10. During the Seventh Inning Stretch, you pull a hamstring

9. You try running around the bases on your Rascal Scooter

8. You originally played for the Cincinnati Red Stockings

7. You have an 8×10 of Betty White hanging in your locker

6. When you buy steroids, you pull out your AARP card and ask for a discount

5. During a press conference, when asked if you wear boxers or briefs, you reply, “Depends.”

4. While you’re running from second to third, you stop for directions

3. When you slide into home, you dislocate your hip

2. You were ultimately exonerated in the Black Sox scandal

1. Your cry of “I slid into second, and I can’t get up!”
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, sports by Bob Sullivan
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The Olympics are finally finished. Last time we dissected the first week of action from a point of view highly more sophisticated than NBC, or anybody else for that matter. Now it is time to break down the second week of action, and ponder some final thoughts for London 2012.

The dominant story of week one was Michael Phelps. The dominant story of week two was Michael’s conceited evil twin brother Usain Bolt. Bolt won the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m for the second Olympics in a row. But he was such a prick in doing so, I could hardly watch. After winning the 200m, he did pushups on the track in front of the other runners. Just a few minutes later, with his slobbering NBC groupies, he self-proclaimed himself a legend and one of the greatest athletes of all time. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, sports by Robert O'Hara
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Hey NASCAR, I hope you were paying attention today. There is so much that was right with today’s race at Watkins Glen in New York, that it makes me wonder why more of the races can’t be like this. NASCAR makes a huge deal every year out of its worst races, and I am ever at a loss to figure out why. I need to make myself the emperor like Chris Matarazzo so that I can make some sort of decree that promotes road course races over restrictor-plate races. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Ever since I was a wee zygote, I have had zero interest in sports. Soccer? Swimming? Table-tennis? Nah. It’s only during the Olympics, when the coverage is so overwhelming that I become aware of what’s going on in the world of running and jumping. And indeed, when I look back, I see that in spite of my indifference I actually have numerous memories of Games past.

Tags: sports, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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As I sit here on Sunday night looking over my list of stories from the week, it is hard to miss that most of them involve the Olympics. I have never been a big fan of the Olympics, and I will admit that I have not watched a great deal of it this time around either. I have enjoyed what I have watched, though, and some of it has been really exciting. Perhaps I should watch more of it the next time around. I especially liked watching the running, which is likely due to my own interest in the sport, which I did not have during the last Summer Games. Rather than write a long piece on one of these stories, I am going to try to give some time to a bunch of the great performances, along with the usual list of some unfortunate ones.

Good sports, continued:

1) Michael Phelps proved that he is simply the greatest Olympian of all time. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I am cynical of the Olympics for 3.95 years out of every Olympic cycle. I remember well that the events are obscure, the clichés are hyperbolic, and the coverage is amateur. Then once it starts, I admit I cannot look away. There is something about international competition and around the clock multi-venue multi-channel coverage that is just addicting.

This is not to say that my reasons for being cynical are unfounded. Trust me there is plenty to make fun of. But there is plenty to appreciate too. In the next week you will see, hear, and read plenty of commentary on the Olympics, but none so profound as the kind you will find in the Olympic Coliseum. Let us take a look after one full week. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, sports by Robert O'Hara
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Hi all. Sunday night finds me in Southern California with my family. We spent a few days in Los Angeles and are now at Disneyland. Unfortunately, the wifi at our hotel is not working this evening, so I find myself unable to deliver my usual keen insight and wit this week. You’ll have to get your sports news from a more traditional source for now. Try CBS (cbssports.com)…I’m not so fond of the folks at ESPN at the moment after they expended so much effort to sensationalize all the Penn State stuff this past year.

One quick sports note: we were at Huntington Beach today, spending a great day with our friends. We thought that beach would be a bit less crowded than the ones closer to L.A. proper, but we did not account for the fact that the U.S. Open of Surfing would be happening there today. Interesting sport, although it technically doesn’t count as a sport in my book because winners are determined by judges. I am not sure I could spend any real length of time watching it, but the athletes do some pretty impressive things on those boards.

Anyway, have a good week, and I hope to see you back here next Monday.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday.

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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The Olympic torch began its week-long journey around London on Saturday. Fauja Singh was one of the people chosen to carry the flame, which is certainly an honor for anyone. Singh has one of the most amazing stories I have ever heard, and I wanted to share it here. I hope you appreciate this amazing man the way I do. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. Racketeering

9. Uphill speed skiing

8. Ventriloquist yodeling

7. Backpedaling

6. Driveby shooting

5. Bottomless water polo

4. Scrabble

3. Synchronized pole vaulting

2. Easter Egg hunting

1. Javelin catch
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, sports by Bob Sullivan
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What a miserable week, in the midst of a miserable year, it has been to be a Penn Stater. I am going to start by stating that no one I am writing about here has or will suffer in a way that compares to the actual victims of Jerry Sandusky’s evil. That is clear. That said, there are legions of Penn Staters out there who are having a very hard time dealing with every aspect of this situation, and I am one of them. As much as I despise what went on there, I find myself being very defensive as I read more and more of the drivel that has been written about the release of the Freeh Report and what it contained. I nearly left this story off of my list for the week for a couple of major reasons. First, it hurts to write about it, and I am hardly in the mood to put myself through that after the events of the week. Second, it is simply not a sports issue. It does not really belong in a sports column, just as it does not belong under the jurisdiction of the NCAA. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Although I am not a big fan of watching the Olympics, I greatly admire the athletes that compete in the games. Most of them are competing in sports that have no shot of making them rich, and real fame is pretty unlikely as well, especially when you compare it to that of someone who plays one of the major professional sports. It is clear that these people are competing for the love of their sport and the love of competition. To spend years working, focusing, and doing little else other than preparing for the Olympics takes an extraordinary person. That is why I find the actions of runner Jeneba Tarmoh so shocking. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Has Hell frozen over? Are pigs flying? After years of officials stating that a playoff would never happen in major college football, a playoff is going to happen in major college football. The commissioners of the Division 1-A (I still refuse to call it FBS) football conferences gathered recently and approved a plan to recommend a move to a four-team playoff to the university presidents. This week, those presidents said yes to the plan. The BCS as we knew it is no more, or will be no more as of the 2014 season. Is this a good thing? Absolutely. It’s not really good enough, in my opinion, but it’s a start. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I hate people. I may have said this before, but it still rings true. Not all people, of course. Just some. The people who tell you that you should not hate anyone and that all people are worthy of respect must not have ever known or read about anyone like Elizabeth Lloyd. A couple of years ago, Lloyd was at a Little League baseball game, sitting near the bullpen where a pitcher was warming up. An errant throw by eleven-year-old Matthew Magliaccio, the catcher, struck Lloyd in the face. She suffered injuries as a result. That’s certainly a shame, but what has followed is what has Ms. Lloyd on my list of revolting people. She is suing this kid. That’s right, she filed a lawsuit against Magliaccio, now thirteen, asking for $153,000 in damages to pay for her supposed medical costs, and is also asking for additional money for her pain and suffering. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Sports are such an attractive spectator diversion for lots of reasons, and one certainly has to be their simplicity. You get winners and losers, mostly clear-cut. You can hide away from it all in the sports page. You can lose yourself, forget about your crummy job, for an afternoon and root for your team. You can put your frustrations behind and watch your kids play sports and dream — however pathological those dreams are for some — of straightforward glory on the field, in the arena. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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Just like the average population, professional athletes seem to have their fair share of bad guys. There are good people that mess up and do bad things, and there are bad people that manage to occasionally pull off a nice act. After those folks, we find the bad guys who are just simply bad guys, people who consistently prove that they would certainly not be in any position to receive anyone’s adulation or admiration were it not for their athletic skill. Kellen Winslow II, who was recently traded from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the Seattle Seahawks, is one of those guys. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Okay, I cheated: this is a 15-day period, not 14. That said, lying about my intentions seems very much in the spirit of boxing. With no further ado…

May 28: 45-year-old former five-time champion Johnny Tapia dies of an overdose. At age eight he watched his mother get stabbed to death with a screwdriver and, by his own account, was “raised as a pit bull”, as uncles forced him to fight larger, older opponents. On five previous occasions he had been declared clinically dead from overdoses; during one of the five — again, five times clinically dead — two family members were killed in a car accident rushing to be with him.

May 28: 30-year-old former welterweight champ Paul “The Punisher” Williams is paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident on the way to get ready with his brother for another brother’s wedding that day. He had been scheduled to fight for the light middleweight title on September 15.

June 1: Undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr., generally considered to be one of the two best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, starts a three-month jail sentence for attacking his ex-girlfriend in front of two of their children. [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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Wade Davis, a marginal NFL player in the early part of the aughts (or whatever we call the last decade….I don’t like “2000s”), has come out as gay in recent days. Davis was never on an active, regular-season NFL roster, but he played for the Tennessee Titans for a couple of preseasons after a successful college career at Weber State. Of the many places in society that have continued to harbor bigotry and prejudice against homosexuals, professional sports is one that has been, and I expect will continue to be, one of the final holdouts. Athletes, and sports fans right along with them, often count machismo among their most respected traits. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Paul Williams, a boxer who has been a champion at the welterweight level, was scheduled to fight for the middleweight belt currently held by Canelo Alvarez in September. That bout will no longer be occurring. Last weekend, Williams crashed his motorcycle while on his way to a wedding, and he is now paralyzed from the waist down. This is a tragedy in a number of ways, the main one being that it so clearly could have been easily avoided. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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The high school years are a time of promise, a time for dreams, and a time for exploring potential. Most of us get through it having experienced some degree of success, and we move on to our lives, whether that be college or the working world, with only our own personal limitations to hold us back.  Some people, though, have those opportunities snatched away for no reason, and all we can do is lament their misfortune. Brian Banks, a big-time football prospect from California a few years back, spent five years in prison after being falsely accused of kidnapping and rape by a girl from his high school. He was released last year, and this week, his conviction was overturned after his accuser recanted her story. Where he goes from this point will be fascinating to watch. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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The NBA playoffs started a few weeks ago, and the second round is more than half over. There has been plenty of drama, and much of it has recently been focused on the Miami Heat, as expected. Once the Heat assembled its current roster before the 2010-2011 season, adding LeBron James and Chris Bosh to a team that already had Dwyane Wade, the expectations for this bunch went through the roof. They are currently being severely tested by the Indiana Pacers, a team that was given little chance coming into the series. The drama of the games themselves is great, but most of the theatrics have been off the court.  I have little patience for any of it, honestly. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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