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Best Ranger

Michael Young

Funny--no, make that creepy--that the most memorable Rangers play of the season almost never happens in a Rangers game. Like Hank Blalock's All-Star Game-winning homer in 2003 or All-Star Game MVP Alfonso Soriano's three-run blast off Roger Clemens in '04, Michael Young's two-out, two-run, game-winning triple in last summer's All-Star Game is again the team's defining moment. On an underachieving team dragged down by the delusions of owner Tom Hicks and the morose managerial style of Buck Showalter, Young again provided one of the few reasons not to give up on baseball and instead waste our lives making appointments for "non-therapeutic" massages on our Blackberrys. He has a better game--but not better highlights--than teammate Gary Matthews Jr. and better stats--but not a better Q rating--than Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter. Reminding us that it's still possible to be good off the field without a posse and good on the field without steroids, Young is the only reason left to make the trek to Arlington.

Best Sports Columnist

Brad Sham

Stay with us on this one, because it's tricky. A legendary broadcaster already in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame and someday headed for the Cowboys' Ring of Honor, Sham is these days putting pen to paper at DallasCowboys.com. This award, of course, is as much an indictment of the area's pathetically weak mainstream voices as it is Sham's considerable talent. In a local sports-writing landscape that has deteriorated into a predictably boring Chili's menu, columnists such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Randy "Big Bill" Galloway and The Dallas Morning News' Tim "Boy, Will Ferrell Sure Is Funny" Cowlishaw routinely roll out painfully obvious "Life: Good; Death: Bad" drivel. Sham, meanwhile, is constructing a nice hobby as an insider with insight. Read Sham's columns, for example, and learn why former Cowboy Larry Allen wears No. 71 in San Francisco (to honor Mark Tuinei). Sham is one of the few journalists with the balls to ask Bill Parcells a tough question and the cred to criticize the coach when he doesn't give an honest answer.

Best TV Sports Anchor

Dale Hansen

Who else among you dares to refer to Bill Parcells as "a dick"? He doesn't have Mike Doocy's hair, Babe Laufenberg's history or Newy Scruggs' hipness, but Dale Hansen still has the metroplex mesmerized because he is both plugged in and unplugged. Because of personal and professional conflicts with the team, Hansen admits his WFAA-Channel 8 is pulling back on its Cowboys coverage this season. That in no way, however, means Hansen will tug the reins on his bullish opinions or brutal honesty. He kicked off training camp in Oxnard, California, by directing football-specific questions to owner Jerry Jones instead of coach Parcells. "I did it mostly because he's a dick," Hansen said of Parcells. "Trust me, Channel 8 is through doing positive stories on the Cowboys." Stay tuned. We know you will.

Best Sports Chiropractor

Dr. Mary Collings

The impetus behind the raucous run by Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks last spring? Um, turns out there was a girl in the boys' room. But not that kind. This kind: Throughout the playoffs Dr. Collings laid her healing hands upon Dirk's aching back in a crack-ya-bones sorta chiropractic way. But Collings, a '93 graduate of Dallas' Parker College and founder of Las Colinas Spine & Sports Medicine, didn't just work her magic on Dirk. Last year alone she treated the Stars' Steve Ott and Jason Arnott, Cowboys punter Matt McBriar, ESPN's Darren Woodson, PGA player Brandt Jobe, actor Chuck Norris, singer Alanis Morissette and even the Highland Park High School "Belles" drill team. During the Mavs' playoff push and into the NBA Finals, Nowitzki was a weekly visitor to Collings' Las Colinas office. Said Collings, "It was rewarding to have a small hand in his success." Just to prove she also possesses talented feet, next month Collings will run a marathon in Washington, D.C.

Best Place to Watch Sports With an Athlete

Ten Sports Grill

They go to Bob's Steak & Chop House when they're hungry. They flitter over to Dragonfly at Hotel ZaZa when they want to get their drink on. But when rich and famous athletes want to hunker down and watch sports over a cold beer in a hot spot, they congregate at Ten. In its first year at the corner of Main and Field streets, the downtown sports bar hosted such celebs as Steve Nash (who stopped by to watch some English soccer), Charles Barkley (who stopped by to watch some NBA Playoffs) and Shaquille O'Neal (who stopped by because he knew he'd be recognized, but not mobbed). Dirk Nowitzki, Michael Finley, Eduardo Najera and even the band Puddle of Mudd have come in for fun and games in recent months. With nine high-def plasmas, a prime location adjacent to Adolphus Hotel and owners such as Chad Lewis (former Mavericks strength coach) and Mark Oman (current Nash buddy), Ten has somehow become Seven plus 8.0.

Best Underdogs

FC Roma

What FC Roma accomplished over the summer was akin to your beer-league softball team beating the Texas Rangers. Check that, considering the Rangers' annual summer meltdown, it's even more of an upset. Think Dane Cook actually being funny or Tom DeLay: Role Model. Roma, a collection of has-been Dallas Sidekicks and never-were no-names led by 46-year-old goalie Nestor Merlo, became the first amateur soccer team to beat a professional side from Major League Soccer when it toppled Chivas USA in the third round of the prestigious U.S. Open Cup in June. If it wasn't soccer, the upset would've made national news. Instead, it's just a footnote reminding us that, yes, Rocky and Invincible can still strike in today's environment. Roma's run ended when it lost in the fourth round to the perennial MLS power Los Angeles Galaxy. And when Cinderella awoke? Roma's players didn't make quite as much money as Exxon/Mobil, but they did get to temporarily stop practicing at sunrise before heading off to real jobs.

Best Place
to Run

White Rock Lake Park

First of all, let's correct last year's error that inexplicably awarded this distinction to the ugly and oft-interrupted Katy Trail and recognize that the best place to run in Dallas will always be White Rock Lake Park. Even on the busiest Sunday morning when every Lance Armstrong wannabe and hobby jogger is crammed into a suddenly narrow path, even when the lake is flooded and trash spills out onto the shore, even when the sun is setting on a summer day and teams of ravenous mosquitoes are looking to extract a pint of blood from anyone dumb enough to still be outside, White Rock Lake remains a runner's paradise. Name another park, not just in Dallas but in any big city in the country, where you can run nine miles--or more if you meander around the surrounding trails--and never have to move over for a car? Or another park that has water fountains, spray machines and markers for every half mile? Plus, if you run in the evening and if you're lucky, you might possibly be able to partake of a little secondhand marijuana courtesy of the random idling economy car blasting the Doors' "Riders on the Storm." At White Rock Lake, there's more than one way to get your runner's high.

Best Whitewater

White Rock Creek

To whitewater snobs, the phrase "Dallas whitewater" might seem like an oxymoron, sort of like "desert snorkeling" or "honest politician." But anybody who saw the White Rock spillway this spring saw some ferocious waves that few kayakers would tackle. What most people don't know is that after any sizable rain, the creek that fills the lake at the other end is suddenly festooned with surfable waves and tricky holes that allow experienced boaters to strut their stuff (spectators can check them out at the great play spot where Forest Lane crosses the creek). Sure, it's no Grand Canyon, but it beats driving to Arizona.

Best Sports Deal

FC Dallas

In case you've been living under a rock for the last decade: There is indeed professional soccer in the United States. Twice as many Americans watched this World Cup as did the previous edition four years ago, and while on the one hand, the national men's early exit from this year's competition says we have a ways to go, that it was even disappointing in the first place shows how far expectations have come. The fact that the United States is no longer the redheaded stepchild of soccer is largely because of the success of the domestic pro league, the MLS, and in a brand new stadium in Frisco, coach Colin Clarke and crew have quietly put together one of the best clubs in the league. So, here's your choice: You can drive all the way to Frisco and pay 10 bucks to see the future of world sport, or you can drive all the way to Irving and pay 10 times more to see Terrell Owens scream at his teammates.

Best Reason to Watch Another Boring Rangers Segment

Erin Hawksworth

We haven't been baseball fans since we were kids, mostly because we grew very tired of being disappointed by the Rangers every year (not to mention corporate ballparks, outrageous salaries and steroid scandals). But when Channel 8 sports reporter Erin Hawksworth talks baseball, we start to care again. Oh mama, do we care. We care so much, in fact, that we even looked her up on MySpace. You know, to read her insightful sports commentary. Sadly, her page has since been shut down. Red-blooded males all over the metroplex will keep watching, though. And Google-ing. And hoping.

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