Whilst browsing the channels of my television device recently, I happened across an event so rare, so uncommon, so incredibely difficult to find, so thought to be extinct, so thought to be dead, so thought to be gone completely from the face of the Earth for the remainder of human history that I stopped my surfing and gawked.
I had seen a ghostly visage of a sport once glorious: hockey.
Yes, amazingly, they still play it, and the finals are even televised!
I happened to watch during a power play, and even though no goals were scored, dang was it fun to watch. I began to question my hockey torpor, and wondered if perhaps my antipathy sprung from an inability to find hockey, rather than an inability to watch it and enjoy it. Then, reality struck back, and the power play was over. Hockey returned to its relatively dim, moridbund existance as a second class TV sport.
If it was all power plays, all game long, people would enjoy it much more. Much, much more. And this led me to thinking... It would be much more interesting to watch certain sports with one team perennially down a man. Or, in the case of soccer, where each teams plays about 13,456 people on the field at the same time, a team should be down *two* men. Now of course this would have to be alternated, with one team getting five minutes or something and then the other team getting the equivalent. I think this would be fantastic. This is up there with making all the girls throw underhanded in the field in college softball. That would make things far more interesting on the throw to first. (Though softball would pretty much be boring no matter what. When nearly every at-bat is a K, you get bored quickly. In real baseball, Ks are exhilarating because they aren't so simple to obtain and copious in plentitude)
Of course I doubt it would be much fun to play these sports then (at least for the players used to a certain way), but it would increase their marketability a gazillion-fold.
Steve Kerr is taking over as the Suns GM, which I find terribly disheartening, but indicative of a general trend. This is a rotten day for NBA fans because now they will have one less commentator who can actually commentate reasonably well. They were few and far in between. Now they are fewer and there is no in between. As we all know, the NFL has only one good commentating crew, and that bunch hasn't even commented on a single game yet (Tirico, Jaws and Kornheiser). The MLB has... Rick Sutcliffe. And he pretty much nullifies any good commentating crew even if there were such a thing in baseball. (If it weren't for Joe Morgan's Pujols man-crush and Yankee-hatred, he would actually be a decent commentator. Well. Maybe). Regardless, the sports realm has very few good commentators. Why?
BECAUSE THE GOOD ONES LEAVE TO BE GENERAL MANAGERS! And this is true. The guys who are smart enough to commentate well get better jobs, period. I mean there is also the inevitable and rampant "stupidifying factor" (networks purposefully use commentators who deliver no insight because the average viewer can handle absolutely zero insight), but for the most part, the good commentators simply go elswhere. Rare examples like Jay Bilas and Steve Kerr become all the more uncommon as their evolving breed continue to leave the nonsensical, unsatisfying world of analysing for a network behind, to take the nonsensical, unsatisfying--but better paying--world of analysing for a team who then signs the player you analysed and deemed worthwhile.
Come back Steve Kerr. We miss you.
Not that this has to do with sports, (its only racing, which requires zero athletic ability) but Danica Patrick is a whining baby crossed with a spoiled brat. She can't race with the best of them, so she blows off into hissy-fits and temper tantrums and expects people to still respect her. Uh, why should we give a crap about her anymore? There have been women before in the Indy racing series; she isn't the first and won't be the last. She was supposed to be different because she was supposed to win, and now that she has proven entirely unable to do that, she has degenerated into an eight-year old and taken advantage of the fact that she is a female. If she had been a dude, she wouldnt have gotten away with pushing (even if it was a pathetic semi-push) Dan Wheldon after their race a few days ago, and for that matter, if she were a dude she wouldn't have because she probably wouldn't have this sense of entitlement that comes from nothing other than the massive media attention she has recieved. Dan Wheldon was very professional in reacting to her babyish shove in an interview on PTI, (I recommend getting the podcast for June 5th, the interview was worth it), yet didn't back down from the fact that not only was she throwing a tantrum simply because she lost, but that she was unproffesional and appeared spoiled. The video of her stomping her foot last year after losing a race was hilarious, but it also underscored the fact that she appears to think she deserves to win and that it is always someone else's fault when she doesn't. (Though I guess from a certain perspective that's true. Why aren't those dozens of drivers getting out of her way?)
In other non-sports news (golf), I am now a big fan of Annika Sorenstam. Michelle Wie, who exibits many of the same qualities as Danica Patrick--except it is more her parents fault than her own, most likely--got shot down by Annika the other day, who claimed it was disrespectful and lacking in class to retire from a tournamnet claiming a wrist injury--when she was two bogeys away from being banned from the LPGA tour for the rest of the year--and then begin swinging again two days later. I admit I don't know much about golf, but I know plenty about injuries, and you don't heal a wrist by using it a lot. And besides, if you do heal a wrist in such a counter-intuitive fashion, she should never have withdrawn from the tournament in the first place!
Due to my sesquipedalian nature, I find it imperative to inform the reader that complex and operose tasks generaly necessitate the utilization of cerebral elbow-grease, while mundane and moribund tasks generally require merely elbow-grease.
Did that paragraph have a point? No. But they never do, because this has been the
~The Sports Maunderer~
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3 comments:
"this has been the...."
so the sports maunderer has taken to tacky dramatics? and yet, somehow, I suspect, yes, that the sports maunderer was trying to be cute. and I'll be darned if he isn't just that!
Pujols man-crush. oh, I will laugh for days. joe morgan in two and half words.
"Or, in the case of soccer, where each teams plays about 13,456 people on the field at the same time, a team should be down *two* men."
Really? 13456 people on the field at a time?
Try 22 --that's 11 from each team.
Which is the same as American Football.
But there's more!
You can have "power plays" in soccer...but they don't call them that. It's pretty rare, though, because you have to get a red card and have your player thrown out of the game (granted, it's hard to do, but if it happens, then you don't get to replace the player)[as well, some games have an absurd number of red cards, like six or so, which can make things terribly interesting].
You need to watch more soccer. It's the world's greatest sport...next to wom...er...men...wait, tennis is just about always horrible.
Dude, football is entirely different. In football, about sixe of the people on each team act as one unit (offensive and defensive lines) so you don't get the nasty, 0-0 scores you always find in soccer.
Anyway, men's tennis is dead to me now. I hate clay, and I hate Nadal.
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