Being a sports fan is a great lifestyle choice, but these 10 annoying moments make you want to pick up a book sometimes.
10. The Cutaway Girlfriend Shot
We get it: that famous athlete is hooked up with a hot celebrity. He's also rich, but we don't need to see a shot of his AmEx black card at every stoppage of play.
Honorable mention: The Cutaway Mom Shot
9. Chris Berman Saying Things
Berman has now been working the same schtick for three decades without the slightest hint of self-conciousness. He no longer even uses words, instead emitting a series of guttural noises and high-pitched squeals over every NFL highlight on ESPN.
Honorable mention: Skip Bayless Making Facial Expressions
8. The Prevent Defense
A formation seemingly designed to ensure a timely field goal and overtime period. The logic: your defense has you in a position to win, so scrap the whole thing now that it's about to happen.
Honorable mention: Defensive Three Seconds
7. The Offside Penalty in Hockey
You may have noticed that NHL teams combine for somewhere around 0 goals a game. That's boring, as evidenced by the NHL's TV deal with something called Versus. The reason: players aren't allowed to put themselves in position to score.
Honorable mention: Hockey
6. The BCS
Should be ranked higher, but I just don't care anymore. Let's just accept the facts that college football is the only major sports league that doesn't name a national champion and plays its exhibition schedule after the season, and be done with it. Then we can all move on.
Honorable mention: Division I-AA Teams Being Ranked
5. The Just-Over-Halfcourt Timeout
NBA teams dribble into the frontcourt to call timeout, thus giving themselves possession at halfcourt rather than in their own backcour. They do this throughout the game, whether the other team is applying full-court pressure or not, and regardless of the fact that inbounding the ball is much more difficult at halfcourt. They basically involve the defense for no reason at all, when the defense has already made clear they're not interested in you inbounding the ball. Worse, the move has turned into a weird mini-game, in which the entire offensive team walks toward the bench while the point guard dribbles upcourt by himself to call time. But wait - he might not call timeout if the defense starts walking off too! The drama! To prevent this, the defending point guard makes a little run at the ball-handler just over halfcourt. So we're left with two guys running a coy, half-hearted dribbling drill while the other eight players shuffle to the bench, all while the clock is still running in an actual live game. Just like Naismith drew it up.
Honorable mention: Coaches who call timeout by pointing their index finger into the palm of their hand.
4. The Free-Throw Line Cakewalk
When a team is losing by a handful and tries to extend the game by fouling the other team, every single foul is intentional. Yet no matter how obvious, it won't be called. In other words, the only time it would be meaningful to enforce the intentional-foul rule is also the one time officials refuse to acknowledge it exists.
Honorable mention: Teams that are up by three late in the game letting their opponent score an uncontested layup.
3. All-Star Games
The Pro Bowl is the worst offender, but they're all awful. We don't need to see our favorite players come out and wave for the cameras when they're already dangerously overexposed. Steroid-addled monsters playing two-hand touch, botched alley-oops, Cy Young candidates floating it over the plate for 2/3 of an inning. These games demean us all.
Honorable mention: Preseason All-League Teams
2. Players Wearing Microphones
If you ever wanted to hear what players are saying during the game, you probably don't anymore. According to TV, it's all "Woo!" and "Yeah!" and "My bad!" and falling all over each other on the bench after an inaudible inside joke. Either broadcast something interesting, like players insulting each other's moms or telling their coach to shut up, or just skip the audio entirely.
Honorable mention: In-game interviews with coaches and managers
1. The Just-Before-the-Snap Timeout
This passive-aggressive piece of strategery comes to us from Dick Dastardly's one-year gig helming the expansion Really Rottens in the Arena Football League. Now it's gone mainstream, leaving every kicker in football to wonder, as he's lining up a crunch-time kick, if it's going to be a for-real kick or not. As if kickers don't have enough existential questions to deal with.
Honorable mention: Trying to kick an extra point before the other coach can throw the challenge flag.