, I will miss Roger.
College softball and college volleyball. This column spends a lot of time prattling on about what sports have become unwatchable—a lot of NFL games, most baseball. You know what’s extremely watchable: college softball and volleyball, and no, I’m not just including the latter because Wisconsin is good at it. (Texas won this year’s title, however.) As the Journal’s Rachel Bachman has chronicled, these games are energetic, crisp counterprogramming, and champions like Oklahoma (softball winners in 2022) are creating near-celebrities with sensations like slugger Jocelyn Alo. I don’t guarantee much, but watch some softball and volleyball. You’ll love it.
The Empathetic Little Leaguer. Leave it to a Little Leaguer to show the adults how to behave. In August a video went viral from a regional playoff game in which pitcher (Kaiden Shelton) struck a hitter (Zay Jarvis) in the helmet, and soon broke down in tears watching his opponent on the ground. A recovering Jarvis moved into first base, but then walked over to Shelton and embraced him, reassuring him he was OK. If I put that scene in a movie-of-the-week screenplay, you would probably say it was a bit too hokey. But in real life, it looks humane, the good stuff, and exactly what sports needs more of.
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