This article is awesome:

 

Sports Ilustrated can certainly make a case for choosing the world champion Boston Red Sox as the magazine's 2004 Sportsmen of the Year, writes Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun, but the main headline on the SI Web site trumpeting the announcement might leave you scratching your head.

 

"Who Else?"

 

Quite an interesting question in a year in which cancer survivor Lance Armstrong won yet another Tour de France, Patriots QB Tom Brady won his second Super Bowl and Michael Phelps delivered one of the greatest individual Olympic performances in history. You could even throw in Vijay Singh surpassing Tiger Woods as the world's No. 1 golfer.

 

Instead, America's premier sports weekly picked a team that had the second-biggest payroll in baseball and needed a hall pass to get into the postseason.

 

The Red Sox were chosen, of course, because they overcame the "Curse of the Bambino."

 

No offense to the long-suffering baseball fans of Boston, but wasn't it a greater achievement when the wild-card Florida Marlins defeated the New York Yankees last year on a shoestring budget?

 

Several talented SI writers contributed essays on their choices for Sportsman of the Year, but Tim Layden's impassioned case for the late Pat Tillman -- who was killed in Afghanistan after giving up a lucrative NFL career to serve his country -- took the issue of sportsmanship to a higher level at a time when big-time sports has been sullied by several disturbing controversies.

 

"Because, ask yourself, what is a sportsman?" Layden writes. "I submit that a sportsman is someone who plays games for the joy of playing them and nothing more. Not for fame. Not for money ... by that definition, he is the ultimate sportsman for this or any other year."

 

No argument here.

 

http://www.charleston.net/stories/120204/s...dsoxhonor.shtml

Agreed. The Red Sox were almost expect to win someday with the team they were putting on the field (Curse or no Curse) and the Marlins did that and more with a payroll thats about half of what the Red Sox were working with.

 

 

But above all else, Pat Tillman should have won the award. When something is more important in your life that you give up money, fame and everything that goes with it to defend your country, THAT should be honored.

It should be Tillman or Armstrong (again).

 

Tillman is the icon of sportsmanship and patriotism, it's not often you can get that in the same year.

 

And for Armstrong, take a look around and see all those livestrong bracelets, because of his status, cancer research is receiving unheard of funding...that's the kind of contribution that is deserving of recognition.

 

Besides, I'm sick of the 'Sawks' getting overhyped recognition because they've sucked for so damn long, they didn't give it to the Yankees when they won 3 straight, or the Patriots for being the greatest team in the NFL salary cap era, so why give it to a high-payroll team that really just did what it was supposed to do?

Yes, and it was a much better WS than Sox-Birds

I bet it would have been Tillman if he had died less than a month ago. The only reason his name has come up since a month after his death was because of Jake Plummer's tribute to him being removed by the NFL.

Yes, and it was a much better WS than Sox-Birds

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dude a 3 game series between the Royals and the DRays in june was better than the ws

Yes, and it was a much better WS than Sox-Birds

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dude a 3 game series between the Royals and the DRays in june was better than the ws

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5 year old T-ball matchup > 2004 World Series

Bonds is Sportsman of the Year :plain

Agreed, although the author shouldn't have used the "hall pass" crack in his point seeing as the Marlins were a WC team as well.