The Best Animated Sports GIFs Of 2010, Intermission: Invisible Things Are Everywhere

In 2010, the sporting world was plagued by invisible daemons, obstacles, and mere troublemakers. These five GIFs serve as evidence.

(Click image to view. Via 30fps)

Here we see Spain’s Fernando Torres just trying to do his job as a professional footy player when he’s interrupted by an invisible man who slaps him about the face. He deserved to be slapped. That’s what you get for diving!

He tried to dunk, but to no JaVale

The Wizards’ JaVale McGee is really tall, which of course means that he’s really good at basketball. I don’t know why he was unable to leap over his seven-foot-tall defender. It’s possible that he was dragged to the ground by his invisible sidekick, Shot Selection.

Please note the graphic, which urges, “YOU MAKE THE CALL.” From my humble perspective, television, he did not score a basket! Where shall I file this report?

Pat Fitzgerald is driving an invisible car through a slalom

(Click image to view. Via 30fps, suggested by our own Joe Kutsinis)

No, he is definitely not calling signals, because “drive a car” is against football rules. Northwestern coach Mr. Fitzgerald was apparently given driving lessons by a three-year-old in a Fisher-Price car who believes that the steering wheel is an implement which governs velocity and not navigation. Why on Earth would that be the case? Use some common sense, babies!

“Pierson” me this “Riddle” me this!

(thanks to our own Jason Kirk and Brent Brookhouse)

This is from UFC 124 on Dec. 11. Sean Pierson does his best “racist character from Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” impression by magically creating an avatar of himself that is six inches in front of where he actually is. Matt Riddle, bless his heart, flails away at Pearson’s invisible self, and in doing so looks more like a cross-country skier than anything else.

(thanks to our own Jeff Sullivan)

Jack Wilson plays for the Mariners, whose SB Nation blog, Lookout Landing, is a hotbed of baseball GIFfery. I happened to be watching as this unfolded, and in as much fairness as I could muster, I tried to come up with reasons why he was doing whatever he was doing here.

Maybe it’s like pitching, in that you risk injury if you don’t complete your throwing motion? Well, I can’t think of a situation in which flailing around like a half-assing ballerina would decrease your risk of injury. Maybe he really thought he had the ball in his hand? Knowing whether or not you are currently holding a baseball is one of baseball’s five tools, and he surely would have had to master it to reach the major league level. Or maybe he was trying to fake the runner on 0th base to make sure he didn’t advance to first? Sold!