I need a break. Stat!

There's WAY too many worthless statistics in sports these days. Most everyone, from the owner on down to the players, would agree that pro sports is a business. What are other businesses doing in these lean economic times? Streamlining. So why not do the same in sports when it comes to stats?

Let's take baseball as an example. Starting pitchers? Wins and losses, earned run average, and maybe strike outs only. Get rid of all that junk about facing left or right handed batters, home or on the road, day games vs. night games, cold weather or warm weather, etc. etc. Who needs it?

Relievers? That's become a mass of confusion. There's long relievers, middle relievers, and short relievers. Is this a ball game or a clothing store? There's "set-up" men. They gets "holds", another stat that I don't understand. I thought that had to do with wrestling, or offensive linemen. Then there's closers. They only appear when they have a chance for a "save". Few people understand what constitutes a "save" either. And just why is it a closer only seems capable of throwing 20 pitches or so before they're gassed?  They probably threw more than that in the bullpen warming up. If shortstops only had enough stamina to last one inning, I'm thinking they wouldn't be around too long, regardless of how good they were  Guess I don't get it.

Hitters? Average, home runs, and RBIs only. Maybe throw in stolen bases for the speedy guys. That's all we need. Get rid of slugging percentage and OPS, whatever that means, and all the rest of the useless numbers that nobody understands. These days, the talking heads will inform you that some guy was the 1st left-handed batter in the last 327 days to hit a double off a right-handed pitcher that weighs more than 200 pounds, in a ballpark that's less than 20 years old, and also has a grandmother living in Peoria, with a chihuahua named Spike.

 I don't need this.

The same goes for all the other sports. TMI.

Yeah, the information superhighway is here to stay. I get that.

But even supercomputers are finite. Keep loading them up with all this worthless information and one day -- BAM -- that highway will start looking like Michigan's roads.

On that note, this is.........

Sealed with a KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

JL