Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
July 25, 2003, Washington Post

Ode to Upsets

Ben Curtis won the British Open last weekend. Curtis was ranked No. 396 in the world and had never won a big-time professional golf tournament in his life. But after four days of playing against Tiger and the rest, a guy who learned the game on his grandfather's public course in Ostrander, Ohio, was holding the trophy to the greatest championship in the world.

That, sports fans, is what we call an upset.

Upsets are great. They can happen at any time and in any sport. That's because sports are not like movies or TV shows. Sports don't have a script or a plan. You can't say that you are better than the other player or team. You have to play the game and see what happens. Sometimes the underdogs forget that they are "supposed" to lose. Sometimes in sports, something wondrous and unexpected happens.

Here are some of my all-time favorite upsets.

Baseball: For their first seven seasons (1962 to 1968), the New York Mets were the laughingstock of baseball. They couldn't hit, couldn't field and couldn't pitch. The Mets were so bad that they could hardly run the bases in the right order. But in 1969, all that changed. Led by young pitchers Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman the Mets shocked the baseball world by winning 100 games and the National League pennant. Then, the Mets surprised the mighty Baltimore Orioles, four games to one, to win the World Series. They were truly the "Amazing Mets."

Basketball: In the history of the NCAA men and women's basketball tournaments, the No. 16 seeded team has never beaten the No. 1 seeded team in the first round. Except once. In 1998, Harvard University women's basketball team beat top-ranked Stanford Cardinal, 71-67.

Track and Field: The most exciting race I ever saw was in the 1964 Olympics. Ron Clarke, a great Australian distance runner, was leading the 10,000-meter race (about six miles) when suddenly the announcer started shouting, "Here comes Mills. Here comes Mills." Billy Mills, an American runner who no one thought had a chance, sprinted past Clarke on the final turn and won the gold.

Hockey: In 1980, the hockey team from the Soviet Union (now Russia) was the best in the world. The fearsome Soviet team had won World Championships and Olympic gold medals. The United States team was just a bunch of college kids. But pushed on by a hot goaltender (Jim Craig) and a hometown crowd (the 1980 Olympics were in Lake Placid, New York) chanting "U.S.A., U.S.A.," the Americans stunned the Soviets in what is now known as "The Miracle on Ice." The U.S. team went on to win the gold.