Even the most casual student of history knows that some years are more significant than others.That some years stand out. You could’ve spent every history class of your life drawing pirate faces on all the presidents and making folded-paper fortune tellers and still absorbed enough general info to associate certain years with certain major historic events.

How about 1776? The birth of revolution. Or 1066? The Norman Invasion. Think about 1492? The Age of Discovery. And 1929? The Stock Market Crash. Finally, 1955? The year Marty McFly brought his parents together at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance.

Most years are insignificant and have little impact in the course of human events. But some are unforgettable. And 2010 is such a year. Future generations will long remember how important this year was. As will we who lived it.  

Decades from now, when I’m 100 years old making pillow talk with two Brazilian lingerie models (that’s how I always picture my golden years) and they ask what this year was like, I know what I’ll tell them. “Adriana, Gisele,” I’ll tell them, “2010 was a great year. A magical, wonderful year. A time when the streets were paved with gold and dreams came true. Because that was the Year of the Sports Sex Scandal.”  

These past 12 months really have been an amazing time to be alive. What 1969 was for people who dream of traveling to the stars, 2010 was for those of us who love athletes’ NC-17 hijinks. A time when anything seemed possible. And it was.

Sure, other years have had their moments of sexual shenanigans in sports. The '70s gave us the infamous wife swap of Yankee teammates Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson. In the '80s we got Wade Boggs and Margo Adams. And in the '90s we saw Magic Johnson touch the lives of more LA women than the inventor of the collagen lip.

So while Baby New Year 2010 didn’t exactly invent the Ballplayer Sex Scandal, he certainly lettered in it. Even those of us who write for smutty sports websites for a living found ourselves being shocked by the relentless, almost daily, sexual antics. It got to the point where you woke up every morning and searched the web for the latest embarrassing, "NSFW" buffoonery before you checked scores, stats or fantasy results. And you were rarely disappointed.

Every week seemed to bring another guy cheating on his wife, texting something he shouldn’t be texting, making babies he ought not be making, or exposing parts of himself best left under wraps. So in tribute to this epic year in misbehavior ... as an Olde Wang Syne if you will ... I present a countdown of the best Sports Sex Scandals of 2010:

Brandon Spikes: In some other year, a professional athlete having intimate moments in the privacy of his bedroom in front of a web cam connected to millions of Chat Roulette subscribers would be a huge story. But in 2010, the story is the only part of this that wasn’t huge. Spikes is a young guy. He’s single. He did this while he was in college. There are no victims in this, only willing participants. The only lesson to take from this is something I’d already assumed: that the middle linebacker of the Florida Gators scores a much, much better class of women than a 'C' student from Bridgewater State College. And I speak from experience.

Antonio Cromartie: In one of the top 10 TV moments of the year, Cromartie was asked on HBO’s “Hard Knocks: The New York Jets” to name his children. Seeing as he has somewhere around eight kids with 12 different women in 20 different states, Cro wasn’t up to the task. In fact, to me it was eerily reminiscent of listening to my fourth grader recite the provinces of Canada for his geography test. Suffice to say that, based on his number of 3-year-olds and depending on how you look at it, Antonio “The Father of Our Country” Cromartie had a very good year with the ladies in 2007.

Aussie Rules Football: I don’t know much about Australia other than what I’ve learned from the steak house at the mall. For sure, I don’t know what their football is all about. But I did learn this year that when it comes to scandal, they go big or they go home. It seems some 19-year-old Aussie groupie named Kim Duthie claimed to have slept with half the league. Then she started to release the pictures of the players in question to prove it. At least one of the players in the photos claimed they were taken by a teammate, as if somehow that was supposed to mitigate things. Duthie is also alleged to have shaken the players down for money to keep quiet about things, no one is sure. What we are sure about it the commissioner of Aussie football doesn’t have the same personal conduct policy Roger Goodell has.

Ben Roethlisberger: While some NFL quarterbacks’ offseason activities include golf, fishing or competing in the Oreo Double Stuff Racing League, Roethlisberger prefers exposing himself to drunken coeds in bars. This year we learned just how much time he puts into his hobby, and let’s just say that the only thing that spends more time out of the pocket than Big Ben is Li’l Ben.

Dennis Rodman: A few weeks back, Rodman called a Florida radio show to talk basketball. He wanted to talk Miami, but the chick he was in bed with at the time was only interested in the Heat as apparently The Worm (ahem) was getting what in the Clinton years we used to call “The Oval Orifice” live on the air. Every WEEI listener who heard the audio the next day was just relieved it wasn’t Frank from Gloucester.

Brett Favre: This year we found out that Brett Favre — when he’s not Mississippi Riverboat Gambling, playin’ football just for the love of the game, bein’ a warrior and just goin’ out there tryin’ to make plays — liked to unwind by texting cell phone pictures of his Little Gunslinger to unwilling female co-workers while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment. At least now we know why he prefers the Relaxed Fit (TM) Wranglers.

Tiger Woods: There are falls from grace, and then there’s this. This year Tiger’s Q-rating took a dive that makes those high altitude/low opening parachute jumps the Navy Seals do look like a climb down the pool ladder. At the start of the year, all we knew was that Woods was probably buttering his sexual toast on both sides. By spring, he was making humiliatingly, staged insincere apologies on national TV. And around that time we got treated to the text messages his porn “star” (double ahem) honey Joslyn James had so lovingly saved. Then we were left to decide which line Tiger actually wrote himself: The Apologypalooza one that said “Character and decency are what really count,” or the text that said “I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank and slap you"?  

Rex Ryan: Is being attracted to your wife of 23 years so wrong? Or thinking she has pretty feet? Or making little videotapes of her admiring her tootsies and posting them for the perverse, depraved pleasure of every sicko wackjob in the world with an Internet connection? No, no and no. This is America. More power to you. But now let’s say you happen to be the loudest, most self-promoting and egomaniacal gasbag coach in the National Football League and you do it. Is it funny? You’re damned right it’s funny. Hysterically funny. And even in a year filled with hilarious sexual hijinks, you get the top spot.

So, to all the guys who made the list and gave us a year filled with historically entertaining moments that embarrassed us all, thank you. And to the ones who didn’t, 2011 is only days away. Let’s get crackin’.