Helpful Tidbits for the Sports Imbecile

Dear Sports Imbecile:

As a fellow halfwit when it comes to sports, I felt it important to share some lessons I’ve learned about living with this rare social handicap.

1. A football is neither. The game called football has hardly any foot work and the so-called “ball” is really a prolate spheriod. WARNING: Saying, “hey guys, how about we go out and toss around the prolate spheroid,” does not improve your social condition.
2. Someone may come up to you and say something like, “Hey. How ‘bout them ____?” Here they will sometimes insert the name of an animal, like eagles or jaguars. They are not referring to the endangered species list, so replying passionately with, “It makes me so mad! I wish people would stop killing them for their feathers.” will only result in the person smiling politely while backing away from you slowly.
3. Instead, if you wish to appear like you know something about sports, respond by saying, “Yeah, I know. They always start out great, but then they blow it.” For emphasis pound your fist into your palm. No matter the team or the sport, this almost always works whether the friend thinks you are talking about individual games or the season. Unless they really are talking about an endangered species, then the person will smile politely while backing away slowly.
4. Everyone in the entire world outside the US refers to soccer as football. This makes more sense since the foot is applied to a true sphere. But beware, one can watch a soccer game for an hour without anyone scoring a single point. It is not uncommon for the final score to be something like 3 – 2. In in this sport, a great deal of effort is expended with little to show for. If this feels too much like real life, try watching baseball where there is next to no energy expended.
5. I have distinct memories of my grandfather falling asleep in front of a baseball game, and for good reason. Baseball is boring. Most of your time is spent waiting for something to happen. It takes an unreasonably long time for the pitcher simply to throw the ball to the batter. Then, it is only hit about 1/3^rd of the time. Finally, someone catches the ball and the player is out. While scores may be higher than in soccer, at least the players are just standing around and not running their heads off for two hours only to finish the game with a 1 – 0 score.
6. If you think soccer and baseball are boring, stay completely clear of cricket. When the British colonized other countries, they taught them this game to bore the colonized into subjugation.
7. Olympics. These are well-worth watching for all the human-interest stories and good commercials. Also, you don’t have to watch any one sport for more than a half hour before they start talking about another event. However, if you live in the US, you will not get network coverage of the really cool sports like ping pong, badminton or tug of war.

These tidbits have kept me socially afloat for years even while living in Wisconsin where I quickly learned that Vince Lombardi is not the name of a good red wine and the Ice Bowl is an event kids are taught in their American history class. If you heed these things, you can get by with simply shaking your head while repeating, “I know, I know,” while someone drones on about things you don’t care about.