Wacky Changes for Our Crazy Sports

I just realized that some sports, out of tradition, just plain don't make sense, at least not to me. Whenever some rule revision comes out-- a goal being moved down the field or adjusted to become smaller or bigger-- it's all lost on me. Watching subsequent games, I see very little difference evident from these minor changes. But perhaps I can suggest my own changes to a few sports. As a certified computer technician who has watched sports on occasion, I feel very qualified to share my opinion with you on this topic.

Football

First of all, we shouldn't call it "Football"--that name is already taken. The "foot" element, where there is any actual kicking, happens but some one-point-three times per afternoon, which explains why the fans of both sides go freakin' nuts every time either team attempts it. And the "ball" element suggests there is a spherical, ball-shaped item in play. It's more of a lozenge, really. You can't call it a pigskin anymore, because my Filipino relatives will keep trying to cook it in a deep-fryer.

So: You don't really kick a ball that much, and there's a lot more of lunging at each other, trying to grab the lozenge from the other guys; it looks like they are attempting slow-dancing, but are just too manly to stay in contact for any length of time. One option for the name should be LungetheLozenge. The other would have been "American Rugby", which should sound patriotic, but it isn't, and just riles up rugby fans into a froth because they do the same job but have bigger balls, and don't have to wear futuristic full-body armor.

Suggestion: Get rid of the ball altogether, and ditch the expensive armor. But if you look closely, this will begin to resemble...

Wrestling

Jerry Seinfeld once said that boxing is a fight for a belt, between two guys who have no apparent excuse to slug each other. I think wrestling offers that context, because it supplies a soap-opera backstory element, an agenda. I'm talking of course about wrestling shown several times a week on television, not necessarily that Olympic-style, Greco-Prussian-Siberian-I'm-wearing-an-athletic-cup-on-each-ear type of wrestling. Now there's nothing wrong with protecting your ears. In fact that's why I think professional wrestlers are screaming so loud, because they didn't protect their ears earlier. They walk into the ring, fans screaming their name. Basking in their professional glory, they can't hear most of the shouting, which is unfortunate because the fans are screaming things like, "MonsterMan! You're surrounded by exploding flares! Those women are on fire! Get the hell off that walkway!".

Also, the addition of that chair no longer has that shock value. Someone always grabs a chair eight out of ten times, to show how blindly furious they are and no longer care for the rules, and swing away at the fallen opponent. Personally, if I've made someone fall down in the ring, I'd unfold that chair, sit down and have a rest, towel off, maybe even ask for an iced tea.

Oh, here's a secret my wife told me: those chairs don't really unfold. They've been rigged to stay shut permanently. Those things would be useless at parties and Jenny Craig meetings. Most of them, at least.

If you want to swing away when the other fellow is no longer a threat, someone should throw a ball at you, and you have to hit it. But then it would pretty much resemble...

Baseball

This is a game where you whack a ball of string, run really fast around a big square, trying to get back to where you started. The sad part is that not everybody makes it home. You'd think it would be easy to get to where you already are. A lot of it is a bit boring, but still has to be shown on camera: players and coaches grabbing their crotches (their own, not each other's! Good grief, where do you think you are--in church?), spitting brown tobacco juice, sunflower seeds (or both)--not that exciting. It is fun, though, when someone hits the ball so hard and so far nobody bothers to follow it, and the lucky batter circles the bases, waving a hat in victory, and the fans, sharing in their triumph(because of the massive levels of psychic energy they needed to propel a baseball by telekinesis as far as metaphysical law would allow).

I say the homerun should be a bigger celebration: Every time it happens, all fielders should retreat to their dugout, the ground should open up, a Baptist choir should emerge to perform a joyful musical number, and the scoring batter should be paraded around in one of those electric cars from the airport, driven by a dwarf in clown makeup. The game should not resume until everyone in the stadium has high-fived everyone else. But riding in that cart will make you think too much of...

Golf

This is a much more boring game to watch. (Playing it is kind of fun, though. If I ever meet Tiger Woods, I have to ask him how the heck you get past that dang second windmill next to the giant clown-head--it's such a pain in the neck to figure out!). Basically you get an expensive ball, and a much-more-expensive stick to smack the ball with. You hit it as hard and as far as you can...and...go look for it in the bushes! After you find it, you...whack it into the bushes again! But it's different bushes this time. Sometimes they're trees, or a lake. They all look the same on television.

Oh, and I lied. You don't use a very expensive stick. You use a whole bag of various expensive sticks, and have to hire a servant to carry them around (the servants are named after traditional implements for carrying --"sedans", I think).

To make the game exciting, players should probably race each other from one hole to the next (some leagues can race on foot, but this just opens up another steroid-controversy avenue). This would create new interest in custom golf cart engineering, and bring golfers into closer cooperation with the folks who run monster truck rallies, something the sport could probably use right now.

The will be a huge reduction in the number of holes on a course, maybe limited to one or two, owing to grounds maintenance costs. Two goals, grown men madly racing each other between them, reminds you of...

Basketball

This is actually a fun sport to both watch and play, and not as violent as the others, like hockey, where the incidental fistfights *are* the sport. When there is a fight, these nonprofessional sluggers can be very unpredictable. Although I heard Kareem Abdul Jabbar knows Jeet Kune Do, so anything can happen. To improve this sport, maybe you can employ an idea from the child's game Hot Potato, but this time, the basketball randomly bursts into flames. If the players complain, tell them to wear gloves, those pansies.

An unexpectedly bizarre sight is when the freakishly tall players fall down into the audience. They don't fall in a split second like a short person (e.g. me), it takes them a while to reach the ground, as if it were already playing in slow motion. It's like watching a giraffe hobbling around in mismatched roller-skates. The court-side photographers get a mixed blessing as they get to chat with a famous cager, but get clobbered by a shower of falling bones and sweat.

"Hi there! Are you a (Ooof!) photographer? How (Thud!) are you? I (Ow!) just (aaagh!) sorry about that (ouch!). Which channel(bump!) Can you help me up? My arm ends (Shoot!) over there in the third row (Aagh!). Use the zoom-lens to help find my shoe."

Also I think if you are fouled out, you should stay in the game by sitting in a chair, just outside the key, so other players have to work around you while you think about the no-no fouls you pulled.

But too much sitting around motionless will make the game resemble...

Chess

This is a very boring game, which doesn't even warrant announcers. You know exactly what is going on: Two people staring at a slab of wood, playing what is essentially a board game. No cheerleaders, no hotdog vendors, no fireworks or fans doing "The Wave". This makes golfers look like The Solid Gold Dancers.
This gives me an idea: at regular intervals, say every five minutes, you have to perform a musical number of your choice. A second table will be brought in, with Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul seated behind it to judge your performance. Winning these points entitles you to remove one of your opponent's pieces off the board.

Simon: The computer Big Blue has made an excellent choice by selecting an .mp3 file of OutKast's "Hey Ya"! Everyone in the audience is shake-shake-shaking it like a Polaroid!

Paula: Yes, for once I agree with you Simon, but Garry Kasparov just pulled out the ace, and let loose with his tribute to David Bowie's early career! I never thought he could top his previous number of Rolling Stones Meets Wizard of Oz! Can that Garry Kasparov shake his booty or what? This is better than his BeeGees tribute back in '87! A landmark play of his career! And he takes Big Blue's queen for a checkmate!

These are just a few ideas I have to improve our popular sports on television. I have a hundred of these ideas running rampant in my head, and I can tell you more. For some reason though, nobody ever listens to me enough to take these suggestions seriously.