Is it just me, or is sports officiating just getting worse? I am pretty sure I have not watched a game this year, regardless of sport, that did not include at least one atrociously bad call. Sure, it’s easy for fans to complain about referees. I will admit that I have yelled and screamed about bad calls that probably weren’t actually bad calls. In the heat of the game, bias is hard to avoid. Sometimes, though, a call is so bad and so obvious that everyone seems to know it except the official making the call. On Sunday, the Pittsburgh Steelers won a game against the Miami Dolphins on a call so bad that the officials themselves did not seem to understand what they were calling. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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In the movie Inception, inception is the implanting of an idea in someone’s mind through dreams. I wonder if this generation of parents will be remembered for exercising a kind of large-scale inception: Sports-crazed adults forcing a dream of sporting greatness and glory into their children’s heads. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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Intelligent professional athletes exist. They really do. Sometimes, though, it seems like the number of idiots in sports simply dwarfs the number of smart people. I guess that is because it is so much easier to write about the dopes. One such non-brain surgeon is Gilbert Arenas, a basketball player for the Washington Wizards of the NBA. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Ted Williams said that “hitting [a baseball] is fifty percent above the shoulders.” Yeah, see, there’s the problem. You can be physically athletic and still never excel because of what goes on in your thinkosphere as the pitcher winds up, or as the pass comes to you, or as you approach a hurdle. This is why even physically talented artistic kids can have trouble with sports, but it is also why they can become fans who reap deeper rewards than most. [Read more →]

Tags: artistic unknowns by Chris Matarazzo, sports by Chris Matarazzo
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Tags: Marty digs, sports by Marty O'Connor
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Every once in a while, watching sports brings us the opportunity to witness something truly special. This column has allowed me to share a lot of cool stories and great accomplishments, in addition to all of the negative stuff that often fills this space. Some of those positive events could be classified as special, but there are degrees of special. On Wednesday night, baseball fans got to see special in its truest form. Roy Halladay, a starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies in his first ever post-season appearance, threw a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Sunday, Donovan McNabb returned to Philadelphia. If you are a football fan, you are well aware of this, as it has been the main point of discussion on sports shows all week. The new quarterback of the Washington Redskins was making his first visit to the city where he had played for eleven seasons, and the sports world was fascinated. The big question was whether or not the Philadelphia fans, a popular target for derision by commentators everywhere, would boo McNabb. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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10. Has pictures of Barry Bonds all over his bedroom

9. During gym class rope climb, he yanked down half the ceiling

8. He’s always Googling “the best way to get around urine tests”

7. His personal trainer: Alex Rodriguez’s cousin

6. This year he’s a starting fullback; last year he was an oboist in the school band

5. Buys all his clothes at Big, Tall & ’Roidy

4. Makes Lou Ferrigno look like Justin Bieber

3. He shaves twice a day, and he’s in the fifth grade

2. His right arm is enormous, and he doesn’t masturbate

1. He doesn’t masturbate, because there’s nothing to hold onto
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: advice, Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, drugs & alcohol, sports by Bob Sullivan
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I try not to make Bad Sports, Good Sports the jerk-of-the-week column every Monday, but there are too many idiots in sports that make this difficult for me. Writing this column for the past year and a half has made it clear to me that there will never be a shortage of first-class morons on which I can focus. This week, Braylon Edwards is our man. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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It’s important that you know this about me: My kid plays up.

I remember those early days, when she was I guess four, when we first joined the town club team. She was running around with the other kids, and I could tell she had it. She needed more. She needed to play with the five-year-olds. As a good parent, I was restless watching her out there with the average kids. I recognized that having fun with her friends wouldn’t be enough. I told her everything she needed to do every second of every game. And I know she heard me, because I said it nice and loud. But we still weren’t getting results. So I moved her up. [Read more →]

Tags: sports, virtual children by Scott Warnock by Scott Warnock
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There is a fine line between cheating and gamesmanship. We expect athletes to do everything they can do to win, and will often excuse our favorites when they do things that might be a little bit against the rules. At the same time, we scream indignantly when someone on an opposing team does the same thing. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I planned to lead with a Good Sports story this week, talking about the fact that football is back. I love football, and the start of football season is very exciting for me. I had plans to wax poetic on the beauty of the game, from the joy of watching a well-executed offense to the exhilaration of the jarring hits and intensity of a strong defense. I planned this even though both my college team (Penn State) and my pro team (the Eagles) were not expected to win this weekend. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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I consider myself an honest person. I like to think that I would never accept an award or a trophy for something that I earned in a dishonest fashion. Even so, I think that it would be extremely difficult to be in the position in which 14-yer-old Zach Nash found himself after a recent Junior PGA golf tournament in Wisconsin. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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NY POST – Tiger Woods is now prowling the Big Apple.

Just days after finalizing his divorce, Woods moved into a downtown Manhattan apartment during the weekend, when he also was playing in a tournament just across the Hudson River in Paramus, NJ.

It seems that Tiger Woods is better fit to be single. Last weekend at Barclay’s, in his first appearance since his official divorce, Tiger Woods shot a 65, his best round of the year. He finished in 12^th, his best finish since June. [Read more →]

Tags: advice, sports by Robert O'Hara
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At virtually any point during my childhood, if you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I was okay as a player…nothing special. I got to pitch in little league, but that was mostly because my father was the coach. I never had any illusions that being paid to play was in my future, but it certainly would have been my choice if all it took was wanting to do it. In this desire, I was certainly not alone. If you watch professional athletes, though, it is clear that it is not all one big party. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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My lead story of the week could be categorized as both Good Sports and Bad Sports. Kyle Busch became the first NASCAR driver to ever sweep all three events at the same track on the same weekend when he won the truck race, the Nationwide race, and the Sprint Cup race at Bristol this week. Busch is a very talented driver, and he put it all together at Bristol, where he has always been strong. The media have grabbed onto this story, extolling the abilities and endurance of Busch and taking the public to task for its constant booing of him. I have a different take on all of that, though. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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A friend brought me to the inaugural game at New Meadowlands Stadium, where the New York Jets inducted six greats into their Ring of Honor at halftime and, as if to pay tribute to so much of the franchise’s colorful-yet-utterly-embarrassing history, promptly imploded in the third quarter to christen the stadium with a frustrating loss to their co-tenants, the New York Giants (really should have seen that coming). The defeat hardly mattered though because the big perk was having my first chance to look at the recently completed stadium and I think I speak for many fellow attendees when I say that as I wandered through I couldn’t help wondering: how the hell did this thing cost so much? [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Sean Cunningham
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The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be this year’s most improved team. There, I said it. And no, I’m not a Leafs fan. [Read more →]

Tags: sports by Dan Sterlace
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I am on vacation this week, and am currently in Sandusky, Ohio, at an amusement park called Cedar Point. It’s a very cool place with a LOT of roller coasters (17, I believe). What it doesn’t have, at least in our hotel, which is called Castaway Bay, is WIFI in the guest rooms. As I am unwilling to subject myself to dial-up, at outrageous rates, mind you, and I am also uninterested in spending much time in this lobby, I will not be providing you with any of my usual brilliant commentary this week. I know, I know…how will you ever make it through your Monday morning without any of my keen insight into the world of sports? You’ll have to muddle through. As I am not a total slacker, I will provide you with some links to some bad sports that happened this week. You’ll need to provide the commentary yourselves. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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Last season, Major League Baseball instituted instant replay, but only for review of homerun calls. On the one hand, if you know anything about baseball umpires, it is an amazing thing that they allowed any amount of questioning of their decision-making to be factored into the game. This is a group that is famous for its arrogance and belligerence. At the same time, it was at least a small measure of progress that a few messed up calls could conceivably be reversed. It seems clear, though, that there is a far greater opportunity for review than just homerun calls. Thursday night’s game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Florida Marlins demonstrated this very well. [Read more →]

Tags: bad sports, good sports by Alan Spoll
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