Really dumb "highlights"

Every night, sports fans see pretty much the same thing. So-called highlights of the events of the day. Evidently, the bar has become very low to qualify as such.

There will always be a dunk or two in basketball. This is no big deal. Every player in the NBA can dunk. And we've already seen every variety possible. It's like making a 6-inch putt on a golfing green. The only highlight, or lowlight, would be if the player missed it.

See the baseball outfielder run and leap to make a catch. Some are better than others, but many are plays your average high school player could make. No big deal.

On that note, we'll always see a few home runs. Lately, the ever-breathless announcers will call them "monster shots", or some other equally inane superlative. Such "colossal" home runs aren't what they used to be. In this day and age of custom made bats, supposedly juiced baseballs, and hitters benefiting from all manner of high-tech training -- why is that none of them can seem to hit a baseball over 500 feet any more? It used to happen all the time back in 50s, 60s, and 70s. Way before anything like steroids came along. By roly-poly guys that probably couldn't bench press a case of whatever booze they were consuming at the time.

Show me a hole-in-one on a golf course. That's a highlight. Some guy draining a 30 foot putt or chipping in from off the green is not. Yawn.

Soccer goals are always a highlight. Maybe that's because you can wait for hours, days, for one to happen. The only thing more boring than watching a soccer game might be a reality show featuring some sort of puritan family. Nobody's going to score much there either.

Why is it that the so-called experts put so much faith in the 40-yard dash time when it comes to certain football players? Or their vertical jumps? Former Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday hit it right on the nose when he said -- show me an offensive tackle/guard/center that can move a yard and a half to either side while keeping his man in front of him, and I don't care how fast he can run or how high he can jump. I mean, what's the point? That would be like grading out a hockey goalie based on his psychological profile. Hey, you gotta be a little nuts to play that position in the first place.

These days, the talking heads are into "firsts" in a large way. It seems every day a new "record" is set. See this guy. He's the first 23 year old from Peoria, with an Aunt Delores and a three-legged dog named Delta to ever score a touchdown in Denver, while his mother named Gertrude was being escorted out of the stadium for drunken behavior.

Or see this gal. She's the first Belinda from Northwest Whozit, Arkansas, to actually -- gasp -- run a sub-five minute mile with her sports bra on backwards.

Please. We don't need this trivial aggravation.

Show me a full, or at least three quarters court shot at the buzzer to win a basketball game.

Show me a baseball hit completely out the stadium.

Show me a golfer holing a shot from 250 yards away.

Show me a race car driver that will refer to a rival by his name rather than car number.

Show me an announcer -- ANY announcer -- that will say -- "Wow, he/she pretty much stunk it up with that one", rather than always resorting to the politically correct blather of finding a way to compliment a lousy effort.

These would be highlights.

As would be a post in this forum that actually reflected any manner of deep thinking.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen either.

:-)