The Chris Townsend Show

The Bottom Lineby Aaron James, posted on Fri, Jun. 22, 2007

You know sometimes I watch sports and the passion just isn't there like it used to be. It's true and this bothers me. I remember back in the day when the only time you got to see big league teams from opposite leagues was on the Game of the Week on NBC. It was Curt Gowdy, Tony Kubek, prehistoric graphics, one game a week and that was pretty much the gist of my exposure to the American league. There was a mystique with these teams and with sports that seems missing nowadays.

I need some new twists and turns to get passionate about sports again. This is why I've been wracking my brain night and day, weekends, you name it, to come up with ways to make our beloved games more exciting so that I can get behind watching an NBA Finals about as exciting as ?American Perspectives" on C-SPAN.

Where do I turn for inspiration?

We all know that ultimate fighting is hot right now and pro wrestling has been popular forever. Something about bulked up thugs beating the living tar out of one another appeals to our Roman thirst for blood, gore and good old' fashioned ass whippings.

So, I've come up with a few ideas, with inspiration from the MMA, UFC , WWF, NWA, TNA, AWA and whatever "cockfighting" league you enjoy, on how we can make our sports more enjoyable for those of us who are burnt out on them.

Let's start with the four major sports, and yes hockey is still a major sport even if the TV ratings for Lord Stanley?s goblet were lower than a repeat of "I love New York" at 2am.

Baseball - Want to make America's pastime more exciting? Here are a few ways.

Exploding bases. Every series the home team sets up an exploding base. First, second, third, doesn't matter. The kick here is that only the visiting teams can set off the explosions. Having hometown guys blown to bits probably wouldn't go over to well. The base is set to explode at any time during the game but the home team can never set the base to explode when say, Barry Bonds is running the bases, or should I say in his case, leisurely trotting around the bases. It's purely random. Like football, an ambulance would be on the scene ready to administer to any gruesome injuries incurred out on the field.

Football - Want to spice up the lackluster match ups every Sunday? Sick of being stuck with the Cardinals vs. the Falcons? Bills - Dolphins doesn't get you pumped anymore? What about barbed wire surrounding the field? This would pretty much eliminate anyone trying to run out of bounds to keep from getting drilled. For the playoffs, you could even kick it up a notch and set the wire on fire. Another element to add would be to allow one player on each defensive side to wear a large horn, like you'd see on a rhinoceros or a Viking, on the top of their helmet. This would provide some serious damage to an opposing wide receiver and make for some awesomely grizzly collisions. Can you imagine Shawne Merriman with an Ivory tusk coming out of his helmet? Considering his past, he may just grow one on his own.

Another new twist we could add to football would lessen the emphasis on placekicking and put more of the focus on blood, pain and anguish. Folks, introducing the advent of the, and I think this would be a first, thorny balls.

Thorny balls you say? What could that entail? The new ball used for placekicking would have over 150 small metal thorns on field goal attempts of 50 yards or less. Anything over 50 yards could be attempted using the regular NFL ball.

This would eliminate coaches going for field goals when it's 4th and a yard from the 42 yard line.

Basketball ? Shoot, where do we start? For one we could make the basket give off an electrical charge so that each time someone dunks they'll get a shock which, depending on the voltage and the person's pain threshold, could render that person unconscious, in the upper deck with their hair sizzling or 23 feet up in the air, captivating the customers who paid way to much money in the first place to watch these guys lumber up and down the floor.

Allowing the players to openly brawl ala the NHL, could also make basketball more exciting for me and many others I'm guessing. Who wouldn't turn in to the Pistons and the Nuggets knowing that Ben Wallace and Kenyon Martin could be duking it out at center court? Or if you're into midget wrestling you could very well get into a brawl between Earl Boykins and Steve Nash.

Hockey - This one is tough considering that you can legally assault someone in this sport. I think a new wrinkle NHL fans may enjoy would not be so much in the vein of the UFC but more in the tradition of Canada itself. I'm talking about having someone from both teams ice fishing on the ice at the same time. This would add another way to score to a game that could still stand a little bit more offensive firepower. A goal would count as 1 point of course, but if you catch a fish that also counts as a goal. Now if you land a large sea bass or certain species of grouper that would count for 2 goals.

I?m not sure if any of these changes will actually stick. At press time, my cracked staff is lining up meetings with all of the commissioners of all the major sports. If anything transpires, I will keep you all abreast of the coming changes....

Until next week.