Sports Talk

I love sports; I always have. I love to watch baseball and football, especially. Baseball is the more cerebral game, and observers get to manage along with the brilliant minds of big league managers. Whenever someone complains that baseball is too slow, I can point to the fact that a lot of brains are spinning all at once. It takes brains to figure out how to win in the only game where the scoring is done away from the ball. The more one knows about baseball, the greater the enjoyment. Guessing along whether to change pitchers, send in a pinch hitter, try a hit-and-run or run-and-hit...all great fun. And because they play 162 games a year (and the better teams get to play even more...) there is no need for ballyhoo, cheerleaders and pep rallies. As Earl Weaver used to say when he managed the Orioles, "No use getting all worked up. We do this every night."

Football is fun too; less for the mind, since there are two main options when you have the ball (run or throw) and primarily one when you don't (tackle the guy who does). But who can deny the thrill of a hard-fought football game? Think of a college game on a crisp fall afternoon - say it's Alabama versus LSU...way down South...the freshman sensation, the old salty coach, the fifth-year linebacker looking to move up in the NFL draft, the beefy state trooper whose function is to run off the field with the coach afterward, ostensibly to protect him from overzealous or overwrought fans, and also to ward off NCAA investigators and NFL coaching offers.

So, I love sports and will gladly discuss the highs and lows that come along with enjoying them and rooting for particular teams. But I have a hard time figuring out one aspect of it.

Sports talk radio.

This is a fairly popular radio format, mainly on AM, because there are doggone few AM stations playing music any longer. And so, you tune in to hear the scores, the schedule, who's hurt, who got cut from a team, and the other news. And then they open the phone lines.

Some guy calls and says the quarterback should have thrown that pass better. Another guy says he could kick better than the field goal kicker. Bubba calls to report that so-and-so is way past his prime and should retire. An expert on everything points out that good pitching and good defense wins every time. If a baseball team has recently signed a slugger, they should have gone for a pitcher.

Peyton Manning did a very funny commercial a couple of years ago in which he acted like a fan toward people doing their jobs: delivering his paper, working at the grocery store, selling him coffee. It was funny because it made a good point. I know when I leave work, I don't want to turn on a talk show on the way home and hear someone say I was mistaken when I failed to have a door replaced in one of the buildings, or I take too strong a stance against the smokers who congregate outside the building and create a foul miasma for others to walk through in order to enter the building.

What's funny is that Peyton Manning and Derek Jeter and Brian Roberts and other star athletes do what they do because they can! I've even heard of baseball players who are not even particularly into the game and its history and heritage. It's just something they have the innate ability to do well, and it's their great fortune that their certain skills are skills that people will pay big bucks to watch in person, and that beer companies, automakers, and the folks who produce erectile dysfunction remedies will pay even bigger bucks to sponsor on television.

In a fair world, police officers, firefighters, teachers, auto repair people, administrative assistants, air conditioning technicians, and facilities managers for large county government departments would all earn astronomical salaries. But the world, for all its wonder, is not always fair.

And the capper of it all to me is hearing the occasional guy (it's virtually always a guy; women seem to have better things to do) call and tell the sports talk host, "I know the coach is listening, and he better think about playing Schlabotnick in place of O'Hoolahan on Sunday, or else!"

Or, of course, the always-good-for-a-wince, "I could hit/pitch/defend/run back kicks/shoot free throws better than THAT!"

It's now passe to say "Get a life." People like that have lives. They're just not the lives I would want to lead. For whatever salary.

I'm just sayin'.