Maybe it's just me, but is anybody else sick of hearing the following in sports?
1. "Step up."
Never have two words been used so much to mean so little. Go ahead, watch one hour of ESPN, and count the number of "step ups" offered by anchors, players, coaches, announcers and anybody else who opens their yaps to talk about sports for a living. What in the hell, does "step up" really mean?
"You know Jim, Shaq really has to step up tonight if the Lakers want to win." Oh, really?
Is that to imply that athletes routinely hold back some degree of effort every night, so that when a coach asks them to "step up" they have another level to rise to? The overuse of "step up" is a biblical plague on sportscasting right now. Every game, there is someone who will inevitably "step up" when it's all said and done.
Why my brethren in the media (not to mention the cliché spewing athletes themselves) insist on repeating this insipid mantra over and over again is beyond me. What is the opposite of step up? Fall down? Step backward? Slide sideways?
The next time I hear someone in sports say "step up" or any of its equally meaningless derivatives, I only wish I could "step up" to their face and slap them silly. Enough already.
2. "Jerry Jones had a great draft for the Cowboys."
Oh he did, huh? The "crafty" Jones managed to trade down two spots and still get his man, safety Roy Williams. Ooooooh! What a draft! What people really should be saying is this: "Jerry Jones has singlehandedly turned his team into a league laughingstock. They won just five games last year, thanks mostly to his ham-handed draft day of a year ago.
That was when he rode the draft order up and down like an elevator before taking his "pig-in-a-poke" selection of Quincy Carter (QB rating: 63) Trying to "grade" a draft 10 minutes after it is over, is akin to anointing your newborn daughter "Miss America" based on her APGAR score. At best, it takes three years to "grade" a draft, and even then mitigating circumstances often render an incomplete mark.
So all media draftniks can do to "grade" a draft is see how individual teams "address needs." The more "needs" you can address, the more the Mel Kiper's drool over you. Well this just in, but Jerry's Cowboys have more holes than a bulletin board, which means he has plenty of "needs" to choose from on draft day. I wonder how "good" Jerry Jones' draft would have been with one or two of those 1st round picks he spent on speedy but oft injured WR Joey Galloway.
Did anybody say what a "great draft" the Patriots or the Rams had this spring? No. Bad teams have "good drafts" while good teams play each other in January.
3. "Hockey is too violent to be accepted as a mainstream sport."
Funny, but nobody seems to say this about the NFL, which last time I checked, has killed and paralyzed more players than all the other sports combined, including hockey. This year in the first round of the playoffs, the Islanders and Maple Leafs engaged in a nasty, dirty and intense seven game series. No doubt, there were some bad cheap shots. Guys were knocked out of games.
So I say, what's your point?
Hockey, at its essence, is a brutally rugged sport. The game will never be a "free skate" at your neighborhood ice house. Oh yeah, and there are fights in hockey. Gasp. Just like the fights in baseball, basketball, and football. More frequent yes, but the bench clearing brawl has been nipped in the bud by strict league rules against leaving the bench. Funny how columnists who rip hockey for being "too violent" never say a word about how many shameful "beanbrawls" make Sportscenter during the summer.
About the only people who say they have "given up the NHL" because it is "too violent" are people who were marginal fans to begin with. Save us the preaching, and if you want a "nicer" more gentle sport, go watch soccer.
And then watch the real violence start in the stands.
{INSERT_RELATED}4. "If baseball owners don't like how much money their players make, they just shouldn't pay them so much."
If only life were this simple. Has anybody heard of the term "collusion?" The owners sure have. They were caught in "collusion" back in 1987 to "just not pay the players so much" and the courts and the union took them to the cleaners and back. This is like living with three roommates in college, and having a secret "deal" between the four of you not to eat the leftover pizza in the fridge. Good luck.
A prime example of why sports leagues need salary caps, is Tom Hicks in baseball. The newbie owner of the Texas Rangers, made a splash two years ago by signing Alex Rodriquez to a 10 year $250 million dollar contract. Now, he regrets it, and says he needs to at least break even next season. Again, good luck.
The horse is out of the barn, and the MLB pay scale has already been knocked totally out of whack by the Pay-Rod fiasco. Every other team in the majors are now paying for Hicks' checkbook spasm, from pumped up arbitration numbers to every other rock-star player agent who wants to break the bank on the new "record" contract.
How would you feel if Bill Gates came into your humble middle class neighborhood, and paid $10 million for a two-bedroom ranch house. Hey, doesn't affect you, right? Not until the assessor readjusts his calculator and your property tax suddenly triples. Needless to say, Tom Hicks has few friends amongst the owners.
5. "If baseball goes on strike again, and the World Series is cancelled, fans will NEVER come back to the game!"
Quite the opposite, I say, provided a genuinely fair economic system comes out of this round of labor Armageddon. If baseball shuts down for the winter, but comes out with a salary cap, fans in places like Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Minnesota and elsewhere will come rushing back to the game. Rushing. Because finally, for the first time since the early '90s, you will have what fans consider a "fighting chance" at making the World Series.
As it currently stands, roughly 6-8 teams open spring training with any such delusions. The rest are just filling out the schedule, and selling $5 hot dogs. The problem with the last baseball shutdown, is that it did nothing to enhance competitive balance among small market teams. If anything, it got worse. Right now, the game is so shamelessly "rigged" for the "haves" that any genuine interest in the game is laced with cynicism.
As it stands, people are leaving the game of baseball because it is so transparently unfair. Witness a steady attendance decline this season, despite the most breathtaking of World Series finishes. Don't buy the hype that baseball fans will "never" come back. Remember, "never" is a long, long time.
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
