I invite you to get involved in this conversation. Tell me I am wrong and why. Try not to be one of those people that just says I am wrong with no real information to back you up. It just makes you look silly. If you have your own list of upsets, then let's see them. I would like to make this list as comprehensive as possible, which means I need your help.
I offer this list as a conversation starter. I am not saying my list is the be all, end all of sports upset lists. But I do think I have some pretty good ideas. So here, without further delay, is the list of the top sports upsets of all time.
It is true that it is easier to remember things that just happened recently, but that is not why I picked this as the biggest baseball upset of all time. I picked it because, as soon as St. Louis beat Philadelphia and moved on to the NLCS, I tried to think of another baseball upset that tops this one and I couldn't.
The September collapses of the Atlanta Braves and the Boston Red Sox are fodder for another list. Because of the Braves' complete collapse in September, the fact that the Braves took the NL wild card was not as much of an upset. I started thinking about the 1951 collapse of the Brooklyn Dodgers that lead to the "Shot Heard Round the World" by Bobby Thomson. But even the Giants needed the Dodgers to collapse for that to happen.
This NLDS series was a case of the Cardinals beating the heavily favored Phillies head to head. The Cardinals did not need to rely on anyone else to beat the Phillies to win this series. The Cardinals did it all themselves and it has to be considered the greatest upset in baseball history.
- Toronto Maple Leafs win Stanley Cup in 1966-1967
In the first round of the playoffs, the Leafs took out the mighty Black Hawks four games to two. The Montreal Canadiens were expected to walk all over Toronto in the finals, but the Leafs won the Cup by winning the series four games to two. It was the greatest upset in NHL history and the Leafs have not won the Cup since.
People forget how unlikely this greatest of NFL upsets really was. Don Shula was a young NFL coach at that time and made the mistake of letting Johnny Unitas sit in favor of Earl Morrall. Sure, Morrall was having the season of his life in 1968. But when Super Bowl III kicked off, the great Johnny Unitas was left on the bench. By the time Unitas got into the game in the second half, it was too late.
Another fact that people forget is that Joe Namath did not throw a single touchdown pass in Super Bowl III. Despite only throwing for 206 yards and no touchdowns, Namath was named the game's MVP. It was Namath that made this game so famous with his guarantee of a win. But the Jets' running game and poor play by Morrall had more to do with New York being on the positive side of this upset than Broadway Joe did.
The planets were all aligned for the Seattle Supersonics to be the heir-apparent to the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan was off trying his hand at baseball and the NBA was now wide-open for the taking. The Supersonics had the best record in the NBA in the 1993-1994 season at 63-19. The first round of the playoffs was a best-of-five against the Denver Nuggets that the Supersonics had a stranglehold on after two quick wins in Seattle to open the series.
Just when it looked like Seattle was headed to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs, Dikembe Mutombo and the rest of the Nuggets won the next three games in a row sending the Supersonics home in complete shock.
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