Back, back, back, back, back …

I enjoy spectator sports. I wouldn’t call myself a sport nut – because I’m not one – but I do enjoy rooting for my teams, and I enjoy watching certain sports very much.

But I’ve noticed a trend over the past two decades that has caused my viewing to decline.

I know many others have pointed this out, and I’ve probably written about it before, but I was thinking about this again after a discussion we had yesterday around a game of Cities & Knights.

Early yesterday I remembered that the Home Run Derby would be on television in the evening, so I told Terri and Becky that I would probably just put it on and turn the sound off. This is something I routinely do when I watch hockey or soccer. Since I feel like I actually have to keep my eyes glued to the screen while watching those, I turn off the sound and listen to an audiobook or a podcast or something.

Anyway, as Billy and I were texting yesterday, I told him the same thing, and he replied “Good call.”

The derby was always an annual event at our home, but as the years came and went, it became harder and harder to watch, for two reasons. First, what used to be a fun event enjoy with the family has morphed into this hours long event that you can’t wait to see end, and which everyone seems to take far to seriously. Which brings me to reason number two, and the reason all of sports has become harder to watch if you ask me – the analysts and commentators just won’t shut up!

They over analyze and over comment on every excruciating detail of the contest, every human interest angle, details from past contests, and they constantly tell me what to watch for in the contest. Think about Super Bowl Sunday, for example. How many people are tired of the Super Bowl before the game even starts.

So, back to our story. Though yesterday was our wedding anniversary, we had decided to celebrate a couple of days early since Becky had a field hockey game scheduled for yesterday. She offered to get a ride, but we wouldn’t miss her game. That’s all I’m saying about field hockey until the season is over. After the game, we decided to play another game of Cities & Knights ( probably 8 games in the last 10 days ), so we put the derby on but didn’t mute it because we wouldn’t actually be watching.

Sometime into the first player’s performance, Becky started with the “back, back, back, …” and we started mocking Berman’s attempt to choose the right number of “back”s to match the distance of the shot, and his attempts to out-do himself.

I’ve got to say that I’m one of Berman’s biggest fans. I really am, but he is part of the problem. They all are.

I know it’s going to be a great game, that’s why I put it on, now shut up and let me watch it.