athletic personality quiz

What kind of athlete are YOU? Here's an easy six-question personality quiz to help you decide.
Which of these best describes you?

1. To celebrate something exciting, I:
   a) high-five, do a dance, fist/chest-bump, or pat a friend on the bottom.
   b) pump my fist in the air or clench my fist and sharply bring it towards my knee.
   c) clean house.
2. When things go wrong, I:
   a) call a time-out.
   b) blame myself.
   c) clean house.
3. Nothing gets my blood pumping like:
   a) a good hazing.
   b) alone-time.
   c) a tall Americano, no room for cream.
4. When all else fails, I:
   a) turn on the TV and hang with my buddies.
   b) put in the ol' earbuds and go for a run.
   c) nap.
5. My biggest fear is:
   a) looking like an idiot on national television.
   b) getting out of shape.
   c) going to a college game because I've heard that they don't. serve. beer. BARBARIC. Why else would one attend?
6. My fashion sense can best be described as:
   a) Padding. It never goes out of style.
   b) Lycra. Sexy, yet functional.
   c) Sweatpants, only because they frown on my being naked in public.

Now, it's time to tally up those scores! If you've answered mostly:

a)s: Congratulations! You're a team player! Feel free to test your skills at football, basketball, baseball, or hockey. (Possibly others: I'm still learning.)
b)s: Congratulations in a completely different way! You're a true individual. Please don't play with others, or, if you must, please don't play with more than one person. I recommend tennis, ice-skating, golf, swimming, or possibly other sports in which YOU can be the star.
c)s: No, seriously, CONGRATULATIONS! You're qualified to write a sports blog!

the basics of golf

I spent the night in lovely Klamath Falls, OR, for work, where my hotel room offered a view of a golf course. If tennis is where the pretty people go to play sports, golf is where the rich people go.

Luckily, Klamath Falls appears to be largely uninhabited, so you can get a view of a golf course for only $95 per night, which as any traveling salesperson will tell you, is a deal and a half. Take that, rich people! I'm all UP in your game.

**sidebar: That's called "trash talking." In sports, that's what you do to sound bad-ass when you're short on limited syllables. "Trash talking" should include emphasis for additional attitude, as I've indicated with all-caps above.**

So, golf is a sport! I've been researching this for you.

As any rich person knows, it's important to make sure that you have hired other people to do your activity; that's how you know you're rich. In golf, the activities to choose from are: staring hard into the distance, swinging a metal pole, carrying said metal pole, and walking. Most rich people contract out at least one of those activities...typically the carrying of the poles, which is done by a younger and/or less-well-off person, termed a "caddie."

(Typically a "caddie" is not actually a "cad." That role is saved for the actual golfer. I know. This can be really hard to understand. You might want to print this out.)

Golfers will also use additional resources to avoid the last activity mentioned: walking. It's replaced with sitting, in a motorized cart.

**sidebar: If you want to be good at sports, regardless of your socio-economic class, it's important to practice sitting. Most players sit at some point or another: in golf, it is on a moving vehicle, but in other sports it's typically on an aptly named "bench."**

In golf, the pole is called a "club," because cavemen carried clubs, and this is the modern equivalent. I know that sounds really manly, and it is, which is why women who play golf are not to be messed with. If you see a woman playing golf who does not appear to be aware of the club's original purpose, it is a dead-giveaway that she is a-hunting (that term, "club, is appropriate in this context, too!) for a rich mate.

Golf is rife with complexities, including that a golf "pro" is actually NOT a professional golfer. Again, I know: SO COMPLICATED. But that's why I'm here. To help.

other words for zero

UPDATED TO ADD:
It turns out, even talking about sports math is confusing!! I referred to the "O" phenomenon below as mentioned in a "score" when it turns out what I meant is a "win-lose record," as in, that team is Oh-and-3. 
Carry on.

As anyone who has every entered in a confirmation code knows, "O" and "0" are not the same. They can look so very alike, but one is a letter and one is a number. I'm an English major. You can trust me.

And yet, in sports, a score of "zero" is often referred to as "O."
Why is this?

**Sidebar: This is a case of using different terminology when it's not really warranted. That complicates things unnecessarily, but does do quite a nice job of humiliating the uninitiated, which is part of what sports is all about.**

I'm considering the possibility that it's because it has one syllable instead of two, thus further bearing out my theory that sports requires that we limit our syllables when we can, either for the purpose of sounding bad-ass or for simply saving time and energy. This would explain yet another sport, tennis, where the term for "zero" is "love."

By the way, that's adorable. More sports should consider using sweet terms...they draw the women in.

Tennis also uses another common one-syllable word for a different purpose: "all," which means "tied." I can't quite explain this one with the syllable justification, but it DOES contain one fewer letter. And I don't know whether a tied zero score is referred to as "love, love" or "love, all," or just "this game hasn't started yet."

I do know that it can be quite difficult to keep all of this straight. I suggest using catchy phrases, such as my [copyrighted] "I love the little green ball, is all," which handily ties the reminder that "all" and "love" are used for the same sport to the reminder that that sport uses a small green ball. If you need to, you can change the color to "yellow" or "neon lime" or whathaveyou to more accurately reflect your television's color scheme.

This one, the [copyrighted] guide to "O," is more of a chant, carefully designed for performance either with or without cheerleader arms:

O is for oblong!
Oblong is the ball!
Oblong is for football
Where the winner takes all!

See what we did there? Again, for ease of use, "O" is mentioned in tandem with the shape of the ball itself. Actually, on second thought, you may not want to use that one, if you're the slightest bit unsure about the "all" issue, since that could cause you to think that a tied score in football uses the "all" designation. Although, really, it should. It would save them a letter.

the fantasy football

First, I should clarify that I try really hard to keep a straight face when discussing fantasy football. I do think, though, that whoever conceptualized the name should have some up with something that sounds a little less fairies-and-goblins and a little more sweat-and-manliness. If fantasy football were ACTUALLY from the fantasy genre, I would be thoroughly into it.

So, I was attempting to take it seriously the other night and my boyfriend said something about how the thrill of it was really just to prove that you were smarter than all the other people on your team (league?). I had to look at him sternly and say, "you mean, better at predicting the future?"

Because that's what it is, you know. It's not actually being SMARTER. It's not a math-problem-solving-contest. It's a contest in which you do some research and then do some math problems and then ATTEMPT TO PREDICT THE FUTURE.

If someone had come up with a game in which people did some research and some math problems and then attempted to predict the future FOR SERIOUS MONEY, it would be called Wall Street.


(oh, and the happiest of happy birthday to my favorite fantasy football guy! I love you.)

world-class jerk

Yesterday I got a flat tire while driving from one campus to another (I work as a traveling rep for a publishing company) and as extreme luck would have it, there in front of me was an America's Tire. I love those guys. I wonder if they want me to work for them? They're so friendly, and knowledgeable, and so not-pushy, except with that snipping sniping sipping siping thing, which I have researched and you probably shouldn't do.

Anyway, I pulled up, got the whole fixing business started, and then looked around for a place to get a snack while I waited. There were several choices in easy walking distance, so I chose (natch) the sports bar. You never know when you're gonna want easy access to sports, amiright?

I'd forgotten where I was and gotten deep into the mystery-thriller that I always carry with me (specifically in case of flats!, seriously!, it paid off!) and then I looked up and was like, oh, right! Sports bar! TVs EVERYWHERE!
I watched one for a few short minutes and learned that someone who played sports just lived up to my absolute worst preconceptions about people who play sports.

There's this fellow named Richie Incognito (seriously, dude?, that's your name?...the Key and Peele stuff is making more sense by the moment...) and apparently he is a world-class asshole. I stared, dumbfounded, at the screen, where the highly-censored text of his voicemail to a teammate appeared. I. Just. ... Really?

I'm a little full of righteous indignation about Sports People and the subhuman sensibilities right about now, but...really? Is there another culture in which one could leave such a voicemail (FOR A COLLEAGUE, NO LESS) and have any expectation of success? Kudos to the Dophins for sending him away. Kudos to the bullied player for taking the risk in telling the authorities. And hopefully, future kudos to all other sports teams as they, one can only hope, refuse to ever employ this man. I'd like to see him try to make it in real life - a life in which he's just a person, not a sporting deity.

I really do think that's the problem. These guys drag themselves through part of secondary school and are then pursued by women and agents alike, and are never held accountable. They get scholarships to schools - schools that ostensibly attempt to educate the populace - and then when they (not all of them, but enough) can't complete their college courses? No worries! Free tutor, stat...and/or a changed grading criteria.

Is it too much to expect our sports stars to live up to a baseline level? I think they should all have to pass a spelling test, and a grammar test, and then a how-not-to-use-racial-and-other-slurs-test. Plus maybe an ethics exam. Also, some basic math, so that they can learn to spend their absurd wealth wisely.

That's the only thing that pleases me. Chances are decent that Mr. Incognito has made some money to date, and has gotten used to that lifestyle, and chances also are that he has overspent and underinvested, and chances further are that he expected his personal gravy train to last for a while. SO, if this causes his revenue stream to dry out completely, as I can only hope it has, poor Mr. Man is going to* run out of money and then forever have to be aware of what he lost. Because he was a world-class jackass. Being mean to other people should always cause one to lose one's livelihood. Think of how nice people would be!

OK, that was fun. More light-hearted, clueless sports knowledge coming your way next post, I promise.


*I sincerely hope. I also hope that his mother read that and has raked him over the coals but good. Although honestly, his parents can't have done a particularly bang-up job to date, if this is who they turned out. SHAME ON HIM. SHAME. SHAME. SHAME.

breaking news in both baseball and football

OMG YOU GUYS, THE SOX WON THE WORLD SERIES.

And they did it faster than necessary, which I think was very nice of them and also allowed all the grown-ups to go out and enjoy Halloween, so that was good.

But now that means baseball is OVER. Until, I think, spring training, which happens in the spring and is like spring cleaning but with less whacking of the rugs. I'm kidding. Nobody takes their rugs outside and hits them with sticks anymore. That's just something people did in old books I read when I was a kid. Nowadays, they use the sticks of wood to hit balls and people get really excited about it.

Thank goodness one sport has temporarily ended, though, because all of the other sports are going strong. If I'm to judge from some very reliable sports news that I get from my friend Tami, it appears that tennis is happening. I happen to know from my own self that tennis is where the pretty people go to play sports. I have talked with enough women (not Tami, specifically, gosh) who watch tennis to be moderately sure that men's tennis is women's porn. That's only because they haven't come up with a reality show in which men clean the house, but, still.

So there's tennis, and then my boyfriend said something about basketball starting up. I said, haven't we already been to a basketball game?, the one where we met all your friends from basketball?, and he was like, no, that was a hockey game. In my defense, we were in a fancy box that was way in the sky, and also I wasn't watching.

By the way, I apparently misquote people all the time, so you should know that if anyone mentioned in this blog is wrong about something, it's probably because I wasn't paying the degree of attention that I should have been.

And then there's FOOTBALL, which is STILL GOING, and apparently will be happening every hour of every day until the Superbowl, which I know for a FACT takes place in either January or February, and is written in Roman numerals. I honestly don't understand how people manage to find the time to watch football. I can't find the time to watch Castle, which is on for one hour per week, most weeks, and while I have yet to look up the actual hours of football broadcast, I know that it happens more than there are hours in the day because of something I have heard of called simul-casting.

I try to pay attention to one hour of football per week, for parity with my other TV-watching, and so I paid attention to bits of the Northwestern game in between naps. This weekend they played another N-team and the good N-team (purple) was winning for most of the game but then at the absolute last SECOND, the bad N-team (red) won, which I can only assume was insanely thrilling for all of the red-N-folks but moderately devastating for the purple-N-folks.

You're going to learn a lot about Northwestern if you read this blog, because that's where my boyfriend went to school. He's not particularly passionate about professional football except for the fantasy football, which is another topic altogether, and which we will save for next time.

sports as a flirtation technique

Let's be up-front about something. If you're a girl and you don't like sports, it's possible you have used this to your advantage in the past, as a flirtation technique.
Where this technique falls down is that it's a very short-term play. (Look at that! That's a sporting reference!)

Anyway, the first time I go to watch a football game with a boy and let on my complete lack of knowledge, it's ADORABLE. He gets to be manly and In Charge and mansplain things to me and I get to widen my eyes and focus on the color scheme.

**sidebar: all of the teams with bad colors (see: the state of Oregon) should probably remember that there are people for whom the only thing that team has going for it is the color scheme. That's why Northwestern is ALWAYS going to beat the University of Oregon. I'm not actually sure if they play each other, but a) the side of the stadium in purple looks WAY less crazy than the side in yellow and green and b) Wildcats vs. Ducks is a no-brainer. Ducks can't really beat anybody up, and that's what wildcats do, essentially, for a living.**

But the SECOND time I go to watch a football game with a boy, he is going to expect that I have retained some of that knowledge. Whether or not I could have, I chose not to, because I'd rather use that space in my brain for napping. Somewhere about Game 7 (this is not a World Series reference because I'm using football as my example: stay with me), this stops being cute and becomes infuriating for the boy.

If you're a serial dater, then, this method works wonders. If you, like me, prefer to lock into a long-term relationship, you're going to either need to find a boy who doesn't like sports (and take it from me, that is a win only if he hasn't replaced "sports" with "computer games" as an obsession) or else a boy who doesn't care that your mind is like Teflon when it comes to sports knowledge.

Luckily, I seem to have found one.

up = ahead / x < 1 = more than you'd think

My boyfriend: "So, you like the Sox for tonight?"
Me: *looks down at his feet*

In sports, when you say "up," you mean "ahead" or "leading" or "having a higher score." They use the term "up" because it's so short and perky (LIKE ME!), not because it means that anything has gone into the air. Maybe the ball, but that's not what they mean.
**THEORY: I wonder whether syllables are in high demand when discussing sports, so that you don't waste time using longer words when shorter ones will suffice, meaning that you miss fewer important activities. Let's keep an eye on that.**

Ortiz is having a fantastic World Series. Adults and small children alike are all in awe of him (credit: my Facebook feed). That's what I know for sure.
I'm going to give you some more, probably correct information. He's a male (a little light profiling: he plays on a professional baseball team) and possibly Hispanic (a little light profiling: his last name). He plays for - wait for it! - either the Cardinals or the Sox. So there, sports world. This ain't so hard.

The way that we know that he's doing well is that his batting average is high. Adorably, people in sports consider numbers less than 1 to be high.
**free advice: There are SO MANY numbers! Numbers are like words, only when I say the possibilities are infinite, you may take me literally. Please consider using numbers commensurate with the point you are trying to make.**

Baseball aficionados would like you to think that the minuscule number situation is a statistical one. I have no idea what to tell you about that because, while highly intelligent in other ways, I do not have a mind for statistics. Anyone who sat next to me in STATS 280 in college can attest. That class was nicknamed "STATS 2 EASY" because it was a joke...to everyone but me.

Regardless, I *do* understand percentages. If they're going to use numbers below 1, it had darn well better be because you're planning to turn it into a percentage. .75 doesn't sound nearly as good as 75%. Although, to be fair, even in percentages, 75% is still a "C." This might be my opening to make a joke about athletes and school grades, but on second thought, that's probably not very nice. A "C" is fine, I guess, sure, if that's what you're going for. But is it THE BEST GRADE EVER?

In baseball, apparently so. Ortiz is the honors student of sports right now. Kudos, sir!

win, lose, draw

So, a few days ago I said I didn't like a guy and then apparently I jinxed him.
(Peavy, I'm sorry. For the record, I only said that thing about you because my manager had been feeding me lines for flirting with my boyfriend. I actually couldn't pick you out of a lineup. Now you can go take that information and do better next time, OK?)

In other news, I have learned that when you have a tied game in baseball, they don't let it end that way. They go into overtime, which in baseball is called "extra innings." Each team tries and tries and tries until finally one of them wins. Extra points for determination!

I learned what it was called because I asked the question. You see, Game 3 of the World Series was tied the one time I checked the score. My awareness of a score always strikes me as earth-shattering enough that it's probably cemented right then and there, as if the Gods of Sports saw me coming and decreed that No More Time Shall Pass.

Tied games are particularly tough for people who don't like sports because it means that the people you love who care are probably pissed off (a tie doesn't make ANYONE happy, no matter how many times I point out that it's kind of like we all learned how to get along) and also...and this is noticeably worse...because the game may CONTINUE LONG PAST ITS SCHEDULED TIME.

No one watches TV on a schedule anymore, so this is not quite as upsetting as it was back in the day when my shows would get preempted because SOME GUY didn't perform quite as well as, let's face it, he should have, and now I don't get to watch Mad About You tonight.
But still, it takes longer.

Speaking of performance, why is it referred to as "performance anxiety" in both sports and sex, but as "stage fright" in other performance-based scenarios? This is an excellent case of sports using words poorly. A sport is not technically a "performance," nor is (done correctly) sex. That seems odd and kind of backwards. There are numerous other cases of words being used wrong in sports but if I listed them all here I'd have nothing to talk about later. We wouldn't want that.


UPDATE: The Cardinals won that game. Game 3. So that means they were winning, 2-1, at that juncture. At some point we will discuss when they play where and why. I just have to research this, first, because from where I sit it seems somewhat arbitrary.


UPDATE THE SECOND: The Red Sox won Game 4. I thought I should include that in case you were getting your World Series update news from me, which of course you are. Which means that they ARE NOW TIED! 
Boom. 
Shout-out to the Sox for allowing me to wrap up this post in a nice little tie-related bow.

let's make this a thing

So, two of the people who noticed my Facebook summation of Things I Know In Sports thought I should do this sort of a write-up regularly. One of those people was my boyfriend, but the takeaway here is that ONE OF THEM WASN'T. There's so much sports knowledge in the world, and it's about time that we hear about what's happening from people who don't have a clue. I'm that people.

Right now (ish, not "right now this minute," please stop being so literal) the World Series is on.
St. Louis has the Cardinals, who are called "the Cards" if you know what you're talking about, and Boston has the Red Sox, who are, I'm not sure...called...maybe (?) The Sox but there's another Sox team and I'm not quite sure which one locked in that nickname. This is only part of why sports is so hard for some people to understand.

**free advice: NAME YOUR TEAMS DIFFERENT NAMES. This goes for you, too, hockey. There are so many words in the world, you guys. If you don't know what they are, you can talk to me.**

This World Series is the most important event in baseball, where the people who won one side of things play the people who won the other side of things. It's like the Superbowl for baseball, except it takes place over the course of maybe a week and no one throws any parties and there are no commercials beyond the regular ones.

**showcase idea: WORLD SERIES COMMERCIALS! Let's get on this, folks!**

Unlike the Superbowl, which is just one game, the World Series is a Series of games from around the World. Hee, hee...I'm kidding about that last part. I think it's just from this country. Pretty sure. Anyway, best of seven. Which means the first person to win four games wins. If you don't like sports, this means you're rooting for someone to win four in a row so it can be over faster. If you DO like sports, this means you want to see your favorite team start to win and then not so much and then come back at the end to win Game 7, because that way you get to watch more sports and also it means you get to root for the underdog for at least a little while, which is the point of sports.

Speaking of The Point Of Sports, it is this: to feel as if you've come from behind.
"Underdog" is a term used for the person or team who is less good than the better team. I'm not sure whether other countries want to root for the underdog. I guess if you're England or Rome, you probably want to root for the team that was all set to win the whole damn thing and then lost miserably but still has good merchandising and is popular. If you're America, you want to root for the people who started from nothing and overcame the team with the best merchandising. It's ALWAYS better to come from behind and win than come from ahead and lose. Technically, this is true in all venues, not just sports, but sports is the place where people go to be open about this goal (or lack of a goal).

What I think we should all remember, then, is that losing is a really good long-term plan, because it means you are all set to overcome, eventually. Theoretically. Maybe. And, like sports, the longer you go without winning, the more rabid your fanbase will become.

(Sorry. That last part's not technically true, unless your fanbase is your mom.)

Unrelated: I am a little nervous about Jake Peavy starting tonight for the Sox. But don't tell HIM that. I wouldn't want him to be uncomfortable.

...and that's all, folks!

The University of Oregon Ducks are a football team, and their only real rival is Alabama, but they don't get to play them unless they go to the nationals (?) and the only team in their half (?) of the league (?) that they are worried about is Stanford, but that would make you think they would be second-best when in point of fact they are currently ranked third because Florida State beat Clemson, and this is college ball, not professional which is called the NFL and Boston and St. Louis are playing the second game of the World Series and Boston won first but right now the Cardinals are winning except that just changed which tells me that the bruised ribs are not so bad and Chicago won the Stanley cup recently, Boston was robbed, 17 seconds, and there are two hockey teams that are both called the Hawks and Martina Navratilova is a lesbian which no one used to know and that other guy has a super bad temper and sometimes threw his racket, and the Red Sox are saying to "fear the beard" which even I know they stole that from Brian Wilson, who is both a beach boy and also an injured pitcher who is playing in Albuquerque and being sort of a dick to his fans who are fans of the Isotopes but used to be the Dukes and are a feeder (?) team for the Dodgers who were at one point in LA but may have changed. 

(whew) There's all my sports knowledge. I thought I should share in case you didn't know as much as I do.