It makes horse sense
IT IS the end of the year, also known as the season of the top 10 lists.
‘Tis the time when Associated Press editors weigh on their choices for the top Male and Female Athletes of the year about to end.
For the fourth time in her career, Serena Williams has won this year’s AP best athlete plum for the distaff side.
Meanwhile, three alpha males, including a horse, are the top vote getters for the best among the men polled by the most important global news agency.
Curiously enough, Floyd Mayweather Jr., the “retired” undefeated boxer, is not among the AP’s finalists.
Mayweather matched the great Rocky Marciano’s unblemished record of 49 wins with his unanimous triumph over nondescript fighter Andre Berto last September.
Earlier, Floyd Jr. beat Filipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao in the so-called “fight of the century” that made both fighters the richest athletes of 2015.
Leading the balloting for the AP’s 2015 Male Athlete of the Year award were Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, reigning NBA MVP Stephen Curry and Masters and US Open champion Jordan Spieth.
It was the first time since 2009 that a thoroughbred had been nominated for the award usually reserved only for humans.
Incidentally, Williams won over female horses Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandria that year.
American Pharoah’s prominence also figured when his sweep of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and the Belmont Stakes for horseracing’s first Triple Crown since 1978 was earlier selected by AP editors the sports story of the year.
American Pharoah’s Triple Crown win garnered 317 points and 43 first-place votes out of 82.
Among the AP’s top sports stories were the FIFA corruption scandals that would take down soccer leaders around the world and the Golden State Warriors’ first NBA title in 40 years behind the heroics of the sweet shooting Curry.
Again Mayweather’s record-tying effort against Berto did not even register as a blimp in the AP’s radar, evidently to the chagrin of his acolytes and members of his entourage known as Team Money.
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My heroes have always been writers—great individuals whose prose leaves me dazzled.
Some of them became my friends and later on my bosses simply because they outdid me, sense-wise, writing wise.
Letty Jimenez Magsanoc was the only woman among my idols—the likes of Teddy Benigno, Antonio Siddayao, Tito Tagle, Tony Nieva and others—whose careers as editors were served in the most spectacular way.
She was “larger than life,” mourned the Inquirer when Letty died on Christmas Eve.
She indeed towered over us, both in talent and skills.
Farewell LJM. You will be sorely missed.
