What are we raving about?

The subtitle of this blog is "fanatic sports ravings of the easily infuriated." Obviously, this is not a blog dedicated to the War in Iraq or concerns about global warming. It's about baseball, basketball, football, hockey (possibly), etc. However, what about figure skating, "extreme sports," car racing, and gymnastics? What is a sport?

After last night's Super Bowl XL, football is looking a lot more like gymnastics and figure skating than ever before.

Dictionary.com defines "sport" as:

1. a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
   b. A particular form of this activity.
   
2. Any activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively.

Perfect! Everyone clear now?

Wait ... what is "physical activity" or "physical exertion"? Chess requires you to move pieces around a board and hit the timer (physical activity), there are definitely rules, and chess is often competitive. Sport? No. High school and college cheer squads and drill teams often participate in competitions, with physical exertion and rules/customs. Sports? I wouldn't say so. The dictionary definitions are conveniently vague, and allow interpretation.

• Baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, volleyball, tennis ... sports.
• Wrestling, while points are awarded, the referee is merely determining when points are scored, not scoring the match, so it's a sport.
• Judged competitions, which are due to subjectivity and bias (figure skating, front and center), are not sports, they are competitions. This isn't a knock, they are what they are. This includes figure skating, gymnastics, snowboard/skiing (best trick, super pipe, slopestyle), diving, skateboarding, etc.
• Golf is a sport, while bowling lacks the necessary amount of physical activity. However, golfing only qualifies if you walk the course and would be indisputable if the pros had to carry their own clubs.
• Horse racing is a sport for horses, not for the riders. Car racing probably falls short, especially drag racing.
• Boxing, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts present an interesting dilemna. When there is a knockout or tapout or referee stoppage, clearly, it's a sport. This is fine in MMA, because those fighters don't suffer the volume of punishment that boxers withstand, but not a good idea in boxing. What happens when the fights go to the scorecards? Judging enters the equation ... and often leads to the wrong person winning. I've seen numerous fights where it seemed obvious one boxer had dominated the fight, and the commentators agreed with me, but the fight went the other way.
• Poker (while prominent on ESPN) is not a sport. Neither darts nor pool are sports.

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list of sports/not sports. It is neither a condemnation of the things that aren't sports nor an absolution of the sports. It's merely one person's opinion on what we're raving about.

What happened to football? It was originally included, with baseball, basketball, tennis, etc. as obviously a sport. Unfortunately, the increasingly poor (and one-sided) officiating makes football a lot more like figure skating than any red-blooded American would like. Jim Rome said today that because the Seahawks made mistakes, they shouldn't complain about the officiating because the players lost the game, the refs didn't take it from them. Sure, the players (Stevens dropped a number of balls, Brown missed two FG's, Boulware took a bad angle on the Parker TD run, etc.) could have performed better. However, nothing is ever perfect. Even in really good performances, there is room for improvement. (Phil Simms threw a few incompletions against the Broncos.) The Steelers didn't play a great game. If two skaters both fall on their triple Axels and have similar routines otherwise, is it fair for the judges to reward one with a much higher score? Nope, and it happens. That's why figure skating isn't a sport. The officiating, as much as the Seahawks, blew the game for Seattle, just like a corrupt judge in a figure skating competition.