The 2007 ArmchairGM Fifty -- 31 through 40

#31: Peter King

Peter King is perhaps SI’s most famous and influential writers. His online columns “Monday Morning QB” and its extension “Tuesday Edition” generate about 3 million page views a week. Not to mention they generate thousands of dollars in sponsorship money for SI. His ability to connect with the typical baby-boomer fan has made him a favorite of many NFL Fans.

However, King’s biggest influence may not come from his articles, but from his work on the weekend before the Super Bowl when he sits in the room with the other NFL HOF voters. For the past ten years, Peter King has been the most vocal and influential voter on the HOF committee. King has been blamed for keeping Art Monk along with countless others from making it into the HOF. Often times it is his research and commentary that makes the deciding vote if a player is placed into immortality or, left in limbo for another twelve months.

#32: Pacman Jones

There are few players who make an impact off the field that we hear about. For Pac Man Jones, that impact is sadly for only bad deeds. Since being drafted by the Tennessee Titans, Jones has been questioned by police almost a dozen times and has been arrested five times. Of explicit note is an altercation from February, 2007, in Las Vegas, during the NBA's All-Star Weekend.

Pacman allegedly entered into a strip club with a trash bag filled with singles -- totally over $80,000. He threw the money into the air over the strippers ("making it rain"), and lost his temper when a dancer began taking some of the money without his permission. An enraged Jones grabbed the stripper by her hair and slammed her head into the stage. When a security guard stepped in to prevent Jones from causing further harm, Jones allegedly bit the guard in the leg.

Afterward, according to the club's owner, a member of Jones' entourage returned the the club with a gun. The gunman shot three people, paralyzing one. One of the other people hit by the gunfire was the security guard from the earlier events. (Jones maintains that he does not know the gunman.)

On top of that, Jones has allegedly been the subject of conversations between drug dealer Darryl Moore and Moore's colleagues.

Because of the melange of off-season trouble created by and surrounding Jones, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell took drastic action, suspending Jones for the entire 2007 season. Jones is the straw that broke the back of the NFL's off-field problems.

#33: Bill Simmons

He's jumped the shark.

He's no longer all that funny. He was once the embodiment of the everyman-as-sportswriter, but now he's sadly predictable; a horrid cliche, a self-caricature. Isiah Thomas doesn't like him, and Page 2 would be even more worthless without him.

But whenever anything happens in Boston, or about Boston, or somehow tangentially related to Boston, all eyes turn to the Sports Guy. Randy Moss? Sports Guy. Paul Pierce? Sports Guy. Roger Clemens? Sports Guy. Mitt Romney? Yeah, probably there too.

As representative, albeit unelected, of the frustrations and hope of the everyman sports fan, Bill Simmons is not just important, but probably the most important sportswriter out there. And remember, when the Fonz jumped the Shark, Happy Days was a great, great TV show. The next season, it was just "very, very good." Simmons is still one of the best -- and his impact even greater.

#34: Lance Armstrong

Floyd Landis made headlines. Lance Armstrong made a difference.

There are few people in the world of sports who, simply by making an appearance or speaking to the press, are guaranteed to cause a ripple throughout not only the sports world, but throughout society writ large. An advocate for increased cancer research, Armstrong hobnobs with stars and politicians as he raises money for his Foundation and its ubiquitous yellow bracelets. At a barbecue this month, Armstrong and the Foundation raised $1 million for its ongoing fight against cancer.

While many athletes have terrible off-field activities bogging them down, Armstrong is a harbinger for good. His continued effect on bringing social change has set the mark high for other athletes who wish to parlay their fame into being a citizen for the common good.

#35: John Amaechi

Okay, so maybe John Amaechi himself should not be all that important. On the court, he was a good-but-fungible player. But as a former-NBAer, he's become an exemplar for how overstated the sports world's "gay panic" is -- and a reminder of how bad it may yet be. In February, the former NBA journeyman told the world that he was gay. Since then, Amaechi says that 95% of the letters to him have been positive, and that he's heard from everyone on his college team.

But he's not yet heard from anyone from his days as a pro.

Amaechi's coming out party, on the hells of Tim Hardaway's outright intolerance, has transformed the former Nittany Lion into the de facto ambassador for gay sports starts everywhere -- in or out of the closet.

#36: Carlos Gomez

A retired baseball pitcher who threw sidearm, Gomez started a series at Baseball Think Factory and later The Hardball Times that was revolutionary in bringing the average fan into the area of mechanics.

In these segments, Gomez teaches the intrepid baseball fan about the scout-terms that the sabermetric brigade has tended to ignore, such as "arm-action", or "pushing the hips in", by showing the mechanics of pitchers at certain points in their career and comparing and contrasting them against each other. He further goes in and explains what the changes in the mechanics are and why they have the effects they do.

Among subjects of his articles are Mark Prior, Oliver Perez, Phillip Hughes, and Rich Harden.

#37: Steve Grimes

Steve Grimes is the Senior Director of Interactive services for the NBA, and while chances are you have never seen or heard of him before, you have used some of the products he is responsible for. Before the 2006-07 NBA season Grimes went to work with his staff to overall the NBA.com website. In doing that, he created a site that now generates about 2.8 million views a day.

His goal was to make the site as interactive as possible, by giving the fans access to what they want. Some of his ideas included partnering with Google to help provide up to date highlights and clips of games. He also created a partnership that allows fans to download and buy complete games a day after they have been played. Perhaps his biggest achievement was working with the AOL Fanhouse to create a large blogging network, where NBA fans can step out and voice their piece to the entire world.

Steve Grimes understands that technology is the future. His efforts are keeping the NBA at the forefront of technology, and thus keeping it relevant to a younger fan base.

#38: Roger Clemens

Every year, a baseball free agent receives an exorbitant amount of money from one of MLB's member teams. Rarely does news of that signing make the front page of the New York Times. And almost never does the signing occur a month or more into MLB's regular season.

In Roger Clemens' case, though, both oddities are an annual event.

With the Yankees struggling to keep quality pitchers healthy, a pro-rated $28 million salary for the Rocket seems sadly obvious. Arguably the greatest pitcher that ever lived, Clemens transforms the Yankees from a high-potential team that's treading water into a sleek machine that may be able to lap the competition.

Clemens' impact is seen wide and far. The Yankees went after Roger's friend and former teammate, Andy Pettitte, partially in hopes that their friendship would lure Clemens back to the Bronx. Potentially in fear of that outcome, the Red Sox broke the bank in their attempt to sign Daisuke Matsuzaka. And one has to wonder how Clemens' other suitors -- specifically, the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers (his home-state teams) -- acted and reacted as Clemens' 2007 plans became more and more clear.

And in six months, all these teams will be scrambling, again, to see what the Rocket does next year.

#39: Peyton Manning

Two great quarterbacks. The arguably better one was smashing records. The slightly lesser was winning championships. The latter became a cultural icon; the former, "the guy who couldn't win the big one".

Before February, Peyton Manning looked destined to become the Dan Marino to Tom Brady's Joe Montana. But with a Super Bowl title, that all changed.

Manning is once again the hallmark entry for why the NFL Draft is so compelling, with the #1 pick providing a team the chance at the once-in-a-lifetime superstar. Manning's resume, meanwhile, inches him closer to the moniker of "greatest of all time" -- a name reserved in football for guys like Jim Brown and Jerry Rice. His quest -- not the Colts', but specifically, Manning's quest -- for a second title will be the single-most important story line in the NFL this year.

#40: Don Imus

For almost 20 hours a day, WFAN was sports radio. For the other 4+ hours, it was Don Imus' satire-and-politics mudfest. Sports were, quite literally, a running joke on Imus' show, with the guy charged with announcing scores and highlights regularly made fun of.

So for "the I-Man" to make sports media news -- that's something.

When he called the Rutgers University women's basketball team an uncouth, uncalled-for name, he put women's basketball in the forefront of America's discussions. Female student athletes were reconsidered; the racial advances made by African-American women were in the spotlight. And Imus was not. Simply put Don Imus did more to bring women's basketball to the front of media attention, than any acomplishment achieved druing the NCAA tournament.

The Rutger's Women's team taught us two very important lessons through all of this. 1) how to lose with poise and dignity (they did lose the championship game) 2) there are still plenty of bariers that need to be brought down in the U.S.A. but when people have class, they can stand tall and walk through anything.