The stupidest, dumbest, mostest annoyingest things in sports today

The BBQ Pit
1

This may be more of a poll than a rant, however:

  1. The Tomahawk Chop. I started another thread about this, but it turned into an Atlanta in general rant.
    In brief, ENOUGH, Atlanta! I’m not offended, it just wants to make me GAG!

  2. NHL season. What’s up with a hockey season that starts the week after summer ends, and has the potential to end one week before summer starts?

  3. John Madden. Learn to make your point, then SHUT UP you bulbous babbling buffoon. Eat your six legged turkey before the game and fall asleep on the sofa.

  4. NBA season. See # 2.

Now, I’m guessing this list is up over 100 before the weekend is over.

2

I’m not going to say that the NHL season couldn’t use a little trimming, but only the NFL has a monopoly on the short schedules. By my count:
NFL = 143 days
MLB = 211 days (projected)
NBA = 236 days (projected)
NHL = 237 days (projected)

3

Color commentators in football. With so many channels, the watering down of actual talent in the spot has become ridiculous, and even the “good” ones need to learn to just shut up already. Last weekend I heard Lee Corso say (paraphrasing because I can’t remember it exactly), “They were waiting to see if they could push it into the end zone before they put him [starting quaterback] back in. If they scored, then they would keep [backup] in the game, but if they were held to a fieldgoal they would keep [backup] in because he’s given them a spark this drive and they need to keep the momentum rolling - but they needed to wait for the end of the drive.”

What? That’s the same thing! You just said absolutely nothing!

Then there is the all time classic, though I forget who I heard it from: “The key to victory for the [insert team] is to score points and to make sure that the [insert opponent] can’t put that many on the board”. So the key to victory is to score more points than the other guy? Insightfull commentary there, buddy.

Switching sports, but staying with the same theme, I’d like to ask a question. Why does Tim McCarver have a job? I can actually feel my brain cells dying when I have to listen to his coverage of baseball games. I think my neurons are actively committing suicide in order to save themselves the agony of trying to make sense of the idiocy he passes of as analysis.

4

Color commentators in general…

One of my favorites was Frank Quilecy (sp?) former Minnesota Twins player, coach, and color commentator.
Commenting on a pitcher for Baltimore:
“He’s just like a surgeon going after his prey.”:wally

Yogi, where are you?

5

I’ll second John Madden, particularly for this stellar quote of last Monday:

“Everything pales in comparison to Brett Favre.”

That’s right. EVERYTHING. World Peace, Christmas, Heidi Klum, Your Mom, Johnny Unitas, EVERYTHING

PALES.

In comparison to Brett Favre. :rolleyes:

6

Even the six legged turkey?

7

That’s especially odd because Favre is pretty pale himself :smiley:

During last year’s world series, Tim McCarver and Joe Buck drove me nuts with their inability to read a simple weathervane. They were actually saying that the weathervane and a flag about two feet away from it were indicating exactly opposite wind directions. They maintained that the weathervane was right and the flag was wrong :mad: :mad: :mad: :smack: How the hell can a flag lie about the wind direction?

8

Sports aspects of journalism seem dry, stupid, dumb, annoying, etc. to me.

Example- Here is a typical scenerio that occurs when a head coach of a football team is walking toward the locker rooms at the beginning of halftime. The exchange of words is usually similar to:

Reporter: “Coach so-and-so, what does your team have to do in the second half in order to win this game.”

Head Coach: “Well, we gotta protect the pocket, avoid turnovers, and stop making mental mistakes. The penalties are killing us.”

Reporter: “Thank you, so-and-so”

< Coach continues into locker room. Reporter makes some transitional remark back to the announcers in the press box and then we go to commercial >

The typical post-game press conference is choc-full of obvious answers to no-brainer questions.

I’ll third madden. I have a flip calendar (year 2000) of stupid quotes (one quote per day). The quote for Sunday January 16th is one authored by Madden (while he was a coach, not a commentator):

“Don’t worry about the horse being blind, just load up the wagon.”

As a former head coach and long-time color analyst, Madden has vast knowledge of the game, but he has made far too many errors during broadcasts (that I’ve seen, anyway) to be a respectable pro commentator IMO.

9

I meant to say: “Some aspects of sports journalism seem…”

:smack:

10

Just as a side note, last Sunday night, Joe Theisman and Paul Maguire were arguing over whether a pass was a lateral or a forward pass and they watched it several times in slow motion. The argument culminated with Theisman saying:

“I’m still not convinced he gets it from behind.”

that was awesome.

11

You know, I kind of like that quote. I don’t think it’s stupid at all. It seems to mean that even though you should put first things first, if you can’t accomplish goal A, go ahead and take care of goal B. That way the team will be able to win once it figures out it’s identity. In other words, go ahead and pick up that uber-talented all-American wide receiver (load up the wagon) even though your quaterback can’t throw and all you can run is the option (the horse is blind). You still may be able to use him if you can figure out where your going with the awful quaterback situation at a late date.

Mind you, I’m not defending Madden’s TV commentary, I just like this one quote from his coaching days.

12

“you’re going”. “Where you’re going”, damnit.

Sorry to post this grammar correction, but that particular slip is more annoying to me than any typo or misspelling I could have possibly committed.

13

I hate John Madden, I don’t watch Monday Night Football, I didn’t watch through Dennis Murphy either, those two annoy me. I might watch again if they brought in Denis Leary.

I also hate the sports/color analysists, I am watching Football, Basketball, whatever, I know whats going on “Shut Your Pie Hole” Tool.

Allen Iverson and his Cornrows, Tattoos, Attitude, Problems with the 6er’s Coach, AI - You get Paid a Ton, just go and play Ball, and give Philly a Championship.

What about the Half-Time Concerts that have been happening in Football and Basketball.

And for that matter when you get someone to sing the National Anthem, make sure they can actually sing the song and knows the words.

Professional Athletes in the Olympics.

14

The new HORRIBLE thing is when they interrupt baseball games every freaking ten minutes with that stupid bell, which I respond to immediately like a Pavlivian dog b/c I somehow think I’m getting football scores, with:

“Should LaRussa let Matt Morris bat?” Log onto foxsports.com now!!!

Two minutes later, you get some worthless Internet poll results, and they don’t even tell you how many votes there were! STOP IT!!!

Oh, and time for my all-time favorite sport commentator comment, courtesy of the great Dan Dierdorf: “Well folks - stranger things have happened, but none stranger than this.” :smack:

15

Who the hell is Dennis Murphy?

16

You know, the Dateline guy.

:smiley:

17

Oh, man, I almost had this one blocked from my memory. Those GD online polls.
Typical is Thursday night. Game between SF and SL, the Giants leading 1 game to none, leading the 2nd game late, and the online poll question is “If SF goes up 2 games to none can SL win the series?”

Of course they freakin’ can. If SF goes up 3 games to none, SL CAN STILL WIN THE SERIES :smack:
All they have to do is win the next four games. Is it likely? No. CAN they do it? YES, DUMMIES!

18

God I hate Madden. When he was on FOX, I could actually stand to watch him. He wasn’t completely inane (insane?) but something happened to him over the summer that addled his brain (a stroke maybe?) and now it’s just one stupid thing after another.
My God, a couple of weeks ago, I thought he was going to leave the booth and go down to the field and give Lewis a blow job right there on the 50 yard line! I guess it’s a good thing Al Michaels was there to hold him back. (The only decent football commentator left, IMHO)

19

Penalty flag thrown for piling on…

John Madden - a buffoon of legendary status. Everyone is the “best in the league”, “best he’s ever seen”, “fastest cornerback in the game.” every stinkin’ week.

Randy Cross - (Hey Randy, can you go somewhere and get your head shrunk? While you are at it, shrink those teeth!)

The pre-game shows - Pick your poison here, but Jerry Glanville and Deion Sanders lead my list. Gah! Sanders looks like a pimp (an expensive-dressing one for sure), and Glanville is just an ass.

The on-line polls. Enough already with the inane questions.

I’ll pile on for McCarver too. A pompus ass. He sucks. Period.

Jerry Jones - Get your ass off the field and into a box. And for chrissakes network people… quit showing him on the sidelines!

Homerun hitters who strike a pose. I’ve ranted about Sammy Sosa before, but we’ve seen the “Sammy Hop” and his “Kiss and Blow” already. Enough! (SportsCenter, this means you!)

And my last (but certainly not least)… asswipe football players that do a dance, flex, or in some way ape or strut around when they make a play (i.e. do their job). The practice is especially annoying when they are losing by 20 points in the 4th quarter, but still make it known to anyone and everyone that they made a tackle. Buttheads.

20

National broadcasters like John Madden are so much better that local broadcasters it’s not even funny. I’m sorry, but Madden is literally not one of the 1,000 worst color men in sports.

Joe Carter has done both Blue Jays and Cubs broadcasts now and he’s amazing. Pitches are “down and low,” as opposed, I guess, to down and high. He says things like “Once you start thinking about it, it’s mental.” I’ve never heard him offer ANY insight, which mirrors how he used to play.

Then we had Brian Williams doing Blue Jays games. Williams is a bigwig at CBC who does Olympics broadcasts, which he’s pretty good at, but he doesn’t know baseball. Every ball is “WELL HIT!” A player will pop a ball up and Williams will scream “WELL HIT!!” and it’ll be caught by the second baseman thirty feet behind the base. A guy will ground out, cleanly thrown out at first, and Williams will shriek he’s safe. Anytime it’s 3-1 he’d ask his partner “Will he be swinging here, John Cerutti?” (always with the full name)

He can’t remember names. I don’t mean Harry Caray screwing up names; I mean calling guys by the names of other guys who haven’t played here in years. If he attempts to refer to Kelvim Escobar by name I guarantee he’ll call him “Juan Guzman” two thirds of the time. He’s prone to involing the most absurdly cliches stereotypes. He freely insults players who don’t give nice interviews. His color man, John Cerutti, eventually got tired of him and just started contradicting him:

WILLIAMS: Juan Guzman is warming up in the pen…
CERUTTI: No, he’s not. That’s Kelvim Escobar.
WILLIAMS: Here’s Cal Ripken. Ripken holds the record for the most consecutive games played, John.
CERUTTI: Yes, I know that.
WILLIAMS: That’s WELL HIT to left! And it drops foul just behind the dugout. The next batter is Dave Martinez.
CERUTTI: Segui.
WILLIAMS: Remember, fans, tomorrow we’ll have live Blue Jays baseball for you at 7 Eastern, that’s 6 Central, 5 Mountain, 4 Pacific, 8 Atlantic and 8:30 in Pogey Lineup, Newfoundland.
CERUTTI: Thrilling.
WILLIAMS: I was chatting with Dave Martinez just before the game…
(Albert Belle hits a home run)
WILLIAMS …and he was telling me he always enjoyed playing in Montreal, where I once knew a girl, who could stick a whole…
CERUTTI: Home run for Belle, Brian.
WILLIAMS: Oh, Mr. Personality. Anyway, this game just seems to be dragging on. They should do something about the length of games.
CERUTTI: It’s only the first inning. We’ve been here less than fifteen minutes.
WILLIAMS: Now batting is Glenn Davis.
CERUTTI: Eric Davis.
WILLIAMS: He grounds out to the second baseman.
CERUTTI: It was a foul ball, strike one.
WILLIAMS: (Giggles)