The 50 Worst Sports Ideas Ever

Washington Times ^ | April 25, 2002 | Patrick Hruby

[Windshark]

I thought Toronto had a good chance until their Captain got hurt. Habs are going to regain it, they are looking good. But maybe not this year all the way.

Oops...he's a Swede (Toronto's Captain)!

:-)

[Windshark]

Agreed.

Could be a lead player in "Pyscho".

[Rightwing Canuck]

Yeah, the Leafs have been going downhill last two games. Hopefully they'll bounce back. As for the Habs, if they can beat Boston in this series I'll be happy :)

[Dan from Michigan]

He seems like the type of candidate for someone going postal.

[Dan from Michigan]

All that rivalry needs now is Don Cherry coming back. I'd mention Scotty too, but we need him here with the Wings.

[L.N. Smithee]

the shot clock in college hoops.....

Whaaaat? Are you one of those guys who thinks that the epitome of good basketball is that "four corners" keep-away carpola when there's less than five minutes in a two-possession game?

B-O-R-I-N-G! ! ! !

I think anything that makes basketball less like soccer is a good thing!

[L.N. Smithee]

I'm with you on the glowing puck. However I think the "magic yellow" first down line is fantastic.

It's like magic. I wish I knew how they do that.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I would add the Buffalo Braves/San Diego/LA Clippers to the list.

[okie01]

"On a warm summer evening in 1974, the attendance-starved Cleveland Indians held their first — and last — "10-Cent Beer Night," a celebration of life, bad baseball and ludicrously cheap suds."

What the story fails to mention is that the Indians' opponent on that "warm summer evening in 1974" was the Texas Rangers.

Who had hosted a Dime Beer Night of their own the previous week.

And that the visiting team had been these self-same Indians.

And that the Texas crowd, of which I was a part, had gotten a mite rowdy themselves.

Dave Duncan, now Tony LaRussa's pitching coach in St. Louis, was the Tribe catcher on that night. It was also the night that Dave Nelson, the Rangers second sacker, stole second...then third...and, finally, home...in succession.

The Indians were getting drilled and, when the inning was over, Duncan took quite a few "rag arm" insults from the crowd behind the visitor's dugout. He gave as good as he got.

One thing led to another, somebody threw a beer in Duncan's face, Duncan went postal and came over the dugout into the stands. A brawl ensued and the game was held up for a about ten minutes, while Duncan (and about a hundred fans) were ejected.

So, let the record reflect that the Cleveland fans were simply retaliating for the jobbing their team had received in Texas the previous week.

And let the record reflect that Texas also drew about 10,000 more fans into old Arlington Stadium (it was packed to the gills) and consumed over 100,000 cups of beer by the seventh inning. When the brawl broke out. And the vendors had just run out of beer...

So, also let the record reflect that Texas fans can not only drink more beer than Cleveland fans, they can handle it better, too.

It's our sense of decorum.

Damn, I miss Dime Beer Night...

[L.N. Smithee]

Charley O. - This donkey ushered in baseball's unfortunate era of tacky mascots (remember the San Francisco Crab?).

Crazy Crab wasn't really a mascot, he was an anti-mascot. He was the mascot the fans loved to hate. Market research by the Giants showed that S.F. fans didn't like mascots such as the superb (IMHO) San Diego Chicken or the Phillie Phanatic. After their success (particularly the hoopla over the firing of Ted Giannoulas, the radio station employee inside the Chicken suit, and his successful suit to claim ownership of the character), guys in stuffy suits with big heads were popping up all over. Mr. Red, Mr. Met, Fredbird, Youppi of the Expos (with the "!" on the back of his uniform) were all pretenders to the throne Giannoulas sat upon, with David Raymond (the Phanatic) a close second.

The worst, in my opinion, was the Pirate Parrot, prominent in the 1979 World Series. The suit was like an afterthought -- it was a lime green bird costume with googly eyes that made the bird look like it was stoned. Perhaps there was a reason for that. In the famous trial that followed the suspension of several players for cocaine use (the Royals' Vida Blue and the Pirates' Dave Parker and Dale Berra -- son of Yogi -- most prominently), it was revealed that the guy inside the suit -- Kevin Koch -- was using coke.

I got nothing against a decent mascot. But the clowns who came up with the Giants' "Lou Seal" ought to dropped in McCovey Cove with concrete shoes.

[untenured]

Former Astros closer Dave Smith said that Shea Stadium had the most barbarous fans in the NL. One night he was warming up and a guy in the seats (well) above the bullpen tried to urinate on him.

He said it was the only time in his career he was used for long relief.

[okie01]

"The worst, in my opinion, was the Pirate Parrot, prominent in the 1979 World Series."

You never saw Rootin' Tootin' Ranger, did you?

The ultimate in banal.

[okie01]

"He said it was the only time in his career he was used for long relief."

ROFLMAO!

[NYCVirago]

After their success (particularly the hoopla over the firing of Ted Giannoulas, the radio station employee inside the Chicken suit, and his successful suit to claim ownership of the character), guys in stuffy suits with big heads were popping up all over. Mr. Red, Mr. Met, Fredbird, Youppi of the Expos (with the "!" on the back of his uniform) were all pretenders to the throne Giannoulas sat upon, with David Raymond (the Phanatic) a close second.

Mr. Met just had a 40th-anniversary party for him at Shea Stadium, so he cannot be considered an imitator of the San Diego Chicken.

[supercat]

It's like magic. I wish I knew how they do that.

How the First-Down Line Works [note: mildly annoying pop-up material]

[L.N. Smithee]

Former Astros closer Dave Smith said that Shea Stadium had the most barbarous fans in the NL. One night he was warming up and a guy in the seats (well) above the bullpen tried to urinate on him.

Whenever I went to old Candlestick Park for a Giants game, I would kill post-game time I would normally spend in traffic checking out the players as they went to their cars or the visiting team bus in a fenced-in area. If you were lucky, a player would stop by the fence or stop his car as he left to autograph a program or a card or whatever (this was before collecting cards became a multi-million dollar biz).

Nolan Ryan was with the Astros during that time, and after a Giants-Astros game, a small crowd was waiting for Ryan to emerge from the clubhouse in hopes of getting an signature. Like most of the players, Ryan ignored the shouts to come to the fence, and was headed for the bus when someone in the crowd screamed a name that none of us recognized. Ryan's head spun around quickly, craned his neck to see who had said the name, and he walked to the gate. The crowd cheered.

Turns out the name was that of someone who worked on Ryan's ranch in Texas, and as he was chatting with the guy's friend, Ryan would sign reflexively everything that was handed to him. Unfortunately, I had neither pen nor paper at that moment.

However, that same day brought me one of the creepiest feelings I have ever felt. There were some local teenage girls waiting outside the gate, ranging in age from 14-16, but they were Astros fans. I asked why they were fans of the Astros when they lived in the Bay Area. They said they were the sexiest guys in the league, and that if they couldn't talk to them at the ballpark, they would meet them at the airport.

Ewwwwww.

[gcruse]

Thanks for that. Anyone who has ever written any code knows that it sometimes takes a mountain of stuff to do something very simple. It hadn't occurred to me how many variables they would have to deal with making the down-lines. Mercy.

[BluesDuke]

The worst, in my opinion, was the Pirate Parrot, prominent in the 1979 World Series. The suit was like an afterthought -- it was a lime green bird costume with googly eyes that made the bird look like it was stoned. Perhaps there was a reason for that. In the famous trial that followed the suspension of several players for cocaine use (the Royals' Vida Blue and the Pirates' Dave Parker and Dale Berra -- son of Yogi -- most prominently), it was revealed that the guy inside the suit -- Kevin Koch -- was using coke.

As I remember the Pirate Parrot, I'd have been surprised to learn the fellow in the costume was doing it stone cold sober! As for the "most prominent" among the Pittsburgh cocaine trials, it sounds as though you forgot Keith Hernandez...

The Chicken was probably the most engaging of the mascots - genuinely funny, a master pantomime, and almost like a Willard Mullin cartoon brought to life in his way. Most memorable line about the Chicken: Jim Bouton, when the Yankees threatened a little mayhem if and when the Chicken dared go into his act, even though the Yankee brass paid him handsomely to perform at the Stadium one afternoon: I can understand why those guys are upset. I've seen games where I thought the Chicken should have been in the lineup.

I had also thought Fredbird, a St. Louis Cardinals mascot of the 1970s/1980s, was funny for awhile. But only for awhile. By the way, Mr. Met has been with the Mets since they were born in 1962 (he predated Charlie O.); he usually turned up at special events only and wasn't anything like the later comic mascots, real and wannabe. He was just someone to lurk around the ballpark for the kids, nothing too harmful, and certainly smart enough not to think he was Charlie Chaplin when he was more like Zeppo Marx.

On the bright side: Not even the San Francisco Crab ever defecated on the field. (Finley's habit was to parade Charlie O. around the visiting dugout - particularly after the big donkey had just eaten a rather heavy meal.)

[L.N. Smithee]

You're right. But whenever I think about Hernandez nowadays, it's about that superb Seinfeld episode.