sports

My wife tells me that I’ll watch anything on TV, no matter how pathetic or uninteresting. It’s a bit hypocritical of her, as I’m sure those of you who have read of her affinity for A Makeover Story will agree. Besides that, she’s only half-right; I will watch anything on TV, but is has to be sports.

I don’t care what sport it is; everything from billiards to world’s strongest man competitions to tournament draw poker. I’m sure it stems from some deep-seeded psychological need for competition that arose from growing up with an older brother in a working class town where the only way a young man could attain a suitable reputation was through archaic displays of masculinity designed to prove one’s worth through physical fortitude. Or maybe I just like seeing people beat the crap out of other people and lord it over them by spraying each other with Cristal. Bottom line, if two or more people are engaging in an activity in which there will be a “winner” and a “loser,” I’ll watch it, even if I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Take cricket, for example. I haven’t watched much cricket, but I’ve managed to glean a few things from the English and Australian counselors I used to work with at summer camp. However, they weren’t much help – I don’t want to stereotype but all English and Australian people are thuggish drunks, even the Prime Ministers. The coolest thing about cricket is there is no regulation size for the field. It can be anywhere from 100-160 yards long. Can you imagine if we instituted this rule in American sports? Just left it up to each individual stadium which specifications they’d like to use? We’ll see how strong Kurt Warner’s arm is when he has to chuck a 160-yard Hail Mary. Or we’ll see how many bases Rickey Henderson can steal if we make it 135 feet from first to second, but only at Camden Yards, Comiskey Park and the Ballpark at Arlington.

Cricket also has infinitely more rules than any American sport, and not a one of them makes a lick of sense. Some of them are similar to baseball, but then veer off in weird directions. For instance according to the Official RuleBook, a player can be out if he is “caught.” Here’s how that works: “Caught: If a fielder catches the ball on the full after the batsman has hit it with his bat, he is out.” That’s just like baseball, but the rule goes on: “However, if the fielder catches the ball, but either during the catch or immediately afterwards touches or steps over the boundary, then the batsman scores six runs and is not out.” The Red Sox could use a rule like that.

A batsman can be out if he is “Bowled: If the batsman misses the ball and it hits and breaks the wicket directly from the bowler's delivery, he is out. The batsman is out whether or not he is behind his popping crease.” If there's one problem that's consistently plagued the Twins, it's not being mindful of their popping crease.

Cricket does feature much cooler names for their pitches (which must be thrown with a straight arm – imagine Randy Johnson trying to pull that off). We have fastballs, curveballs and sliders. Cricket has leg-cutters, off-cutters, off-spins, arm-balls, leg-spinners, top-spinners, wrong 'uns, googlies and flippers. Plus they can bounce the ball off the ground before it reaches the batter. Let’s see how many stances Ripken would come up with for that.

Our neighbors to the north are big fans of a sport called “curling.” I happened to be in Toronto during a big curling tournament. At least I think it was a tournament; I’d hate to think they take that sport so seriously all the time. For those of you who don’t know, curling is a sort of shuffleboard on ice. One person pushes a big hockey puck called a stone at a target painted on the ice, while two other folks run down the court with little brushes making sure the stone doesn’t hit anything. It takes each stone about 45 minutes to get to the target; time enough to adjust your toque, drink a Moosehead and check the score of the Habs game. I’m not sure how the scoring works; I looked for an explanation online and found a Finnish site which said things like “You win the game when you scored often,” and “If the Skip plays his 2 stones the Third stands in the house.”

If rules aren’t your bag, you should catch some Aussie Football, or Footy. Australians, as previously mentioned, are all criminals and drunks, so it comes as no surprise they’d invent a game whose soul purpose is to kill, crush and maim the other team. There are no specified positions, no offside, and no ejections. Acts of violence are given cute names; for example, punching the person with the ball in the chest is called “shepherding.” The object of the game seems to be to score more points than the other team, but it’s really just a massive riot followed by an Australian in a dorky hat pointing with both hands in a very forceful manner. Then some toothless gorillas run around and celebrate. Actually, it’s a little like hockey.

All of these fine sports can be viewed on your lesser cable sports stations at about 3:00 a.m. Provided your wife doesn’t want to watch A Makeover Story.