The most overrated plays of all time

Today I caught a segment of some "Who's #1?" show on ESPN Classics, and I just had to write this post.

Here's the thing. I am a sucker for old highlights of great plays. I love them. If they involve the Packers (or Reggie Miller), they are likely to bring a tear to my eye. But there are some plays that I have seen repeatedly because of their "greatness," and for the life of me I cannot figure out why people consider them so damn great. So I have compiled a list of six plays (I don't believe in forcing a list into the 5, 10, 25 format) that I personally consider overrated. Now I realize that most of these plays happened before I was born, and all of them happened before I was cognitive of sports. But this goes hand in hand with my contention, and that is that over time certain plays have gained such a high reputation as "great plays" that we feel it would be somehow sacrilegious to knock them down a few rungs on our "all-time greatest plays" lists. These plays have been overrated in greatness because of their memorability, but we all remember Buckner's fuck-up, Webber's timeout, and Gary Anderson's first missed field goal of the season, and that doesn't really make those plays great, does it?
The tendency towards old, "classic," plays doesn't really make any sense. Why don't more of these lists contain plays from the last decade in their top ten? Plays like Boise State's Statue of Liberty two-point conversion, the Music City Miracle, or Vince Young's game-winning scramble; these plays deserve some serious recognition. Unlike great songs, I don't think that sports plays need to "stand the test of time" to earn their greatness.

Feel free to disagree (that's what blogging is all about), but here are my 6-through-1 most overrated sports plays of all time:

#6 - The Ice Bowl Sneak
I'm throwing this out here right away to disprove any bias that anyone might suspect. It doesn't pain me much to say that Bart Starr's sneak into the end zone has become excessively legendary. To me, it was a mediocre ending to a great game, no different than Vinatieri's relatively chip-shot 41-yard field goal to beat the Panthers in SB XXXVIII. Yeah, I know, we will always remember that field goal, but we will (or should) remember it as the end of a great game, not as the defining moment of that game. Starr's sneak was a play that is successfull more than 50% of the time, especially when you're right guard gets an early jump.
Ice Bowl. Great game: kind of a dud ending, relatively. If you have ever gotten the chance to watch every snap, you should be able to see where I'm coming from. If you don't see where I'm coming from, then just consider this as me avoiding the homer boo birds.

#5 - Willie Mays' Catch
This is so easy that I almost didn't include it in the list. But Mays himself has said that he didn't consider his famed over-the-shoulder catch to be that great. And come on, don't we see this play made by someone else at least once a year? Not to mention the fact that we see this catch made at least once a game in every football game. I have heard the play defended (by Bechtel) that it was Mays' ability to immediately throw the ball back in that made it impressive, and that makes a lot of sense.
So let's set the stage for why this was a great play. Reasons that are often forgotten:
1. The circumstance. Tie game in the eighth inning of a World Series game, with two runners on.
2. The distance. The centerfield wall that Mays' was running towards was 461 feet from home plate, and Mays ran a good 100-150 feet to get there. That's like Soriano running to Waveland Avenue to make a catch.
3. Finally, the aforementioned throw. This is what makes the play great (note that I am not saying that this play, or any of the other plays, are not great; simply overrated) Mays made this sprinting catch, and without a moment's hesitation, spun around to throw the ball in to keep the runners from scoring.
So yes it was a brilliant play, but had Larry Doby (who started the play at second base) been tagging from the start, he probably still could have scored. As it was, he ran all the way back to second base, tagged, and still made it to third.
Strangely, the circumstance is rarely mentioned today. Instead, it is simply heralded as the greatest catch of all time. As an overall play, all circumstances included, it's maybe one of the top 25 plays of all time. Purely as a catch, it's not even in the top 100. Sorry Willie, but I know you'd agree with me.

#4 - NC State's unorthodox alley-oop
I've heard the argument that without this play, we may not have gotten the full affect of Jimmy V, and I respect that, so I'm not going to argue it (read: please, please don't call me a heartless bastard because I'm downplaying Jimmy V's greatest moment). But this play happened to win a championship for a great coach and has been overblown because of that.
First off, this was not a succeed-or-go-home moment, because the game was tied, so let's just get that out there.
But more importantly, this was a case of confusion and a failure to box out (which happens on like 95% of any jump shot in college basketball). This was a freak play that was not impressive on anyone's part: Thurl Bailey made a shitty pass, which was followed by Houston's Benny Anders inability to intercept the pass, which led to an air ball shot by Dereck Whittenburg, and was capped off by the inability of any Houston player to box out.
Lorenzo Charles just happened to be there to receive the easiest alley-oop anyone has ever received ever. Had a defender gone up for the ball and touched it before Charles, the defender would have likely been called for goaltending, seeing that the ball was coming down so close to the basket.
Improbable play? Certainly. Great play? By who, exactly? Who made the great play? No one. That's who.

#3 - Rodney McCray runs through wall
This was the #1 play on "Best Damn Spectacular Plays" so I just have to knock it down a few notches. And there are the reasons.
Much like Aaron Rowand's famed broken-nose catch, McCray is praised for putting his body in danger. Now, I personally play most sports with a similar reckless abandon, so a lot of people assume that I love plays like this. I don't. If you're a multi-million dollar player that a franchise has invested in, you should put your health ahead of a single out, because ultimately that's what's better for your team. If you're an in-debt 20-something with halfway decent insurance who thinks that breaking your shoulder is proof of your "toughness" then by all means, dive into a brick wall.
But if you actually look at this play, McCray had no clue where he was, ran through what looked like drywall and came up completely unfazed. Cheap wall. That's all this play was. A cheap fucking wall.

#2 - The Doug Flutie Hail Mary
Hail Marys in general are so overrated, because they're almost completely luck. I could have easily included Kordell Stewart's hail mary in this group, but because of my Michigan alliance, I avoided the homerism.
Here's the breakdown of a hail mary. Everyone run deep, protect the quarterback, launch the football as far as you can, and pray (that's why it's called a Hail Mary). But as we here at YCS know, prayer is nothing more than helplessly hoping you get lucky.
Doug Flutie's hail mary is impressive for one reason and one reason only: Miami's defense underestimated how far Flutie could throw the ball. At least, that's why everyone praises Flutie. But that's not exactly true. Everyone knew that Flutie had a gun like no other. If you watch the play, the Miami defenders simply underplayed the ball. Gerard Phelan (I wonder what local car dealership he's advertising for these days) made a relatively routine catch because he was a good three feet behind the defenders.
This comes back to my basic pretention that great plays should be great plays, not a combination of luck and mistakes by the other team. Also, I'm probably bitter about hail marys in general because of the whole Kordell Stewart thing.

#1 - Grant Hill to Christian Laettner
I read Hill's (auto)biography in middle school, read about this play, and thought "So what?" I watched the play on ESPN's "Who's #1?" this evening, and I still thought "So what?"
Really, this comes down to my opinion that great games tend to inflate the value of great plays (Although you could also go to the "Other players fucking up" defense, since no one managed to get in front of Laettner). This particular play gets recognized as one of the greatest not just because of its significance, but because the game preceding it was a great one. And, I'm sorry, but that's just stupid.
This play was a great one, and it won a championship. So it should be remembered, but not as the great play of college hoops. Because look at the play. No one was guarding the inbound pass (a rare Pitino mistake) and Laettner was able to catch the pass at the free throw line, pump fake, turn the other way, and make a shot that was pretty much uncontested.
I'll tell you why this play is considered great. First off, because it was the early years of what would become a Duke/Coach K dynasty. Also, because it was the last defining moment of Laettner's career. Is Jordan remembered for his game-winner at North Carolina? Well, yeah, but that's like #17 on his best play list. Unlike Jordan, Laettner never went on to have any kind of pro career, so because he was such a great college player, we all hang onto this memory of him.
He had two seconds! Two whole seconds! And he started at the free throw line!
Not so great, if you ask me.

Okay, I'm done ripping holes in everyone's favorite memories (memories that I have no conception of, nonetheless).