Best of 1991

1 WORLD SERIES

In a year of glory for unknowns and has-beens, baseball's 1991 finale matched ! the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves, last-place teams in 1990. Lads fresh off the farm, like Atlanta's Mark Lemke, showed manful poise; geezers like the Twins' Jack Morris pushed guts and wiles past exhaustion. For once, the "fall classic" really was.

2. MIKE POWELL

When Everest was scaled, man had no higher mountain to climb. But in sport one can dream of jumping over the moon. This summer in Tokyo, Powell just about did it, though few dreamed he'd even come close. The unheralded American spanned 29 ft. 4 1/2 in., eclipsing by 2 in. one of the few sports standards thought impregnable: Bob Beamon's long-jump record, set in Mexico City's thin air in 1968.

3. MICHAEL JORDAN

Record-setting long jumps and high jumps are no problem for the world's most astonishing athlete; he makes them 82 games a season. Also quadruple back-flip dunks with his eyes closed. But the man had never won it all until his Chicago Bulls captured the N.B.A. crown in a clinic of Jordan aerobics and cagey teamwork against the Los Angeles Lakers. Now will all those who scorned him as a great but selfish showman -- a one-man Harlem Globetrotters -- please shut up?

4. GEORGE FOREMAN

In the ring he is a joke, standing there like Buddha, hoping some galoot will walk into his earth-orbiting fist. But Foreman, 42 and gaining, laughs as much as anyone. Along with other grand old fogies, like baseball's Nolan Ryan (who at 44 pitched his seventh no-hitter), Foreman answered the sports fan's need for father figures who can still play with the kids.

5. JIMMY CONNORS

And the Best Bad Actor (Senior Division) showed that an aging tennis ace can climb into a semifinal slot at the U.S. Open by behaving like a colicky two- year-old. Gentleman Jim, 39, disputed an umpire's ruling with such epithets as "son of a bitch" and "an abortion." Some spectators guessed that Connors had seen too many Robert De Niro movies -- or too many John McEnroe videotapes.

6. SEXUAL DISCLOSURE

Which news item from the shadow world of basketball stardom was more poignant: Magic Johnson's announcement that he had contracted the HIV virus, or Wilt Chamberlain's boast, just days earlier, that he has had sex with more than 20,000 women?

7. MONEYMEN

What recession? Not in the prime-beef market of pro sports. Jordan will reap about $25 million in 1992, most of it from product plugs. Evander Holyfield earned $20 million waltzing with Foreman. Bobby Bonilla signed with the New York Mets for $29 million for five years. And Minnesota-Twin-for-a-year Morris, 36, whose won-lost record for the past four seasons is 54-57, rented his right arm to the Toronto Blue Jays; the two-year deal is worth $10.85 million. That's about $1,500 a pitch, for those of you who couldn't afford a pocket calculator this Christmas. (But these are still middle-income entertainers. TV's Bill Cosby earned $60 million in '91.)

8. JERRY TARKANIAN

To rivals of Tark the Shark's dominant, scandal-plagued basketball teams at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, UNLV stands for UNLoVed. So not many cried when his 1991 squad, 30-0 in the regular season, lost an NCAA semifinal game to the scholars of Duke. The coach's defenders aver that his rehab program for inner-city tall guys is affirmative action at its most productive. Others, spotting the athletes' BMWs in the gym parking lot, see another moral: it's not whether you win or lose, but how much you make on the side.

9. FLORIDA FOOTBALL

When the N.F.L.'s Miami Dolphins may only be the state's fourth best football team, you realize that the college game has become pro ball by other means. At season's end Miami University, the University of Florida and Florida State University were at or near the top of the rankings. Michigan and Washington fans might disagree, but how about a national playoff for the state championship?

AND THE LOWEST BLOW . . .

Mike Tyson's alleged "serial buttocks fondling." If the charges are correct, this walking keg of testosterone was doing at an Indianapolis beauty pageant what he does in the ring: mauling the competition. Tyson's troubles spotlighted the threat behind many an athlete's swagger: he may think the world is his for the taking, with one swift punch or pinch.