No way. Soccer players doing that and kissing the badge… I love that.
The assumption that instant replay will solve any and all questionable calls. In reality about 90% of the time it’s still a judgement call even with different angles, and the time watching replays often kills momentum.
Microanalyzing athelete’s postgame comments. They’re incredibly tired guys who aren’t exactly known for great speaking abilities, but they’re treated as if they’re doing speeches on Iraq.
Sports players, especially baseball players, are the most supersitious people ever. The no-hitter-in-progress jinx is probably the worst offense in my opinion. Just play the game and stop worrying about it!
My dislike is driven more by basketball players. It’s done in such a way that the pulling of the jersey is theoretically showing off the team that won, but really it only serves to highlight the individual.
The University of Michigan student section doing the “you suck” cheer every time the opposition fails on a third down conversion. Also standing for the entire freaking game. I thought sitting in the student section with my son would be fun. Standing the entire game was not, especially after walking a stinking mile to the stadium.
The God Bless America 7th inning stretch. Time to end it, it disrupts the flow of the game too much.
Hockey arenas who think you must have blaring music every second that the puck is not in play.
Student sections in college basketball arenas that have Gestapo rules for having to wear the correct t shirt, standing the entire game, and not being allowed to miss games. Yes, Izzone, I’m talking to you!
That’s one of the few that I thought actually had some basis behind it – if you’re pitcher is in a groove, why take the chance of getting him nervous or too tense by thinking about his no-hitter? Doesn’t make much sense for him to face awkward silence once he’s realized he’s got a no-hitter going, but it’s reasonable to not bring it up if he’s not thinking about it.
Oh, bollocks.
I bet you instant replay in baseball would take less than half the time that the traditional manager’s rant after any iffy call does.
The annoying “train whistle” for home team goals at hockey rinks. Believe me, it never used to be this way. What other sport sounds a 100 dB horn with every score?
Funny, I never hear this at the Islander games I attend…
Yeah, well The Islanders are playing after all…
…but I thought I would ask. In the 1970’s basketball backboards were made of glass-and everytime sombody shot real hard, the backboards would shatter. Seems like it never happens today!
I don’t think anyone herald it as a godsend, as least not since the NFL has illustrated as much. And I wouldn’t say (WRT baseball) that it’s still 90% judgment. Still judgment, no doubt, but replays take a lot of the guesswork out of it.
That said, I do not support IR in MLB. IIRC, it’s being proposed for home run calls only, and most of the problems with these is stupid stadium design with crooked edges and fuzzy borders- SF’s vertical yellow line above
“421” and the front edge of the arcade are just asking for trouble (if they haven’t already caused it).
That pretty much only happened after a monster dunk. I know some backboards are now coated with a laminate to prevent shards of glass from flying all over the court in the event someone shatters a backboard.
Agreed, it only happened on a huge dunk. They have also instituted “break-away” rims. They kind of fold when too much force is applied.
I remember when these were brought out, sometime in grade-school (1978?-ish), they looked quite different from the old style hard rims. Some of the better players claimed it made shooting from distance more difficult. But, I mean really, fifth graders complaining about the rims. They weren’t that good.
Maple bats. I’ve seen enough.
Faking injuries has rendered most international soccer unwatchable to me.
Thundersticks, jumbotron-led cheering and other fan gimmicks scream, “Our fan base is a bunch of idiots.”
The BCS. Enough said.
Ex-players being forced to talk about fantasy football. This is just painful to watch.
I agree with a lot of the ones listed: maple bats, soccer diving, the wave (except during day games when the home team is way up and it’s after the 7th inning).
One from baseball I’ve starting seeing more is non-Cubs teams throwing back the baseball after a home run. Why anyone would want to imitate Cubs fans is beyond me…
Hear, hear. With respect to baseball players, about half of them aren’t even native speakers of English. Yet every utterance is disected on blogs and sports talk radio as if it issued from the oracle at Delphi. The curse of cheap bandwidth–too many people saying too much about too little.
Yelling “puto” as a goal kick is taken.
What is the point of that?