The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. Its been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But, baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again. -the field of dreams

this is my tribute to the infamous 2001 major league baseball season. many would say that this year will go down in history as one of the greatest seasons of all time, others would go as far to say that this season was indeed the greatest season ever in the history of baseball. i, for one, agree with the sport enthusiest who claims to believe that this season was infact "THE GREATEST" ever. wats that? u dont agree? well lets take a look at it...many could argue a point for some of the other top seasons of the past but the truth is that i dont care to listen...2001 was much more exciting than any of the other seasons ever, and heres why:many records were broken, new things were tried, exciting new rookies sproted up, many sleepers finally woke up, and most importantly it all ended with argueably, the greatest world series ever. well, now let us sift through the facts...heres what ive found on this topic in debate:

*nomo pitches a no-no...hideo nomo pitches the first no hitter of the 2001 season

*later in the year the marlins' a.j. burnett threw a no hitter againt the padres despite walking nine batters

*on may 26th, curt schilling took a perfect game into the 8th inning when it was broken up by san diegos ben davis, who bunted for an infield single

*mike mussina took a perfect game as far as you can take it...he still had a perfect game in the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs and 2 strikes on carl everett when carl got the best of the moose with a bloop single

*the cardinals' bud smith pitched a no hitter on september 3rd

*the mariners blew a 12-0 and a 14-2 lead in an embarrassing 15-14 loss to the indians

*mariners tie record for most wins in a single season with 116

*ichiro breaks the record for most hits in a season by a rookie with 242, he also had 56 stolen bases and a .350 batting average

*on august 19th, mike cameron went 4 for 4 with 8 rbi's

*randy johnson became the third pitcher to strikeout 20 batters in a 9 inning performence(roger clemens and kerry wood were the others)

*jon lieber threw a one-hitter against the reds at wrigley field on may 24th...the following day, teammate kerry wood duplicated the feat against the milwaukee brewers...thats back-to-back games on back-to-back days with back-to-back one hitters!!!

*trevor hoffman got his 300th save

*ricky henderson had his 3000th hit

*ricky broke babe ruth's record for most walks in his career

*ricky henderson also broke ty cobbs record for runs in a career

*lenny harris set a new record for most pinch hits breaking manny mota's record of 150 pinch hits

*luis gonzalez hit 13 homeruns in april, tying him for the most ever in april

*barry bonds hit his 500th home run

*barry bonds became the first person to ever finish a season with an on base percentage of over .500

*barry bonds broke the single season home run record (70) set by big mac in 1998...barry finished the season with 73 dingers

*bonds' 38 homeruns before the allstar break was also a record

*sammy sosa became the first player to ever hit 60 or more homeruns in 3 seperate seasons

*sammy sosa became the third player to hit 50 homeruns in 4 seperate seasons(mark mcgwire and babe ruth were the others)

*this season was only the second season ever in which 3 players hit 50 or more homeruns...barry bonds(73),sammy sosa(64),luis gonzalez(57)...also shawn green and todd helton both finished with 49

*barry bonds set a new record for most walks in a season which was formorly held by babe ruth

*"neon" deion sanders made his return to baseball by goin 3 for 3 with a homerun in his first game back...unfortunatly he went 0 for his life after that and was released within the month

*schilling and johnson join an elite club of two starting pitchers from the same team to both win 20 games, both have an ERA under 3, and both have near 300 strikeouts

*randy johnson became the first person ever to record 4 straight years with at least 300 strikeouts

*the world series is only the third ever in which the home team won every game

*the yankees were dethroned...a dynasty was ended thus starting a new one with the diamondbacks

*the diamondbacks became the quickest expansion team to win the world championship by doing it in 4 years...4 years ago, in 1997 the marlins won the world series in only their fifth year in existance

*randy johnson became the first pitcher to win five games in one postseason

*including the postseason, curt schilling pitched over 300 innings...only 2 other men have ever done this.

*curt became one of the very few men to pitch 3 games in one world series

*games seven pitted two 20 game winners against each other(schilling and clemens) this was the 8th game seven in which this senerio has taken place

*we say goodbye to cal ripkin, scott brosius, paul o'neill, mark mcgwire and tony gwynn in the same season

*in cal's final allstar game he hit a homerun in the third inning

*Bill Mazeroski, Dave Winfield, and Kirby Puckett were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on August 5.

*contraction anyone? the first contraction since the 1800's

luis gonzalez after his game winning hit in game seven of the world series

champs:arizona diamond backs

co-mvps curt schilling and randy johnson