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The Perfect Season By Joey Johnston

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 30, 2007

Updated: 12/30/2007 12:34 am

The New England Patriots achieved NFL perfection on Saturday night - a 16-0 regular season - with their victory against the New York Giants.

And in doing so, they joined some perfectly distinguished company:

LARSEN'S PERFECTO

"The imperfect man pitched a perfect game."

That was the famous lead sentence in Oct. 9, 1956, editions of the New York Daily News. It was one day after Yankees right-hander Don Larsen tossed a 2-0 perfect game - 27 up, 27 down - in Game 5 of the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

It's still the only perfect game in World Series history.

There have been 17 perfect games in Major League Baseball, including one by Texas Rangers left-hander Kenny Rogers of Plant City, on July 28, 1994, in a 4-0 win against the California Angels.

THAT'S DOMINATION

Coach Fielding Yost's 1901 Michigan Wolverines set the standard in college football, outscoring 11 opponents by a combined 555-0. Note: Appalachian State was not on the schedule.

Coach Bud Wilkinson's Oklahoma Sooners won 47 consecutive games in the 1950s, including three straight unbeaten teams (1954-56).

THE ORIGINAL ROCKY

Boxer Rocky Marciano turned professional in 1947. He won the heavyweight title in 1952, defending it six times. He retired in 1956 with a 49-0 record and 46 knockouts.

OLYMPIC MOMENTS

•American swimmer Mark Spitz won all seven events he entered during the 1972 Olympics.

•Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, 14, earned seven perfect 10s and won the gold medal at the 1976 Olympics. The cover of Time magazine proclaimed, "She's Perfect."

REVENGE OF RED KLOTZ

The Harlem Globetrotters' No. 1 traveling team, unbeaten since 1971, was defeated by a team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Sept. 12, 1995. Its winning streak was stopped at 8,829 straight games.

UNBEATABLE

Coach John Wooden's UCLA Bruins won nine NCAA men's basketball titles in 10 seasons - four with 30-0 records. Coach Bobby Knight's Indiana Hoosiers were the sport's last unbeaten team (32-0) in 1976. In women's basketball, Connecticut (39-0) was the last unbeaten national champion in 2002, but Tennessee also went 39-0 in 1998.

DEVIL OF A GAME

Some people still think it was the greatest college basketball game ever played - Duke 104, Kentucky 103 (OT) in the 1992 NCAA East Region final at Philadelphia's Spectrum.

Everyone has heard about Grant Hill's length-of-the-court inbounds baseball pass to Christian Laettner, who leaped for the catch, dribbled once at the foul line, turned and drilled the game-winning shot at the buzzer.

Great shot.

Remember Laettner's overall statistics line?

He was 10-for-10 from the field.

He was 10-for-10 from the free-throw line.

Call it college basketball's Perfect Game.

SPARE US

Jeff Carter, a professional bowler from Springfield, Ill., has rolled a perfect 300 game 112 times.

LARSEN'S PERFECTO

THAT'S DOMINATION

THE ORIGINAL ROCKY

OLYMPIC MOMENTS

REVENGE OF RED KLOTZ