While every year has its own host of surprises, there are always those stories that simply fit the trend. Sure, it can get repetitive, but if we don’t look back at history aren’t we only doomed to repeat it? Every year has its fair share of stories that fell into this category, and 2008 was no different.

Our list of things we already knew this year includes the BCS’ continued suckiness (Texas-Oklahoma), how teamwork wins championships (KG, Pierce and Ray-Ray), and the #1 rule for carrying a handgun into a nightclub – don’t use your sweatpants as a holster. (Come on, Plax. Really? Sweatpants?)

Don’t miss the other two parts of our 2008 Year-End Sports Review: “What We Learnedâ€� and “What We Think Might Happen.â€�

Brett Favre can’t make up his mind.

The biggest story of the summer was all the drama surrounding Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers. This saga has been covered to death, but there’s one detail that never seemed to get that much play. At the start, it looked like the Packers were making a bad decision by moving on so quickly even when Favre decided he wanted to return. But when the news broke about Favre’s near-unretirement in March, the Packers stance became much more clear. They were ready to take him back after the owners’ meetings, but he called it off at the last minute. At that point, the Packer brass was understandably finished with Brett Favre, much to the chagrin of a good portion of the Packer faithful. – John Paulsen

The Chicago Cubs’ title drought is not a fans-only phenomenon.

The 2008 Cubs were easily the best team the franchise has assembled in decades, but they still couldn’t win a single game in the playoffs, and the reason is simple: the pressure finally got to them. Sure, they said the right things to the press about how they didn’t care about what had happened in the past, but don’t believe a word of it; there wasn’t a single person in that dugout that wasn’t fantasizing about being part of the team that finally, mercifully, ended the longest title drought in sports history. Once ESPN picked them to win it all, however, they were doomed. Ryan Dempster walked seven batters in Game 1, which matched his total for the month of September. The entire infield, including the sure-handed Derrek Lee, committed errors in Game 2. Alfonso Soriano went 1-14 with four strikeouts in the leadoff spot, while the team as a whole drew six walks and struck out 24 times. The team with so much balance in the regular season suddenly became the most one-dimensional team in baseball; take Game 1 from them, then sit back and watch them choke. And now that this group has lost six straight playoff games (the team has lost nine straight dating back to 2003), it isn’t about to get any easier. Get a helmet, Cubs fans. – David Medsker

If you’re going to wear sweatpants to a nightclub, leave the gun at home.

If winning a Super Bowl is the pinnacle of an NFL player’s career, than shooting yourself with your own gun in a nightclub has to be rock bottom. Case in point: Plaxico Antonio Burress. Just 10 months after helping the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg while at a nightclub. Apparently the (unregistered) gun was slipping down his leg and when he tried to grab it to keep it from falling, the lucky bastard wound up pulling the trigger and shooting himself. And that wasn’t the worst of it because as Plaxico found out, New York has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. He was arrested, but posted bail of $100,000 and is scheduled to return to court on March 31, 2009. If convicted of carrying a weapon without a license, he faces up to three and a half years in jail. He shouldn’t expect special treatment, either. The mayor of New York wants to be sure that Burress is prosecuted just like any other resident of NYC. The Giants, meanwhile, placed him on their reserve/non-football injury list and effectively ended his season. While “Plax� definitely deserves “Boner of the Week� consideration for his stupidity, what’s sad is that in the wake of Washington Redskins’ safety Sean Taylor’s death, most NFL players feel the need to arm themselves when they go out. Maybe players can learn from not only Taylor’s death, but also Burress’s accident so further incidents can be avoided. – Anthony Stalter

The guys at Asylum.com have done everybody a wonderful service and have compiled a photo gallery dedicated to the wonderful world of women’s beach volleyball.

Case in point: NBCOlympics.com’s feature on the hand signals of beach volleyball. Despite being titled “Cracking the Code,” the article offers no actual information on the meanings of the various beach volleyball signals, instead featuring photo after zoomed-in photo of the shapely derrieres of the female volleyball players. Of course, it’s not all NBC’s fault. Part of the blame lies on the photographers who snap these professional sporting events in the first place.

As occasional smut-peddlers, we felt at liberty to collect some of the most egregious examples of beach volleyball porn in one gallery, without even attempting to relate it to anything newsworthy. This way you can enjoy your gratuitous semi-nudity the honest way.

On a serious note, man those women can play some ball. I couldn’t imagine being on the other side of a net when one of these fine ladies smokes a ball at my clavicle. I would probably need a change of underwear.

A buddy and I went to the AVP Huntington Beach Open this past weekend. I wanted to catch one of Kerri Walsh and Misty May’s matches, but we arrived about an hour too late. We walked around the tournament grounds watching the action on the various side courts. We settled in to watch a match that featured Angela Knopf and Saralyn Smith against Jenelle Koester and Sarah Straton. Why did we decide that particular match? I’m not certain, but I think it might have been Jenelle Koester…

That’s her on the right. I could say that it was her terrifc serves, clutch digs or powerful spikes, but I’d be lying. As I watched the match, I started to wonder – how much of beach volleyball’s success is based on sex? The sport really came to the forefront during the 2004 Olympics in Sydney, when May and Walsh (and all of the other competitors) showed off their toned, athletic bodies in tiny bikinis. If you remember, it was pretty amazing how popular the sport became as it was introduced to an international audience. Everyone was talking about it. Moreover, everyone was watching it, and the unbeatable Misty May and Kerri Walsh became household names. Still at the Koester match, I looked around the court, trying to figure out what percentage of attendees were there for the volleyball and what percentage were there for the view. I noticed a couple of male “photographers” taking pictures of Koester. No press passes, just big cameras with long lenses. It’s clear that a large percentage of beach volleyball fans are there for the eye candy. And I’m not just talking about women. There were a lot of female fans clustered around the men’s matches as well.

From a pure sports standpoint, indoor volleyball is more entertaining to watch. Due to the hard surface, the athletes are able to move more quickly and jump higher, which results in longer rallies and harder spikes. My wife is a former volleyball player and she doesn’t like to play on the beach because it’s hard on the ankles and it’s difficult to run and jump. For those reasons, she believes that beach volleyball players are in better shape when compared to their indoor counterparts. And given what I saw at the tourney, it’s hard to disagree.

So how aware are the players of the role that sex plays in their sport? They don’t seem to have a problem playing in bikinis, so they probably understand that it’s part of the game. Is Koester aware that 70% of the fans in attendance are staring at her amazing body? Does she like it? Does she even care?

It would be interesting to hear the answers to these questions, but I get the sense that sex is the dirty little secret around the AVP. Few will address it directly, but everyone knows it’s there and that it’s necessary for the sport to survive. After all, if all the girls started to wear loose-fitting jogging shorts and all the guys wore t-shirts, how much would attendance suffer?

Oh, by the way, the match went three sets, but Koester and Straton ultimately lost, 17-15 in the final set. But I still think she’s a winner.

Here’s a gratuitous video of these beach volleyball players in action. Enjoy.

Photos courtesy of Flickr.