I guess I am naive. I tend to believe that adults, by their very nature, should be reasonable people. I manage to be regularly amazed by how often that belief is proven wrong. The world of sports is as susceptible to this as anything else, of course, and this column is usually dedicated to illustrating all kinds of foolish behavior. This week is no exception. On Wednesday night, two high school baseball teams from Arizona were scheduled to play each other in the state championship game for their classification. Instead of playing, however, one of the schools, Our Lady of Sorrows Academy, forfeited the game. Why would they do this, you ask? Because Mesa Preparatory Academy, the other school, has a girl on its team. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Ok, I’m a smart guy who can be very stupid at times. This is particularly true when it comes to physical limits. I know, for example, that enrolling in the ProAM Bull Riding contest would be a serious mistake. I know that. It would have been a serious mistake 20 years ago and there’s no reason to think it might be a good idea now. I know that   El Capitan is not in my future unless they build an escalator. I’ve figured that out…

So, of course, I made a wise crack to a guy 20 some years younger than I that the Mojave Free Press ought to enter a team for the Barstow Mud Run. Figured a leisurely job across the desert, splash through some forgiving water obstacles and then pick up a T-shirt at the worst case. At the best case, he’d laugh and say no thanks, he had to cover it for the paper. How hard could it be? What could go wrong?

Most things.

Well, the principal architect of that electronic fish wrapper is a guy named Charles Waybright. He’s a nice guy, but he either has a sense of humor more twisted than mine or he’s very stupid. Charles thought it was a great idea. So, there we were, Charles, Bruce Klein and me, surrounded by 1000 or so of like-minded lunatics set to take off across the desert to benefit the Barstow Veterans Home and the Barstow Kiwanis. Both of which are worthy of support for their services to this community which really needs it and more of it. Oh, the guys who bailed on the run so that Charles had to recruit Bruce but volunteered to video the thing and provide coverage for the paper, also bailed. Charles had his lovely wife worried that I might not show or be found and that she would have to pick up the banner. She was prescient enough to be glad to see me. [Read more →]

Tags: getting older, sports by Mike Farrell
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Greetings from Las Vegas. I used to come out here every year for the opening weekend of the NCAA Basketball Tournament. In fact, that was the subject of my very first Bad Sports, Good Sports column back in early 2009. I had not been out here since we stopped going for basketball, though, until today, when I arrived for a work conference. Although this city gave me fodder for that initial weekly missive, today it is likely to only keep this column short, as a long travel day has left me pretty beat, and the clock is simply mocking me with its bogus three-hours-earlier-than-it-feels-like reading glowing in green letters next to the bed.

The big news of the week was the untimely death of former NFL great Junior Seau. The long-time San Diego Charger was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest on Wednesday in his home in Oceanside, California. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Once, during my Pulitzer Prize-winning days as an editor at Maxim, I interviewed the boxer “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather before his much-hyped title fight with Oscar De La Hoya. I’d already chatted with Oscar about his favorite fashion accessories — like I said, some serious journalism was going down — and Oscar revealed he wore a watch that cost roughly as much as an Ivy League education, grad school included. Floyd revealed that he sported a timepiece that was much pricier than the Golden Boy’s piece of crap and added, “I have to treat myself. I work so hard…”

And whether that quote makes you want to laugh or jack the tax rate way up on luxury goods, you have to give credit: the man knows how to give an interview.

[Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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Have you ever watched an all-star game and thought it had been time well spent? At least in the major sports, those games are usually pretty awful, if not completely unwatchable. Baseball probably has the best one, as the game usually involves pretty full effort on the part of the participants. Sure, catchers are unlikely to block the plate and risk injury, especially after the Pete Rose-Ray Fosse incident in the 1970 MLB All-Star game, but the hitters try, the pitchers try, and the fielders try. The worst thing about baseball’s game is that the commissioner decided to make the game count for something a few years back, and now the league that wins gets home field advantage in the World Series. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. Man o’ Peace

9. It’s A Grand Old Nag

8. No Way José

7. Artificial Hip

6. Save-Your-Money

5. Mucilage

4. Stumblebum

3. Tripod

2. Chris Christie

1. Wrong Way Corrigan
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: animals, Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, money, sports by Bob Sullivan
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Every once in a while, an athlete or coach transcends sports. The group of these individuals is small and obviously quite distinguished. Those of you who read my column regularly know that Joe Paterno was one of these in my eyes. Whatever you feel about the Jerry Sandusky situation and Joe’s role in it, it is hard to dispute his place in the pantheon of college football figures. This week, another towering figure has exited the sports scene, and her sport will be much the worse for it. Pat Summitt, the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s basketball program, has retired. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Earlier this week, a Dallas television station reported on a story about a local coach/teacher who had been fired from her job for having a child despite being unmarried. Cathy Samford, who had coached volleyball at the Heritage Christian Academy for the last three years, and who had also recently started teaching science, was let go by the school in the fall. She has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and is considering a lawsuit. I am quite surprised by this, but I find myself siding with the school. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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During the heart of the Tiger Woods drama of a couple of years ago, I wrote about the fact that I was pretty uninterested in the personal lives of professional athletes. The same goes for coaches in professional sports. I am not totally immune to the off-the-field stuff, of course. I am prone to disliking players who are simply bad teammates (see Terrell Owens) or coaches who lose their minds on a very regular basis (see Brian Kelly), but, for the most part, I look for results. Amateur sports, on the other hand, are a different story. College coaches, for example, have a very different kind of responsibility than pro coaches. Parents have entrusted their 18-year-old kids to these people, so college coaches need to hold themselves to a higher standard, whether that means their in-game demeanor or their off-the-field behavior. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. The New York Dolls

9. The Philadelphia Cream Cheese

8. The Seattle Frasiers

7. The Boston Beaners

6. The Charlotte Raes

5. The Fort Worth Their Weight In Gold

4. The Phoenix Envy

3. The Major League Assholes

2. The Austin Powers

1. The Corpus Christi Chris Christies
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, sports by Bob Sullivan
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There is a Godard movie that closes with the caption, “End of film. End of cinema.”; even by French standards, it’s awesomely pretentious. Friends and I became obsessed with it and tried to adopt it into our daily conversation whenever possible. (“End of sandwich. End of lunch.”) With Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari finally winning his first national title, it seems worth reviving this grammatical construct, for surely Calipari’s ultimate triumph has signaled the point when players ceased being “student-athletes” and officially became “teenagers killing time before declaring for the NBA draft.” [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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There are a variety of reasons why a pitcher will intentionally hit a batter with a pitch. Often, it is done as a retaliation after a slow homerun trot or a batter on the pitcher’s team had already been hit by the opposing pitcher. Baseball is filled with “unwritten rules” that dictate when various things need to happen, and “purpose” pitches certainly fall into this category. Many times, the pitch does not actually hit the batter, but merely makes him dive out of the way. Baseball writers sometimes call this “chin music,” romanticizing the concept of revenge in the national pastime. Is this all really okay? I guess it depends on who you ask. There are times, though, when it is very clearly not okay. Sunday’s preseason game between the Colorado Rockies and the Cleveland Indians in Scottsdale, Arizona, was one of those times. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Railing against media-created drama is a self-defeating proposition when you are contributing to the problem in the process. All I can do is plow ahead, I guess, and discuss the carnival atmosphere surrounding the National Football League this week. The draft is in a few weeks, free agency is well underway, one of the greatest quarterbacks in league history, Peyton Manning, signed with a new team this week, and a franchise’s head coach was just suspended for an entire season. What, then, was the talk of the sports world this week? Tim Tebow, of course. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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There are many perks to playing in the NFL, ranging from untold riches to the right to pat other men on the butt whenever you want, no questions asked or judgments made. The downside is that, if you stick around long enough, your brain will be battered into goo and large guys will snap off your legs. (Ask Joe Theismann.) That’s why Peyton Manning is currently living the dream, for after a stretch of being hailed as a gridiron messiah wherever he went, he signed a five-year, $96-million deal with the Denver Broncos. Tragically, the actual season will soon begin and there suddenly will be a very real chance Ray Lewis will slam him to the ground repeatedly. And thus we are forced to think of the immortal words of Bartleby the Scrivener: “I would prefer Ray Lewis did not do that to me.” [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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Watching your children play sports is fun. My girls did not spend a great deal of time playing sports, being more inclined toward the performing arts, but they did play basketball for several years when they were younger. They were never more than role players on their teams, but I used to love sitting and watching them play. I am a hot-headed sports fan, so my grumbling about bad calls was occasionally louder than it should have been, but I never went too far with it. I did once tell our coach, after listening to him tell me about bad officiating, that we would probably get better calls if his own daughter didn’t repeatedly mouth off to the referees and show up her teammates. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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A big part of being sports fans is the way we idolize the athletes. A lot of lip-service is paid to the idea that we should not set these guys up as role models, particularly for children, but in reality, we can’t help ourselves. I challenge any of you to find yourself in the presence of a player you like and not become a goofy fanboy. If we really thought of them as regular guys who play a game, we would have a different reaction. At the same time, we can find real hatred for players on other teams, despite the fact that they may be totally decent, admirable human beings. The real dilemma is presented when a player we hate starts to play for the home team and plays well. Sometimes, we hang on to the dislike, while more often, that hatred is quickly left behind. There is no sports-related passion quite like the one we have for a guy we used to hate but now love. For me, Lenny Dykstra was one of these guys. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Professional football is a violent game. No matter what rules the league puts in place, that basic fact will remain. The NFL can, should, and will continue to legislate the game to attempt to reduce injury, particularly the long-term variety, but in the end, a game that involves huge men tackling each other is going to be dangerous. When a team actually rewards its players for injuring opposing players, then, you can be sure that things will get ugly quickly. This week, the NFL revealed details of a “bounty” program that was in effect for the New Orleans Saints during their Super Bowl season of 2009, as well as the rest of the tenure of former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Players were given off-the-books bonuses for hits that knocked opposing players out of the game. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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People often complain about the excesses in sports. The players make too much money, the games cost too much to attend, and the players behave too badly. Despite those antics, we hold these players up as role models to our children, protesting all the while that we are not doing so. Rather than finding ways to tone down the adulation, the fans and the media seem to be inventing new and worse ways to contribute to the phenomenon. Every February, a bunch of high school kids sign letters of intent to play football at colleges around the country. This has been going on for years, but now, in many cases, it has become a quite a spectacle. This needs to stop. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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My PC was on the fritz for more than a week, so it was hard for me to keep up with all the juicy February headlines. So many blog-worthy things have happened since Super Bowl Sunday: Whitney Houston died, Rick Santorum became a viable candidate for president, and America became obsessed with Jeremy Lin. I just bought a new laptop and I’m back. So what better way to tie all of these things together into one blog, than to give you an outrageous headline like the one above? [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, politics & government, sports by Robert O'Hara
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I think I give people too much credit. I don’t necessarily expect to never encounter racism and bigotry in the normal course of life, but I somehow still manage to be surprised when it rears its head, especially when it happens in some kind of mainstream fashion.  Last week in one of my Good Sports stories, I mentioned the emergence of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, who came out of nowhere to dominate the sports news over the last couple of weeks. Lin, a Chinese-American man who played college basketball at Harvard, quickly became the target of ignorant headline writers and news people. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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