Sports at Large

Football season is nearing the halfway point. Baseball season is nearing its end. Hockey season is just beginning. Basketball season is fast and approaching.

So many sports, so little time.

To be completely honest, I could care less about baseball. But I will admit, I watched the final three innings of Game Three of the Yankees/Angels series with great interest. I hate the Yankees and I was waiting for Mariano Rivera to blow the game, but when it didn't happen I fully expected the Yankees to close it out in the end.

And then Jeff Mathis hit yet another double for the Angels to win the game. Of course now the series is at 3-1 and the Yankees look like they are already booking a trip to the World Series.

Still, I am one of many people who could care less about the 162 game season but pay some sort of attention to the postseason. But given that I have little interest in the likely Yankees/Phillies World Series, I doubt baseball will enter my thoughts beyond the moments I flip past the channel carrying the games.

In fact, I wish the NHL was more widely broadcast because I have a growing interest in hockey. I jumped on the Washington Capitals bandwagon a few years ago and hate that baseball gets major network coverage over the entirety of a six to seven month season.

Note to Bud Selig: Shorten the effin season!

There is no need for that many games in any sport ever. Basketball and hockey are 82 game seasons, but involve some real action. I don't see how so many people can sit in front of a television and for the most part watch two guy's play monkey in the middle with another guy who happens to be dressed differently wielding a wooden stick.

The common joke about hockey is "oh I went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out." Raucous laughter ensues, but let's be honest about this. Hockey fights are awesome.

And while I take nothing away from the skill it takes to play baseball, there is very little that is more entertaining than watching a massive collision on ice or even the focus and physical skill it takes to be able to stand on skates and stop a tiny, rock hard black disk from going in a net.

The NBA seems to have its act together in terms of broadcasting. There are enough teams and games during a season to spread it out over broadcast television and cable and not cause problems with different markets.

Not that everyone wants to see the same rotation of six teams (Lakers, Cavaliers, Celtics, Suns, Spurs, Mavericks) on Sunday like ABC seems intent on doing.

I wish I could say that college basketball has been exciting, but sometimes the games are too hard to track. There are so many teams with their own stories that it is nearly impossible to focus on the smaller schools barring some sort of upset of a major program.

The major schools get picked up by CBS and the NCAA tournament is always exciting, but there has to be an easier way of keeping track of the sheer volume of the teams playing.

The NFL is the primary focus of just about every American sports fan in the world right now. That may be an overstatement, but the NFL owns a lot of people when it comes to Sundays, and the religious following of the NFL is rivaled only by God and, well, religion.

I wish I had more positive things to talk about my team, the Washington Redskins, but they are so busy running themselves into the cellar of the NFL that I am almost ashamed to admit my support of them.

If there is one thing I am happy about with the Redskins is that no matter how bad they do, and how bad attendance is, they find a way to avoid being blacked out. I found it funny that their game against the Detroit Lions was blacked out in the Detroit area.

Everyone in Washington saw their team lose to the winless Lions, but everyone outside of Ford Field didn't.

The NFL should have a policy regarding bad owners. If it is clear that an owner is incapable of building a successful team, there should be a board that reviews their performance. Dan Snyder may be a great businessman but he doesn't know the first thing about football.

Not that I know any more than he does (though I do), I know that if I was the owner of the Redskins I would let the people whose lives have been dedicated to football make all the decisions regarding football. I'll sit back and milk the cash cow while the real brains help to put a credible product on the field.

I would also lobby to have Al Davis removed from the Oakland Raiders because he has done nothing but ruin that franchise. He is older than dirt, so time may be the ultimate solution, but I feel bad for the Raiders in the meantime. JaMarcus Russell is not a franchise quarterback for one thing and the entire coaching staff is awful.

Head coach Tom Gable allegedly hit another staffer and threatened to kill him. Whether the story is true or not, it doesn't set a good precedent for the team.

Sports mean so much to people that I doubt we would know what to do without them.

What if there is a labor lockout in the NFL come next season or after? What will people do without football for an entire season? The NHL came out of their most recent lockout with a renewed sense of purpose, and it has grown significantly since then.

One thing is certain; If there is a lockout and the NFL tries to field teams in an effort to maintain some revenue, the Redskins may be on the winning end of a Super Bowl since they are so good at winning when the NFL is in shambles.

I am sure none of this is cohesive, but the mind rarely is. It takes skill to turn thoughts into a coherent composition, but this is a blog and it just has to be readable, not make sense...