Bad Sports

Now I don’t claim to be an expert on sports but my dad is, so I’m sure he’ll have opinions on what I’m about to say: I disagree with how many sports are played.

Let’s start with football. For some reason at the end of the game, when one team is up and has the ball and there are just a couple of minutes left, that team is allowed to “take a knee.” This makes no sense. “Hurray! We’re winning! Let’s stop playing so the other team doesn’t have a chance to score.” When this happens, I say, “Oh, great. That team is going to sit on their knees, aren’t they?” If I were running things, I would say they need to PLAY THE GAME until the time runs out.

I often yell, “Just play the game!” during basketball too. At the end of this sport, they’re fouling each other all over the place—on purpose! And this is allowed. In fact, it’s all part of the strategy. So the last few minutes everybody’s just shoving each other and sending players to the foul line. Not only does it seem unfair, it makes for bad television.

When I told Frank I wanted to write about all the sports that I disagree with, he asked, “How do you feel about walking in baseball?”

“I don’t think I like that either!” I said. It’s like a head start. Wouldn’t the batter rather get to first base the regular way, by hitting the ball and running? I mean, who wants to watch someone miss the ball four times and then casually walk over to first base? (Even if it’s more like a jog; it’s still lame.)

My final complaint is about an event that doesn’t really even qualify as a sport: eating contests. To me, an eating contest should be full of people who LIKE TO EAT. And the winner should be determined by who can eat the most food in the way that God intended us to eat food. It would also make a lot more sense if it were filled with fat people (again, because it would show that they enjoy eating). But not only are these events usually won by 90-pound guys who have probably never eaten a Hungry Man TV Dinner, they don’t eat the food in a natural way. When they eat hot dogs, for instance, they dip them in water. Ew. They can’t be enjoying the taste of a soggy hot dog and bun. I want to see an eating contest where the people are hungry and they eat till they’re full. Is that too much to ask?

I don’t really know anything about any other sports which is probably good. But feel free to send me some information about other ones (hockey, lacrosse, ping pong) and I’m sure I could take issue with those too.