January 2, 2023 News and Notes: Plays of the Year Edition

• NBA Play of the Year 2022:  Home run pass to Ja Morant, who, in mid-air, popped up the game-winner with four-tenths of a second to do so.  (The absolute minimum not to be a tip situation)
• MLB Play of the Year 2022:  Pujols' 700th home run.  (Judge's 61st and 62nd of the season were a package #2, Cabrera's 3000th hit #3.)
• NHL Goal of the Year 2022:  Though they weren't numbered, I would assume Ovechkin's 802nd to pass Gordie Howe was declared #1, as it was aired last in the NHL's video as well.
• The NFL, given the season only overlaps by two weeks of games, does it by season.
• MaxPreps High School Football Play of the Year 2022:  North Cobb Christian (GA) with the multi-lateral to beat Wesleyan -- the play took 28 seconds and five laterals.  (Yes, the fourth one was lateral or backward -- watch the ball, not the man.)  And, as usually happens, the cross-field lateral was the one which broke it.  (#2 was a blocked field goal in my old stomping grounds of western Wisconsin for Chippewa Falls High School to defeat River Falls, when another Chippewa Falls player picked up the blocked FG as RFHS was trying to recover it to win and ran it in for the winning score with no time left.)

ESPN NOT Top 10 Plays of the Year:

• 10) Fan DRENCHES wife with beer to go after foul ball/kid drops hot dog while trying to eat it.  (That's unfair to the damn kid!  He's a KID, and that's a big hot dog wiener!  ESPN should send a case of hot dogs to that family, because that shouldn't have been included.)
• 9) The problem with the NBA's pace of play is that sometimes you have to clean/sweep/wipe the court while the play is going on at the other end of the court.  And something like this happens, a snap steal and the cleaners are in the way, causing a complete breakdown of play.
• 8) Angels baserunner is out when he is off first and doesn't realize the catcher is behind him.  Not the Hidden Ball Trick, the Hidden Catcher Trick!
• 7) Josh Donaldson in No Mans' Land as a baseball, TOOTBLAN.  (Thrown Out On The Basepaths Like A Nincompoop.)
• 6) Nellie Korda hitting a wide one at the Evian Championship in the LPGA. That's not the inclusion, though.  Lady in the gallery sees the ball and sees a souvenir!!  The steward has to forcefully send the moron back to where she picked up the ball.
• 5) The Colorado Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup!  Now, if the last dork, Nicholas Aube-Kubel, coming in with it doesn't dent the crap out of the thing for the first team picture with it -- as he falls and the Cup hits the ice HARD in front of the team!!!  Aube-Kubel was not resigned by the Avalanche, lasted six games with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and is now with the Washington Capitals.
• 4) This occasionally happens in soccer.  Championship (2nd tier), and the Reading goaltender is putting the ball back into play after saving it -- but doesn't notice the opposition player behind him waiting to do so!  Steals it.  Easy goal.
• 3) One of the worst fielding plays in history.  At Fenway Park, Jerran Duran, in center field, can't find the ball on a routine fly ball to the warning track -- with Duran about 75-100 feet IN FRONT OF said warning track!  Inside-the-park grand-slam home run and a 6-0 lead for Toronto becomes 10-0!  
• 2) The Mike Evans complete botch-job on the wide open touchdown.
• 1) Jakobi Meyers throwing an NFL game with one of the most blatant acts of rigging an outcome ever shown on an NFL field -- and yet another complete piece of evidence that the NFL rigs it's games, because, had this been subject to Federal laws (and I can think of at least two such laws), he'd have been arrested on the spot!