Happy Halloween everyone! Doesn’t it seem like Halloween decorations have had around a twofold increase during this decade? I don’t mean your typical skeleton-on-the-door, pumpkin-on-the-porch decorations. I’m talking about the people who have full-fledged scenes from Night of the Living Dead in their front yard, and more lights than the average person has out during the Christmas season. Isn’t this a new thing? It seems like four houses per block nowadays has insane amounts of Halloween décor. If you’re going to have a $700 electric bill in December, might as well get used to it and have one in October too. Anyways, mixed in tonight with Slutty (Noun) costumes will be a sprinkling here and there of sports-themed outfits. In you are in Philadelphia, chances are you’ll see your fair share of Charlie Manuels. Over the past fifteen years, some sports costumes became so big that they transcended the regional bias and became mainstream Halloween hits. The Top 7 looks at these for this week. I hope that you all get some Swedish fish today.

7. Michael Phelps

This one is more of a pre-emptive strike, but there were even people dressed up like Phelps four years ago. This year, it’s going to be like after Stripe jumped into the swimming pool in Gremlins. Expect most of the people to be that one guy who loves to show off his body…it will probably be a guy in his early 20s who just finished playing college sports. In addition, you can plan on said guy re-living the fact that he played college sports for the next 70 years. Speaking of pre-emptive strikes, the overall non-sports related top costume this year will undoubtedly be Sarah Palin or a Palin/McCain team. Most likely, there will be one per five costumes.



6. Lance Armstrong

Take the Michael Phelps costume. Replace swimming trunks with biker pants and put on a biker shirt. Wear a helmet and grab a bike. You are now the older version of Phelps, whose longer title is “the biggest star in sports, not including baseball, basketball, football, or golf.”



5. Hickory Huskers

A poor man’s version of #2 on the list. It’s not as popular, but who doesn’t like Hickory and who wouldn’t cheer for Hickory if several of them showed up at a party or a bar? The movie Hoosiers also features Shooter, who many people dress up as every other day of the year besides Halloween—the insanely drunk obnoxious guy who wanders onto places where he shouldn’t be.

4. Steve Bartman

The costume is so simple—headphones, Cub hat, teal turtleneck, glasses, black shirt, and jacket—but it is unmistakable who you are if you simply throw on those few items. Perhaps it is the Midwest bias kicking in, but were there any people dressing up like Jeffrey Maier back in 1996? What was Maier wearing? How could one pull off a Jeffrey Maier costume? If you think about it, Tony Tarasco and Moises Alou had very similar reactions after both of those plays.

3. Johnny Damon

At one particular party in Chicago in 2004, there were three Damon costumes. Interestingly enough, two were female and one was male. This was at a party hundreds of miles from Boston. It was great foreshadowing for the 2000% increase in Boston Red Sox hats seen in random places between the 2004/2005 transitional period. In 2008, the clean-shaven Yankee version of Damon probably won’t have too many takers. In ’04 Damon would actually be kind of funny. It’s the costume equivalent of wearing a completely random vintage jersey (like a Dave Henderson A’s jersey). For a non-sports idea, dressing up like John Kerry this year would be entertaining.

2. Daniel LaRusso and crew

It doesn’t matter how many times that it’s been done. If you and several friends dress up in Cobra Kai gear, you are going to be very popular folks all night. The best part about going with a Karate Kid theme is that there are so many choices. Do you have a Miagi and several Cobra Kais and fight it out all night? Who gets to play the role of Johnny? You could go an entirely different route and have Daniel LaRusso in the shower. Karate Kid ideas simply never run out.

1. OJ

It’s not just the OJ costume with the bloody knife and glove and socks with a skimask, but the entire OJ saga produced many spin-off costumes: Lance Ito, Kato Kaelin, or any of the lawyers. More than likely you’re not going to see any spin-off costumes from OJ’s latest trial, but it may not be a bad year to sprinkle a little OJ DNA on a bloody glove and plant it behind your friend’s house.

Jason Major is the Top 7 writer and enjoys taking warm baths while listening to Dusty Rhodes' theme song.