The List: Stupid Sports Traditions And Recurrences
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by Martyvburen
On the strength of my previous article (and the subsequent heavy editing by more established members of the ArmchairGM community), I'll try this whole list thing again. Today, inspiration comes in the form of Don Shula. Because that hasn't been written about enough yet. Please note this is in no way ordered or chronological. First entry is a gimme:
The 1972 Miami Dolphins And Their Bubbly: A bunch of crotchety old men defining their whole existence by what they did 25 years ago. It didn't work for John Kerry, and it's not working for these old bastards. True, no one likes their records broken, but I never saw Hank Aaron go binging whenever someone retired without hitting #756. Walter Payton's family didn't pout when Emmitt Smith broke his yardage record, nor did the Maris family when Mark McGwire smashed the single-season HR record (though they may be having second thoughts now). There's always a time to move on and accept that you had a good thing going for a while. Instead, the Old Guys, led by Nutri-Shula, are going to pout and whine and do everything possible to discredit and minimize the impact of possibly the single greatest team the NFL has ever seen. If and when the Patriots go 19-0, they should be welcomed into Valhalla by the elder warriors; they'll come out looking like the bigger men when compared with the Disciples Of Belichick.
All-Star Games: Relics from an era before widespread TV and Internet access allowed almost every fan to see almost every player on a daily basis. Their usefulness has dissolved into a whitewash of sponsored noise and hype with no one who matters (i.e. the players) actually giving a damn. The concept has become so watered down that even sports leagues without actual stars have them (case in point: the WNBA has one!) The only All-Star Game with any sort of relevance (MLB) was rendered almost completely irrelevant the minute Interleague Play was introduced, and the pathetic attempt to make the game actually mean something is a despicable spit in the face to the Regular Season in the name of keeping ratings up and sponsors happy. The increasing number of players in all sports opting out of this nonsense and the events surrounding it serve to reinforce the fact that these games have outlived their time.
The Seventh Inning Stretch At Wrigley Field: It was nice when Harry Caray did it. It was cute when the Cubs kept it going for a while to honor Caray. It has now devolved into any two-bit hack promoting a movie or living out a dream butchering the damn song and sometimes even forgetting the words. Kill this now. Please.
The NFL Combine : Why in God's name do they still do this? You're telling me that, after years and years of analyzing performance and seeing results, the brightest minds in the NFL (and the Vikings) still think the best judge of a player's eventual usefulness and talent is a 40-yard-dash and a bench press? I'm not even trying to evoke bleeding-heart intangibles like Grit and Desire. I'm talking about field performance, opponent quality, work ethic, and past coaching. The biggest indictment of this system is that, even today, Al Toon would STILL get drafted ahead of Jerry Rice. Another indictment is Ted Ginn Jr., but we can't fault the man for the Dolphins' stupidity.
Televised Drafts: It's gotten so bad that Major League Baseball is televising a portion of its draft. To reiterate: the only draft more boring than the WNBA's is now being televised. Ratings are nice, but these things, in the long run, are about as important as All-Star games. Case in point: Stockar McDougle and Trung Canidate were televised during the 2000 NFL Draft. Tom Brady was not.
Arguing About College Football's Postseason: It will never change. There will never be a perfect system. Deal with it.
Did I miss any?
