Quick Thoughts

If someone were to ask me to list my favorite hobbies in the world, it would look something like:

1.) Fantasy Baseball
2.) watching LOST
3.) NCAA Football for PS3

As for the fourth thing on my list, I would go with re-watching the Ken Burns Baseball documentaries, which profiles everything one should know about the history of baseball from its beginning to Kirk Gibson's walk-off in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. Since my parents got me the 18 hour, 9 DVD set for Christmas in 2006, I have perhaps watched the series over 25 times. Since I was first introduced to the series by my US History teacher in 11th grade, I have only met one other person that owns the set besides myself: my good buddy Jim Blissenbach. Jim also informed me that Ken Burns was coming out with a new series next fall that would discuss the 1990s and the 2000s, which propelled us into discussing what we hope will be included in the upcoming series. The criteria we set forth for the discussion was that if only 10 subjects could be included, what are the most important 10 events/players/games that happened in each of the two decades. Here is what I would include if I was in Ken Burns' spot:

1990s:
1.) 1991 World Series
2.) Joe Carter's Walk-off
3.) 1994 players' strike
4.) Ripken's streak
5.) Atlanta Brave dynasty
6.) Profile of the decade's best hitters (Griffey, Arod, Bagwell Frank Thomas)
7.) 1997 Florida Marlins
8.) 1998 Home run race between McGwire and Sosa
9.) Profile of decade's best pitchers (Johnson, Martinez, Clemens, and Maddux)
10.) Yankee dynasty 1996-2000

2000s:
1.) 9-11
2.) 2001 Mariners
3.) 2001 World Series
4.) Barry Bonds 2001-04
5.) Roger Clemens record 7 Cy Youngs
6.) 2004 Red Sox
7.) Mitchell Report
8.) Albert Pujols
9.) the success of small market teams
10.) the statistics revolution

I think these 20 topics are the most important of the past two decades and would give people the best snap-shot of the past 20 years.