Live at 5 p.m. Wednesday: Our favorite sports photos
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Our draft order for tonight:
Naila-Jean Meyers, senior assistant sports editorPete Steinert, Sunday editorPaul Klauda, high school sports and soccer editorKen Chia, copy editorMarcus Fuller, college basketball writerBrian Stensaas, sports web editor and golf writerRachel Blount, Olympics and horse racing writerRandy Johnson, Puck Drop editorMegan Ryan, college football and hockey writerHoward Sinker, digital sports editor -
Thanks for coming to tonight's Star Tribune Virtual Happy Hour. We're choosing our favorite sports photos tonight. Some of them will be iconic and familiar. Others will have special meaning to the person who selects them. We're hoping that you enjoy the choices and that you add your reactions and thoughts in the comments.
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This is the first time I have had the No. 1 pick in one of these things, and it was mighty intimidating. When I was recruited for this draft yesterday, the category didn't really speak to me. There's no sports poster on my wall that I could immediately turn to and say, "Yes, this." But it didn't take me long to get to "yes, this."This is an iconic sports photograph. Full stop. No "women's sports" qualifier. But it is arguably the most famous photo of a female athlete. It's the Sports Bra Seen Around the World (this version courtesy of the AP). It was important at the time for Brandi Chastain to be plastered on the cover of papers around the world in 1999. And it's important now. Who knows? Maybe in 20 more years, Megan Rapinoe's goal celebration in the 2019 World Cup will be considered just as iconic.
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A great hockey photo with a great story behind the photo. On May 10, 1970 (50 years ago last month), in Boston, superstar Bobby Orr won the Bruins' first Stanley Cup in 29 years when he scored 40 seconds into overtime of Game 4. Noel Picard of the Blues gave flight to Orr when he tripped him. Orr won the Norris, Hart, Art Ross and Conn Smythe trophies that season. As for the photo, Ray Lussier of the Boston Record American got into position when he took the spot of another shooter who had not returned from grabbing a beer at intermission. When the other photographer returned, he told Lussier to scram. Lussier's answer: "It's all yours; I've got what I need."
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The Star Tribune’s David Joles made this picture last Sept. 13, week three of the high school football season, at Rosemount High School. It took several more weeks before Lakeville North quarterback RaJa Nelson turned out to be our Metro Player of the Year. It took about one second that Friday night, when this photo appeared in our computer system, to stop me on deadline and simply admire what I saw on the screen. Just another play, on another night, on a football field in America, with a professional such as David giving extraordinary meaning to the much-chronicled notion of Friday night lights.
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It happened 55 years ago in Lewiston, Maine, of all places, but I still look at Neil Leifer's photo of Muhammad Ali's first-round knockdown of Sonny Liston and marvel. It's peak Ali, his power and his swagger, imploring Liston -- who might have taken a dive? -- to "Get up and fight, sucker!" Leifer thought something very different, saying: "My only thought was, 'Stay right there, Sonny! Please don't get up!' " -
The Associated Press' John Rooney has a similar photo but his was in black and white. But Leifer was one of only two photographers there with color film, and as he noted, he was lucky not to be one of the poor photographers shown in the background. But he also noted he didn't miss the shot when it presented itself.
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Just a high school kid from Hawaii walking to Spanish class when I ran into John Stockton walking to the bus after finishing up training camp at my high school gym. He didn’t give me enough time to grab a pen and sheet of paper out of my book bag for an autograph. So, I really got extra satisfaction watching MJ’s iconic last shot to defeat the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals the following year.NBA photographer Fernando Medina’s photo became a social media hit after ESPN’s The Last Dance documentary this spring on the Bulls’ dynasty and Jordan’s legacy. The picture shows the clock at 6.6 seconds. It was Jordan’s sixth title. There’s also a kid right above the shot clock holding up six fingers. Classic.
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The great thing about photos like that is that everyone sees something that other people don't. The kid with the six fingers in this case. I'll bet there are a half-dozen more as well. Figured MJ was going to make the list one way or another.Now we'll have Brian Stensaas, Rachel Blount and Randy Johnson making the next three picks.
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Feb. 22, 1980. A true miracle in the eyes of the sports world. But as Minneapolis Star photographer Tom Sweeney puts it, the real miracle that evening was developing his photos from the United States’ medal round victory over the heavily favored Soviet Union.“The hotel was 13 miles from the town center and ice arena, and the only transportation was not-so-regular shuttle buses.
My room’s bathroom had French doors with glass panels, which I had to cover to keep light out … Film had to be developed in absolute darkness, and prints made under very dim orange safelights. Resin-coated (RC) paper had recently been invented, so my prints could air-dry after being developed in chemical trays and washed in my room’s bathtub.In this era, you attached your prints to a UPI drum machine, and this typewriter-sized machine scanned the photo and sent a signal through a telephone connection. It took just under 10 minutes to send a single black-and-white photo.”This one of goalie Jim Craig snagging a Russian rocket doesn’t say “victory.” But it sure says talent from the lens of Tom Sweeney, who worked for this company for 39 years
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Cool pick and cool story. This has been a good night so far for people who are concerned that we never go back more than 10 or 15 years with our choices. (They show up in the comments once in a while.)
Olympics and horse racing writer Rachel Blount is up followed by Randy Johnson and Megan Ryan. -
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Those who watched the 1973 Belmont Stakes will never forget Chic Anderson's race call in the stretch: "Secretariat is alone! He is moving like a tremendous machine!'' This iconic photo by Bob Coglianese captures just how astonishing it was as Big Red dusted the competition.Jockey Ron Turcotte sneaked a look over his shoulder to see where the other horses were. He probably needed binoculars to find them. Secretariat won by 31 lengths in a mind-blowing 2:24 for the mile and a half.
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That's back when you would have bought a $2 win ticket to keep rather than cash. Would have been a fine investment. probably better than the guy who bought thousands of GA tickets at the Metrodome after Eddie Murray got his 3,000th hit at the Metrodome. I'm assuming jockey Turcotte is looking back and asking, "Where's Sham?"
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I’m keeping my picks local and in-house because the Star Tribune has such an amazing group of photographers.My first-round pick was shot by Jeff Wheeler on Sunday, Oct. 27, 1991, in the Metrodome, and it features Dan Gladden jumping into the arms of Jack Morris after scoring the only run of Game 7 of the best World Series ever. Still gives me chills.
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Nicely put, Randy. I think everyone who watched the Twins during one of their postseason drives has one of those photos or another that gives then an extra thrill. Mine is the Game 163 photo from 2009 after the game-winning hit by Carlos Gomez. Probably has to do with seeing something that i watched from about 5 rows from the top of the Metrodome.
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