10 Things That Should Never Be Shown on ESPN

I love ESPN as much if not more than the next guy. My family gets angry when SportsCenter is on for the third time in one day or when I flip to the Baseball Tonight recap of a game that I just watched.

But every once in a while I turn to ESPN and wonder what they could be thinking and my heart breaks when I'm forced to change the channel to a rerun of Seinfeld. Here's my list of the ten worst "sports" ever put on ESPN.

1.Cup Stacking

I can't think of anything worse for the youth of this country than competitive cup stacking.

That's right cup stacking, creating pyramids out of cups in blurring speed. It's One of those things where you wonder how and why anyone would ever get into this...activity. That's what will help America's childhood obesity problems, stacking cups.

2. Spelling Bees

A lot of people attack child beauty pageants for the stress and unfair pressure that are put on such young kids. I don't think you've seen a stressed kid until you see a kid try to spell autochthonous. Don't knock on any sport being slow until you've sat through a whole spelling bee. 

3. Classic Car Auctions

A few days ago ESPN2 aired something that seems like it should be on the Home Shopping Network. It was 13 grueling hours of a Classic Car auction. Putting old classic cars on tv and having old men throw money at them is in no way entertaining.

4. Scrabble Competitions

The evil twin of the spelling bee is the Scrabble competition. Not quite the pressure of a spelling bee, but somehow just as boring.

The weird thing is that I like Scrabble, I play with family and friends, but there's no way I'm going to watch it on TV. However, there was one moment of excitement in 2004 when one participant played the word "lez" which had been deemed an inappropriate word and was therefore an illegal play.

5. Poker Tournaments

This one might be controversial, but one thing that I can't stand and have never truly understood is watching poker on TV.

I guess this is in a similar category to Scrabble, another game I enjoy, but should not be on ESPN. I would advise them to think long and hard about putting board and card games on ESPN in the future.

6. Speed Pool

A guilty pleasure of mine is speed pool, which always puts me in a weird position of wanting to change the channel but find my fingers unable to change the channel.

For those unfamiliar with speed pool the idea is to pocket every ball in the quickest time possible, being penalized for scratches and rewards for knocking a ball in on every hit.

7. Competitive Cheerleading

Ah, the age-old argument of whether cheerleading is a sport. I personally have no problem admitting it is as physically demanding as most sports and personally have no problem calling it a sport. I just don't understand the fascination with it. In truth, all of the smiling, giddy cheerleaders creep me out.

8. Bass Fishing

No more needs to be said.

9. Bowling

It's late in the game tenth frame, and he's going to need a strike to win the game. He rolls the ball, it looks good, it has a chance, and...oh no! One pin is standing, he loses the game.

I have no reason to dislike bowling except for the obvious. There's nothing exciting about it. Not one thing.

10. Softball

Yep, it's my second girls sport and some would say it's sexist of me to this sport on this list, but it truly has nothing to do with gender. I love everything about baseball and I don't understand why such a great sport had to be changed into the demented sister that is softball.

Those are just a few of my ESPN programming peeves. Feel free to add or disagree with the list. It would be great to hear everyone's thoughts.