A long year

Apparently I seemed to have forgotten that I had this spot to write about all of my thoughts on sports. Well I am back with a few end of the year comments.
My last post stated that the New England Patriots would win the Super Bowl. Okay, I got that one wrong. It was a great game and the Giants deserved it. The Celtics won the NBA championship, lead by MVP Paul Pierce. The Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series. Kansas took home college basketball's crown, and Florida beat Oklahoma to win the BCS national championship game.
Finally the sports year ended (0r started depending on how you look at it) with Super Bowl 43. It was almost a great one. I'm sorry Steeler fans, but the Cardinals deserved this one. The game had everything it needed to pass last years thriller as the greatest of all time. It had the perennial power Pittsburgh Steelers. It had the very entertaining underdogs in the Arizona Cardinals. It had the rebirth of Kurt Warner, who always makes for a great story. It had a great defense, a great offense, and a few last minute scores to seal the deal. It almost had the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history. However, the game was overshadowed by the wrong call and the lack of a review on sport's biggest stage.
Kurt Warner is known for being a "good guy." His humble attitude and generous heart seperate him from most of the attention grabbing NFL. He doesn't insult refs, and he always gives credit to the opposition. Yet you could tell by his tone and the slight hints that even he knew his arm was going forward. The referees called a fumble and the Cardinals lost the game. Replays seemed to show that Warner's arm was in the forward motion when the ball came loose. As a matter of fact he held on after the initial hit and released it right before he fell to the ground. The play should have been ruled an incomplete pass. The true injustice was that the call did not get a second look. Only the booth can review in the last two minutes and they were silent as the Steelers went on to steal their sixth championship. I know that even if the play was overturned it still would have required a miracle to score the game winner, but . . . I take Larry Fitzgerald in a jump ball anyday. Even if the Steelers knocked it down, or picked it off, the "fumble" should not have ended it. I guess we will never know what might have happened had the referees taken the time to make sure they made the right call in the biggest game of the year.