Thursday's Things

(every Thursday at OOB, I'll rant in list fashion...)

Things In Sports That Make Me Want To Plunge Knitting Needles Into My Eyes

1. The baseball Wild Card. Yes, I know it saved the Tigers' rear ends last season, and it was providing them (until this week) with their only legitimate postseason hope this season, too. But how much more exciting would the Yankees' relentless pursuit of the Red Sox be if the loser of that division would be left out of the October tournament? Instead, it's merely something to be amused about -- "Oh, would you look at those Yankees?" -- rather than creating real, stomach-churning drama for the beleaguered Red Sox fans. This should be one of the biggest baseball stories in years. But the Wild Card has emasculated it. Now, the NL Central, on the other hand ... now THAT'S a real race. The loser of that division ain't getting in -- as they shouldn't.

2. The NHL schedule. Yes, this isn't a new rant from me. And thank God that it looks like it will change next season. But at least it's aptly named: Unbalanced Schedule. Whomever signed off on it -- are you listening, Gary Bettman? -- was certainly temporarily mentally unbalanced. This isn't the NFL, whose 16-game season mandates that you can't play everyone every season. The NHL has 82 freaking games and 30 freaking teams, yet you'll be lucky to see the Montreal Canadiens or Toronto Maple Leafs in Detroit more often than a presidential election. But you'll be force-fed the Columbus Blue Jackets until you're ready to puke pucks. Grrrrr!!

3. The last two minutes of a close NBA game. Mainly because it takes approximately 20 minutes to PLAY the last two minutes of a close NBA game. The 100-second long timeouts; the endless substitutions; the sometimes refusal of the refs to hand the g**damn ball to the player for the inbounds pass for whatever reason; and my favorite: Team A has called a 100-second long timeout (it's true; NBA timeouts are 100 seconds long; and 20-second timeouts are nearly that long, too, btw) and is ready to inbounds. Then Team B, on defense, "doesn't like what it sees" and calls another timeout. Then Team A might have a hard time throwing the ball in, and calls a timeout. Meanwhile, I'm doing a slow burn -- especially if I'm channel surfing and hoping to see how the game actually ends before the movie that started an hour ago on the other channel finishes!

4. The two-minute warning in pro football. I almost always prefer any pro version to college sports, but I must admit that I find it very liberating to watch a college football game, knowing that there WON'T be a two-minute warning. Is it because the commercial breaks during such warnings are roughly 25-minutes long (or at least seem to be)? Is it because the NFL already has too many gosh darn TV timeouts as it is? Or is it because they occur regardless of score? Maybe I could abide the two-minute warning if it came with a rider that says, "UNLESS the score is more than a two-TD spread." Do we really need a stoppage of the clock when the Bears are beating the Browns 41-10? Or maybe I could live with it if they just did it at the end of games, instead of also at halftime. Frankly, the notion that pro teams need to be "warned" that there are just two minutes remaining in the half or game to the tune of stopping the clock for five minutes of TV commercials is unacceptable!

5. Pitchers who throw to first base incessantly. Mother of God, there should be a rule! No more than two tosses to first base during any given at-bat. And what's with this new thing I see Zach Miner and Fernando Rodney do? The "fake to first base" move, which is nothing more than stepping off the mound and holding the ball near the ear. I love baseball, and I love that it has no clock. But half the time, the runners on base aren't going anywhere, anyway. Give me a pitcher who concentrates on the hitter any day over the worry wart who's afraid of a dude with five career stolen bases in six years.

6. "D-fence." You know what this is. Some clown at the football game with a large "D" shoved together with what's supposed to be a mini picket fence. "LOOK -- I spelled 'defense'!" That was creative and clever back in 1982. How about a large poster of former NFL running back Jim Kiick and a foam posterior? You just spelled "Kick Ass!" Yeah!

OK, that's all for this week. Talk amongst yourselves. And remember -- they're just things.