The Bottom 5

bottom five (i.e. you’re not really a sport)

Second in the two-part series, these five are passed off as sports, but in my book, don't deserve anywhere close to that billing.

1) poker - How can I put this delicately? Hmmm…how’s about this. You’re a friggin’ card game, you require no athletic ability, guys can drink, smoke, weigh 500 pounds and have the cardiovascular conditioning of Marlon Brando….you are not a sport. Sports require athletic ability, and they absolutely, positively cannot fall into the same genus or species as “Go Fish” and solitaire.

2) auto racing - This falls under the corollary of requiring athletic ability to qualify as a sport. And don’t tell me how the drivers are under extreme G-forces. I’m under extreme G-forces riding roller coasters at Six Flags or Cedar Point. If driving really fast, cutting people off and making left turns without signaling makes you an athlete, then millions of people on our nation’s expressways every day are athletes.

3) horse racing - Simply put, a horse is not an athlete. Since the horse provides the power for horse racing and the jockey pretty much just beats the horse with his whip, I don’t see how you can label this a sport. It’s essentially an excuse for degenerate gamblers to throw massive quantities of money away in a quasi-legal manner,

4) spelling bee - For the most part, see my comments about poker and apply them here. Except the competitors aren't overweight, cigar smoking weirdos around a poker table. No, they’re dorky, nerdy kids who aren't cool enough to be invited to any parties, aren't athletic enough to play actual sports and so they manage to extract themselves from the lockers they have been shoved into long enough to spell out obscure words while sweating buckets and looking as if they are about to pass out. And tell me this, if spelling bees are allegedly a sport, why not geography bees? What’s the difference? None? Thought so.

5) dog shows - Poodles with bows in their hair and the owners running along behind in formal outfits with the dogs on leashes. Either it’s a sick joke or these people really are misguided enough to think that what they’re doing qualifies as a) interesting, b) a sport, or c) anything but true comedic relief for the rest of us. Maybe it’s some combination of the three, but when a national sports network puts it on the air, a true sports fan has to view it as a direct and very real threat to sports as we know it. We either speak up now, shoot down these poseurs and limit the label of “sport” to actual athletic competition, or we risk losing the sports world to the dark side. Hope you enjoy fat guys with fossil tinted glasses, pooper-scoopers, pimple faced adolescents and playing cards, because that’s what you’ll be in for.