The Thin Line Between Love and Hate

By: John M. Crist

It seems like a lot of sportswriters are going out of their way to come up with lists these days. Whether they are trying to spark heated national debate or just looking for an easy way to write a column without truly tackling a topic, lists have been popping up everywhere like bad reality shows and Jessica Simpson commercials.

Well if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So without further ado, here is a half-cracked list of 10 things I love about sports and 10 things I hate about sports. By the way, when was the last time you used the word “ado” when it wasn’t preceded by “without further”?

What I positively love about sports:

1. Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon and his devil-may-care morning cigar habit. They’re bad for him, he knows it, and he smokes them with a smile anyway.

2. There are few things prettier in sports than an inning-ending double play. The quick hands, the crisp throws, the long stretch by the first baseman. Toss in a backhanded grab by the shortstop and an ACL-saving leap by the second baseman to avoid a hard-sliding runner, and you’ve got a SportsCenter highlight every time.

3. Ex-Seminole, ex-Falcon, ex-Yankee, ex-49er, ex-Brave, ex-Cowboy, ex-Red, ex-Redskin, ex-Giant, ex-CBS analyst Deion Sanders. You can roll your eyes at his endless bravado. You can thumb your nose at his shameless self-promotion. But there’s no way you could deny the way he quickened your pulse and took your breath away when he got his mitts on the ball in the open field or hit a line-drive in the gap.

4. The fat, hairy Neanderthal with the cheesy moustache and decade-old Zubaz pants who decides to go shirtless at a Bears-Packers game in December.

5. The one-timer. I know most of the cool stuff in hockey happens so fast that the average fan won’t even catch it, but I swear I’ve seen defensemen reach for their rosaries and spell-check their wills when Al MacInnis is getting ready to fire.

6. A bang-bang-play at the plate in a tie-game. In extra innings. In October.

7. Jack Nicholson at a Lakers game. Sure, he’s practically a parody of himself these days, but come on. How much would you pay to have him hooked up to a microphone in a playoff game? To Robert Parish: “Hit me, Chief! I got the moves!” To Paul Pierce: “You can’t handle The Truth!” To the other fans as he leaves the Staples Center: “Now comes the part when I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But remember, as my plastic surgeon always said, if you gotta go, go with a smile!”

8. A linebacker cold-clocking a wideout as he runs a shallow slant over the middle. Admit it, when the hit is so hard that it knocks the receiver’s helmet off, you would love it if his head were still in there.

9. Princeton delivering bounce passes to backdoor cutters for easy lay-ups and scaring the bejesus out of higher-seeded teams in the NCAA Tournament.

10. The way the guys on the PGA Tour get the ball to spin back 20 feet with a wedge from 100 yards out like it’s a yo-yo. I do a little dance when I get up to the green and my Titleist is within a few feet of the ballmark. If I even made a ballmark, of course.

What I absolutely hate about sports:

1. The #8 hitter in the lineup, the weak-swinging backup shortstop with the .215 batting average, getting intentionally walked because the pitcher is on deck. I may be a baseball purist at heart, but I actually like the designated hitter. Without it, Paul Molitor never would have got to 3,000 hits, Eddie Murray never would have reached 500 homeruns, and Frank Thomas would have been back in Georgia selling aluminum siding 10 years ago.

2. Station-to-station baseball. The power game has taken away the subtle nuances that made this sport our national pastime: the hit-and-run, the suicide squeeze, the double-steal. Some managers claim they don’t want to risk outs when the guy at the plate is capable of hitting a home run. That’s like a football coach not wanting to throw a forward pass and risk an interception because he has a running back who is capable of taking it to the house on every handoff.

3. Could there be any more timeouts in basketball? I can cook a steak, a well-done steak, with a Zippo, in the time it takes to play the final minute of a playoff game. Every time they show that stat box on TV it drives me crazy: 32.5 seconds left on the clock, no fouls to give, possession arrow to the home team, three full timeouts left…and a twenty to boot.

4. The crowd at a Miami Hurricanes home game. They might as well be in the NFL. There is no real student section since none of the fans of the team have any affiliation with the school whatsoever. The stands are filled with nothing but local thugs and Luthor Campbell wannabes. If you see a guy on the street sporting a Miami hat, the odds of him actually having a degree from that institution are about the same as Michael Irvin showing up to the set of NFL Countdown wearing a navy blue two-button blazer from Men’s Warehouse.

5. Barry Bonds. His five-tool talent is undeniable. His lightning-quick bat speed is mesmerizing. His career numbers are jaw dropping. But I absolutely can’t stand him, and I don’t feel the least bit bad about it.

6. Is there anything worse than some second-rate R&B artist using the national anthem as a personal contest to see how many octaves they can hit or how long they can hold that dramatic pause between “O’er the land of the free” and “And the home of the brave”? We’re here for the ballgame, honey. Sing the song, sing it right, smile, wave to the crowd, and get off the field. It’s Francis Scott Key’s Star Spangled-Banner, not Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

7. Watching hockey on television. In person at the arena, it truly is incredible what these guys do with their bodies on a nightly basis. On skates? Are you kidding me? However, it just does not translate to the idiot box, and unfortunately for all the puck pundits out there, your sport is dying a slow death because of it.

8. A run-of-the-mill golfer hits a three-quarter sand wedge from 90 yards out, and he throws his club in disgust if it doesn’t end up pin-high and within five feet. That’s like Bonds refusing to round the bases because his home run only landed on the concourse and not in McCovey Cove. Look fellas, any time I actually keep the ball on the green with a club other than my putter, I feel like Jack Nicklaus at Augusta in ‘86.

9. Any interview with a hockey player. Bad hair, bad teeth, open cuts all over their face, and they always talk like a side character in a Coen Brothers movie. I know it’s bad to stereotype, but let’s face it, they exist for a reason.

10. The Yankees. How can any baseball fan this side of the Empire State actually pull for this team? I’m all for capitalism, believe me, but George Steinbrenner and his bottomless millions, his ego-maniacal tirades, and his merciless meddling have practically made me a card-carrying Red Sox fan out of pure disgust. Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the bully on a school playground.

If nothing else, sports spawn emotion. Good, old-fashioned, raw emotion. Dizzying highs, cavernous lows. Love and hate. Sometimes it’s unexplainable. I love the way Gary Sheffield violently waves his bat as he awaits the pitch. I hate the way Freddie Mitchell celebrates an eight-yard reception like he just won the lottery on his birthday. I don’t know why. I just do.

John Crist is a longtime contributor to the CSR, and the Editor-in-Chief of Bear Report Magazine. Check it out and become a Bears Insider. You can contact him at johncrist@yahoo.com.

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