It was Baffert's fourth Triple Crown try and Espinoza's third, both records.
4. WARRIORS WIN: Too small, not athletic enough. That was the knock both on the Golden State Warriors as a whole and on their star, Stephen Curry. Instead, the sweet-shooting Warriors won their first NBA title in four decades behind the league's MVP, beating LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers in six games.
9. MISSOURI FOOTBALL: Just two days after Missouri's football players threatened to boycott a game, the president of the university system stepped down. Tensions about race and other student welfare issues had been simmering for weeks before the athletes joined the protest in support of a graduate student who was holding a hunger strike.
The only other men since 1960 to get that far were Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — and none of them came as close to the third leg as Spieth, who was tied for the British Open lead with two holes to play before finishing one shot out of a playoff. He was also in the final group of the PGA Championship, where he was runner-up by three shots to Jason Day.
With record TV audiences back home watching the prime-time matches, the U.S. looked shaky early in the tournament before some timely lineup changes by coach Jill Ellis put Lloyd in position for a scoring spree. All-time goals leader Abby Wambach got to end her career with her first World Cup championship.
As Tigers defensive end Charles Harris put it: "Let this be a testament to all of the athletes across the country that you do have power."
Getting that far hadn't been easy, though. Eleven of Williams' victories at the majors came in three sets, including eight when she rallied from a set down. Hobbled by injuries all season, she was so sick in the final days of the French Open she considered withdrawing — yet somehow pulled out three-set wins in the semis and final.
The NFL would go on to spend more than $3 million for the investigation by Ted Wells, whose 243-page report found it was "more probable than not" that two Patriots employees deliberately released air from Patriots game balls to below the league-mandated minimum at the game and Brady "was at least generally aware."
Turns out that Golden State can play even better. The Warriors opened the following season with a record 24-0 start.
6. SERENA CHASES GRAND SLAM, TOO: In tennis, a player was even closer to completing a Grand Slam. Serena Williams was two victories from becoming the first since Steffi Graf in 1988 to win the Australian Open, French Open,Wholesale China Jerseys, Wimbledon and U.S. Open in the same year. But in one of the sport's biggest upsets, unseeded Roberta Vinci stunned the 21-time major champion in the semifinals in New York.
Eighty-two ballots were submitted from U.S. editors and news directors. Voters were asked to rank the top five sports stories of the year, with the first-place story receiving five points, the second-place story four points and so on.
American Pharoah's Triple Crown win received 317 points and 43 first-place votes,Supply NFL Jerseys.
5. SPIETH CHASES GRAND SLAM: No one had gone wire to wire at the Masters in nearly four decades, but that victory was just the start of the year for 21-year-old Jordan Spieth. He won the first two legs of a Grand Slam, halfway to becoming the first modern player to complete the feat.
3. FIFA CORRUPTION: In an early-morning raid of a Zurich luxury hotel May 27, the U.S. government started a chain reaction that would take down soccer leaders around the world.
Brady, who had earned Super Bowl MVP honors when the Patriots won their fourth title,Cheap Arizona Diamondbacks Hoodies, would be suspended four games. But a judge lifted the ban a week before the season, criticizing NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for dispensing "his own brand of industrial justice."
The 47-count indictment for racketeering and bribery was just the beginning. By year's end, FIFA's president, Sepp Blatter, and his one-time likely successor,Nike Air Max 95 Cheap, UEFA President Michel Platini, had been suspended for eight years for unethical conduct by the sport's governing body.
But American Pharoah took the lead from the start of the grueling 1 1/2-mile race and kept extending it. The bay colt with the unusually short tail went on to win by 5 1/2 lengths for jockey Victor Espinoza, trainer Bob Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat.
The No. 2 sports story,China NFL Jerseys, the "Deflategate" scandal that ensnared Super Bowl-winning Patriots quarterback Tom Brad