My Top 100, No. 80: "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky

There's a great tradition of mailbag columns in modern sportswriting. It's something we can do now that email and Twitter make it easier for readers to get in touch with sportswriters, and the unlimited space of the internet makes it easier for them to respond.

I'd like to share with you what I believe is the greatest mailbag answer in the history of sportswriting.

At some point in 2013, someone wrote into the Grantland NFL Podcast (which episode I'll never know, but I remember it was 2013 because the answer was so good I remember exactly where I was when I heard it) and asked the following question: "If humanity had to play one football game against aliens for the survival of the species, what video would you play before the game?" (UPDATE: HERE IT IS! Fast-forward to about the 42-minute mark.)

There had been a running joke on the podcast about certain players being suited to represent humanity in such a game (Calvin Johnson, J.J. Watt, and so on), but Robert Mays grabbed the microphone and launched immediately into the perfect answer.

And again, I wish I could find the episode, or that it had been transcribed somewhere. But the gist of it was that this video would be several minutes long, and trace the history of the world, from shots of the Grand Canyon and the Himalayas to the Serengeti, and then to humankind's greatest triumphs: the Wright Brothers' flight; the Moon Landing--that sort of thing. And it would just be a near-exhaustive visual ode to the beauty of the planet and the wherewithal of the human race. 

And the background music for this video would be "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky.

Not only would this be the backdrop to the greatest pump-up video the world has ever known, but it's also been on my Go to Sleep playlist for years, because it starts with a 3/4 guitar melody that just rocks you gently to sleep, and then builds on it, brick by brick, until you're at the top of the mountain, then it gently leads you back down. 

It is the only song I'm aware of that will tuck you in at night and then stand by you while you go off to save the world.