The Sports Lowlights of 2025: Looking Back on the Dubious Achievements of the Year

We all know the highlights of 2025: the champions, MVPs and feel-good stories. But then there are the more dubious achievements—the ones that live on in their own special way.

REPEAT ASCENDER

Japanese authorities rescued a 27-year-old Chinese climber near the peak of Mount Fuji, then rescued him again four days later when he returned to look for his cellphone.

BALL BOOSTER

An enraged woman who demanded a home run ball from the man who retrieved it in the bleachers at a Phillies-Marlins game in Miami—then watched as he took the ball from his young son and gave it to her—was instantly immortalized as “Phillies Karen.”

NEVER MIND

Ejected from a game against the Giants for arguing an obstruction call, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo in turn theatrically ejected all four umpires before conceding, postgame, that the call was right: “I stand corrected.”

Bearing Witness: Sports Illustrated digital cover of Seattle Kraken mascot being chased by a grizzly bear — Illustrations by Michael Byers

MATING SEASON

Buoy, the Kraken’s blue-haired troll mascot, was charged by a brown bear while fly-fishing in waders in the Brooks River on a goodwill trip to promote youth hockey in Alaska.

DEEP INTO EXTRA TIME

In March, Bulgarian soccer team Arda Kardzhali held a televised moment of silence to commemorate the passing of club legend Petko Ganchev, 78, who found the gesture “not pleasant,” considering he was very much alive at the time.

AS JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES PREDICTED

Crypto enthusiasts, hoping to drive up the price of a meme coin, claimed responsibility for a fusillade of sex toys thrown on the court during WNBA games.

BAT KNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS

When a Mariners fan purchased a curse-lifting spell from a witch on Etsy—for $15.99—the team won 17 of its next 18 games.

KIWIS’ BIG ADVENTURE

Three men were fishing off of New Zealand’s North Island when a 900-pound, 11-foot-long bottlenose dolphin leaped into their boat and remained lodged there for the next hour, “thrashing about and breaking everything.”

THE PORPOISE-DRIVEN LIFE

The men managed to save the dolphin, shielding it from the sun with a wet towel depicting players from New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team.

SPEAKING OF DOLPHINS IN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS

“Good morning?” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said at an August press conference. “False. Great morning.” Asked what made this particular morning so great, McDaniel replied: “Because we’re another day closer to death.”

WORLD’S WORST HITCHHIKER

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he was trying to give a thumbs up when he mistakenly raised his middle finger to fans at MetLife Stadium following a 37–22 win over the Jets in October. “That was inadvertently done,” he told Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. “I’m not kidding.”

OUST HIM, THEN JOUST HIM

After Dallas GM Nico Harrison traded Luka Dončić to the Lakers, “Fire Nico” chants spread from the Mavs’ arena to other local venues, including a Medieval Times restaurant. (Fans got their wish; Harrison was fired on Nov. 11.)

CHICAGO-STYLE ITALIAN BEEF

When a visitor to the Vatican shouted “Go Cubs!” at the pontiff in October, Pope Leo XIV shouted back from the Popemobile: “Han perdido! They lost!”

A young Pope Leo XIV as a White Sox fan — Illustration by Michael Byers

SOUTH SIDE JOHNNY

Hours after his little brother was elected Pope, John Prevost wanted to clarify one thing about Leo XIV: “He was never, ever a Cubs fan ... He was always a Sox fan. Our mother was a Cubs fan.”

TORTILLA? THAT’S A WRAP

By imposing a 15-yard penalty after a warning for every violation, the Big 12 ended Texas Tech’s long-standing custom of fans throwing unleavened flatbreads onto the field at kickoff.

CHUCK ROASTING

Charles Barkley, taking a GLP-1 for weight loss, texted TNT studio host Adam Lefkoe on a night off: “Tell Shaq to unbutton his jacket before he puts someone’s eye out.”

KILLING MOUNJARO

Shaquille O’Neal replied: “Tell him to send me those fat boy drugs he’s been taking that don’t work on his fat ass.”

COULD I BE LESS INTERESTED?

According to the only listing in the “personal” section of his Vanderbilt biography, freshman guard Chandler Bing “has never watched Friends.”

DRAINING HIS PUTTS

After playing the 12th hole at his first Masters, Jose Luis Ballester relieved himself in Rae’s Creek. (The 21-year-old Spaniard, who was cheered by the gallery, said he forgot there was a bathroom near the 13th tee box.)

NEED A LITTLE TIME TO WAKE UP

Oasis fans set a Wembley Stadium record by drinking 250,000 pints of beer at each of the band’s first three concerts there during its reunion tour.

DENTURED SERVANT

A worker cleaning the ice in Capital One Arena, found and returned two missing teeth of Washington defenseman Alex Alexeyev, who lost three uppers during a playoff game in April. “I have ’em at home,” Alexeyev said of his peripatetic choppers.

THEY GET EACH OTHER’S TEETH

The Canucks employ two separate players—a 27-year-old center and a 21-year-old defenseman—named Elias Pettersson.

SOLE ON ICE

Rams coach Sean McVay tore his plantar fascia while running to call a timeout against the Titans.

Illustration of Red Sox player getting sick on a turbulent flight — Illustration by Michael Byers

CORA THE EXPLORER

Asked about his team’s harrowing flight to Minneapolis in July, with turbulence so severe that multiple passengers vomited, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said, “I don’t know, I slept through it.”

SALES BLITZ

After Aaron Rodgers scrambled to avoid a sack by Micah Parsons, the Steelers quarterback asked the new Packers defensive end to buy his old house in Green Bay.

BETHPAGE BLECCH

A comedian hired to emcee the Ryder Cup on Long Island resigned and apologized after having joined the crowd in a chant of “F--- you, Rory,” directed at Team Europe’s Rory McIlroy.

SIX FLAGS OVER TEXAS

Giants offensive tackle James Hudson III was called for four penalties in six plays on a single drive against the Cowboys in September, something no other player has done this century.

I GET NO KICKS ON A PLAIN

Thanks to an L.A. Galaxy own goal, Sporting Kansas City became the first team in MLS history to win a game without taking a single shot on goal.

HAT SNATCH FEVER

As tennis player Kamil Majchrzak was handing his cap to a boy at the U.S. Open, the “millionaire CEO” of a Polish paving company grabbed it away.

TOUGH SCHIST

Several contestants were disqualified from the World Stone Skimming Championships in Scotland for using what appeared to be machined or otherwise doctored stones rather than the required natural slate.

GAME OF THRONES

Walking a rope line at the Little League World Series, Mariners catcher Cal “Big Dumper” Raleigh autographed a toilet seat to a chorus of adolescent cheering.

Illustration of a sumo wrestler sitting on a toilet — Illustration by Michael Byers

NOW THEY KNOW HOW MANY HOLES IT TAKES TO FILL THE ALBERT HALL

The Royal Albert Hall in London reinforced its toilets before hosting 40 sumo wrestlers for a tournament in October, with a venue official telling The Guardian: “It’s the ones that are screwed into the wall which are the most challenging.”

WHAT DAWG HAS JOINED TOGETHER ...

Hours before the Browns’ season-opening loss to the Bengals, Cleveland superfans Brown Spider and First Lady were married in the Muni Lot, ground zero of Dawg Pound tailgating, touching off a wave of irrational exuberance. As the groom told WOIO-TV: “Seventeen-and-oh, baby!”

UNBROTHERLY LAV

Two people received leg wounds after being shot near the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade in February in a dispute over line cutting for a port-a-potty.

IT IS CONFUSING

In bestowing his first annual White Boy of the Year award on Timothée Chalamet, Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards praised another fly white actor: “I gotta shout out—what’s his name?—Leon Nelson.” He meant Liam Neeson, who succeeded Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun franchise.

Published 2 hours ago

STEVE RUSHIN

Special Contributor, Sports Illustrated Steve Rushin was born in Elmhurst, Ill. on September 22, 1966 and raised in Bloomington, Minn. After graduating from Bloomington Kennedy High School in 1984 and Marquette University in 1988, Rushin joined the staff of Sports Illustrated. He is a Special Contributor to the magazine, for which he writes columns and features. In 25 years at SI, he has filed stories from Greenland, India, Indonesia, Antarctica, the Arctic Circle and other farflung locales, as well as the usual locales to which sportswriters are routinely posted. His first novel, The Pint Man, was published by Doubleday in 2010. The Los Angeles Times called the book "Engaging, clever and often wipe-your-eyes funny." His next book, a work of nonfiction, The 34-Ton Bat, will be published by Little, Brown in 2013. Rushin gave the commencement address at Marquette in 2007 and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters for "his unique gift of documenting the human condition through his writing." In 2006 he was named the National Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association. A collection of his sports and travel writing—The Caddie Was a Reindeer—was published by Grove Atlantic in 2005 and was a semifinalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. The Denver Post suggested, "If you don't end up dropping The Caddie Was a Reindeerduring fits of uncontrollable merriment, it is likely you need immediate medical attention." A four-time finalist for the National Magazine Award, Rushin has had his work anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Travel Writing and The Best American Magazine Writing collections. His essays have appeared in Time magazine andThe New York Times. He also writes a weekly column for SI.com. His first book, Road Swing, published in 1998, was named one of the "Best Books of the Year" by Publishers Weekly and one of the "Top 100 Sports Books of All Time" by SI. He and his wife, Rebecca Lobo, have four children and live in Connecticut.