Buster Posey, Steph Curry and beyond

A franchise-record 107 wins. Edging the Dodgers in an NL West race in the season finale, then pushing them to five games in the Division Series, only to lose on Wilmer Flores’ checked swing that wasn’t. All for a team widely projected to finish third in their division. Two plays embody the Giants’ improbable season: Mike Tauchman’s leaping catch at the Dodger Stadium wall of Albert Pujols’ would-be walk-off homer, and Kevin Gausman’s game-winning, pinch-hit sacrifice fly in the 11th inning against Atlanta.

Buster Posey retires

After sitting out 2020 over COVID concerns, the Giants’ iconic catcher added to his legacy by earning multiple Comeback Player of the Year awards in what would be his final season playing baseball. Posey, at age 34, announced his retirement Nov. 4 to spend more time with family and give his body a break after a career in which he was Rookie of the Year in 2010, NL MVP in 2012, a seven-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion.

Stanford women win NCAA basketball title

The Stanford women’s basketball team won its first two national championships in the span of three years. The third would come 29 years later. At the helm for each was Tara VanDerveer, who earlier in the season passed Pat Summitt as the all-time winningest women’s coach. The Cardinal edged Arizona 54-53 for the championship on April 4. Haley Jones, a Santa Cruz native and Archbishop Mitty graduate, was named most outstanding player of the tournament.

‘Bring back Stanford’

After Shane Griffith won Stanford’s second-ever wrestling national title on March 20 in a match broadcast on ESPN, he pulled a Keep Stanford Wrestling shirt over his all-black singlet to chants of “Bring back Stanford!” Griffith became the national face of the movement to reverse the school’s decision to cut the program and 10 other teams after that season. Two months later, Stanford’s administration announced its decision to reinstate the sports.

Curry stakes his claim

That Stephen Curry is the greatest shooter in the history of the NBA is a notion not many would dispute. But the man himself resisted staking his claim until dethroning Ray Allen for most career 3-pointers all-time. “Now I feel comfortable saying that,” Curry said after passing Allen’s mark of 2,973 on Dec. 14 in an emotional moment that electrified Madison Square Garden. It capped a calendar year in which he won a scoring title for the 2020-21 season at 32 points per game and passed Wilt Chamberlain (17,783 points) as the franchise’s all-time leading scorer on April 12, when he exploded for 53 points. All this at age 33.

Return of the fan

Goodbye, cardboard cutouts. The stark, surreal and somewhat unsettling backdrop to sports would be tossed to the recycling bin and replaced by the real thing. Fans returned to a Bay Area sports venue for the first time on April 2, when 10,436 took in the A’s Opening Night game against the Houston Astros at the Coliseum, which was still hosting a vaccination clinic. As Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler wrote: “In the parking lot: Medicine for the body. Inside the ballpark: Medicine for the soul.” The A’s 8-1 loss would not dull the spirit.

Olympians make history

Stanford’s Katie Ledecky earned her fifth and sixth career individual gold medals in Tokyo, giving her more than any U.S. female athlete, and the most of any female swimmer, in Games history. The U.S. women’s water polo team, buoyed by Bay Area athletes, beat Spain for its third consecutive gold medal, earning Stanford’s Maggie Steffens (Danville) and Melissa Seidemann (Walnut Creek) the distinction of the first women to win three water polo golds. Steffens also set the Olympic record for career goals.

Drafting Trey Lance

Trey Lance has received more headlines than snaps in his rookie season after the 49ers drafted him with the third overall pick April 29, all but anointing him as the future of the franchise and setting the stage for a quarterback controversy, no matter how good of a sport Jimmy Garoppolo proved to be about it. The 49ers invested heavily in the dual-threat quarterback from North Dakota State, trading two future first-round picks and a third-rounder to move up in the draft. Head coach Kyle Shanahan stuck with Garoppolo as his starter, despite much clamor for his benching during a 2-4 start.

Santa Clara’s 2020 title … in 2021

After playing just seven regular-season games due to the WCC postponing its fall season, the 11th-seeded Broncos women’s soccer team won its first national championship in almost two decades, beating top-seeded Florida State in penalty kicks after a 1-1 draw on May 17. Kelsey Turnbow tied it for Santa Clara in the 84th minute, and Izzy D’Aquila made her shootout attempt to seal it at the bubble in Cary, N.C. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. It feels so surreal,” Turnbow said of the team’s first title since 2001.

Farewell, Bob Melvin

The last decade-plus in Oakland has seen many stars flash only to abruptly exit the A’s orbit, but one constant has remained: the guiding force of Bob Melvin. That era ended on Oct. 28, when on the manager’s 60th birthday he agreed to join the Padres on a three-year deal. In his 11th season with the A’s, Melvin became the franchise’s winningest manager, passing Tony La Russa’s mark of 798. Melvin departed Oakland with an 853-764 regular-season record, seven winning seasons and six playoff appearances — three ending in the Division Series, three in the wild-card round.

Not forgotten

• “Parallel paths” entered the Bay Area sports lexicon courtesy of A’s President Dave Kaval. That’s how he described the team’s search for a new ballpark site. It’s “Howard Terminal or bust” … or leave for Las Vegas. The future is uncertain entering 2022, but key votes are on the horizon.

• Running back Najee Harris made the next big leap in his football journey, from Antioch High School to Alabama to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The 24th overall pick broke Le’Veon Bell’s franchise rookie record for total yards.

• Jalen Lewis, at 16 years old, became the youngest basketball prospect to turn pro in the U.S. when he signed a contract with the new Overtime Elite professional league. He departed Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School for a two-year deal worth a reported $1.2 million to play in the Atlanta-based league.

• Three days after playing in Grand Canyon University’s first-ever NCAA Tournament game, Moreau Catholic-Hayward graduate Oscar Frayer died in a March 23 car crash on Interstate 5 near Lodi along with his sister, Andrea Moore, and Caley Bringmann.

• Sharks forward Patrick Marleau passed Gordie Howe for the NHL’s all-time record for games played, reaching 1,768 on April 19 in 3-2 shootout loss to the Golden Knights.

• Cal alum Collin Morikawa became the second golfer since 1926 to win two majors in eight or fewer starts when he seized the British Open championship July 18.

• Stanford’s football team stunned No. 3 Oregon in a 31-24 come-from-behind overtime victory in front of 31,610 spectators at Stanford Stadium — a bright spot amid a bleak 3-9 season.

• Serra’s Patrick Walsh and De La Salle’s Justin Alumbaugh engineered an effort to salvage a 2020 football season that otherwise might have been lost to the pandemic. They co-founded the Golden State HS Football Coaches Community, which pressed Gov. Gavin Newsom and state health officials to allow for high school sports seasons in the spring as the pandemic eased.

• Ali Kershner, Stanford women’s basketball’s associate sports performance coach, highlighted gross inequities at the NCAA Tournament in a viral social media post comparing the extensive training equipment at the men’s bubble to the bare-bones gear at the women’s.

• Earthquakes forward Chris Wondolowski announced his retirement Nov. 7, ending a career in which he surpassed Landon Donovan for most goals in Major League Soccer history with 171.

Jon Schultz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s deputy sports editor. Email: jon.schultz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JonSchultzSF