Sports Tradtions that Need to Be Dumped

Let's get rid of these sports traditions, shall we?

1. Spraying champagne after winning a playoff series. I just saw the Arizona
Diamondbacks celebrating their victory by blasting champagne all over their locker room after winning their NLDS series. If you win the World Series, I guess you're entitled to partake in this venture, but I don't get the practice of going nuts with the bubbly after winning one series. What a waste.

2. Giving towels to fans at games. I attended the Phillies first game against the Rockies in the NLDS. All fans got a rag to swing around in the air. Ok, I guess it looks cool when everybody's waving them, but at the same time, it prevents people from clapping and making noise, which to me is more overwhelming than a bunch of towels spinning around.

3. Giving long skinny balloons to fans behind the basket. See #2.

4. Yelling "sucks" after an opposing player's name is announced during opening introductions. Once again this was observed at the Phillies/Rockies game on Wednesday. The first time I heard it was at a Duke University basketball game on TV which I thought was pretty cool at the time, but now it's just trite and immature.

5. Announcers giving "keys to the game" or other such fodder. Look, we're fans, we all know what has to happen for a team to win. Just re-wording the same old standards, such as: "get out to an early lead" or "take the crowd out of the game" or "adapt to the weather." Thanks guys but we get the point.

6. Playing loud music at any possible moment. This is particularly prominent and annoying at NBA games, whereby home teams want to make it seem like there's a lot of excitement and the fans are incompetent when it comes to make their own noise. Thanks guys, but it's unnecessary.

7. Football players, coaches, and announcers talking about how playing football is like "going to war." No it's not. It's a past time where people tackle each other. I don't recall any war in the history of the world where a gang of people out-tackled another gang of people and declared themselves conquerors of a plot of land.

Thanks for listening to my rant. And thank you for allowing me to continue the tradition of critiquing all things sports.

Now I'm goint to celebrate this post by spraying champagne all over my keyboard.