Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
Friday, October 6, 2006, Washington Post

Oh, Don't Get Me Started

I love playoff baseball. The games are so tense. Every pitch, every play could be the difference between going to the World Series and going home.

But one thing drives me crazy about playoff baseball: The batters take so long to get ready. They step out of the box on almost every pitch. They fiddle with their batting gloves. They fiddle with their elbow protectors. They fiddle in places where they are not supposed to fiddle.

I love sports, but there are little things -- call them my pet peeves -- about the games that drive me nuts. Take football television announcers. They say the word "football" about 20 times in every sentence. They never say someone is a great player. No, he's a great football player who made a great football play during this football game. Maybe they keep saying "football" so we won't think we're watching NASCAR or a basketball game.

Don't get me started on basketball. Why do players always touch hands with their teammates after every foul shot, even the ones they miss? Stay where you are and let your teammate take the next foul shot.

And it really bugs me when the ball goes out of bounds in a basketball game. What happens? Big surprise, all the players and coaches point and scream at the referee that it should be their ball. Wouldn't you love it if, just once, a player or coach pointed in the other direction and argued that it was the other team's ball?

There's lots of faking in basketball games, and that makes me mad, too. Players throw up their hands or fall on their backsides trying to get the referee to call a foul.

But the hoopsters are nothing compared with soccer players. In the World Cup, players acted as if they had been shot in the leg if another player even touched them. Sometimes a player was carried off on a stretcher only to pop up on the sideline and, after a long drink of water, return to the action.

Some fans are no better. I hate it when hockey fans cheer when a fight breaks out. I like hockey -- not fighting. And more "fans" are yelling stuff that parents and teachers tell kids they should never say. I was at the last Nationals' game and a fan screamed . . . well, I can't tell you what he screamed. Everybody, watch your language. There are kids at the games.

Speaking of yelling, why do some tennis players scream or grunt on every shot? Maria Sharapova is terrific, but she yelps like she stepped on a tack every time she whacks the ball.

Okay, enough of my pet peeves. Because you know what I really hate? People, including sportswriters, who complain.