Top 20 Examples of Sports Humor

Aw crap, this list is long... um, we'll get back to non-sports related lists eventually. But I've been working on this for a while and I had to follow through. Because that's what I do. I follow through.

20. The football game I played in Saturday

Y’all. This game was IN-effing-TENSE. It was old school, fumbly-wumbly type football, sandlot-style. Laterals, trick plays, double reverses, triple reverses… I don’t even know who won. (Side note: I think we lost.) Best play of the game: Addison returning a kickoff, faking a lateral to Jeff, yelling “NOPERS!” at the top of his lungs, and burning me and Colin for six. Cheapest play: Addison tries to lateral to Jeff, but the ball falls short for a fumble, and I proceed to slap and kick the ball to the other end of the field, where I fell on it for six. It was basically the Holy Roller times 1000. You guys, pickup football is the best ever. I am a man of simple pleasures.

19. "Whiffleball" (Stella sketch)

Okay, so it’s really barely about whiffleball, but I just wanted an excuse to talk about how much I love(d) Stella. I think these shorts were the pinnacle of 21^st century absurdism. Even if, by some chance, they were filmed before the year 2000. If I ever meet Michael Ian Black, I am going to give him a) a hug, b) a hearty handshake, c) a box of baseball cards I’m trying to get rid of, d) a beer, and e) a haircut, just because I’ve never cut hair before and he seems like a guy who it would be fun to start on. Also maybe a tongue-kiss? (By the way, I was pretty close to putting the baseball scene from Wet Hot American Summer on this list, too… but, um, I didn’t. I still love it though, okay? Evil Camp Tigerclaw… heh. Cracks me up.)

18. Kissing Suzy Kolber (blog)

The funniest thing about KSK is probably the name, but that’s okay. I think it’s good to have a constant internet reminder of that time Joe Namath was really drunk on national TV and tried to kiss sideline reporter Suzy Kolber. (Side note: is “constant internet reminder” an implied oxymoron? There are few things more ephemeral than the internet.) Sometimes their humor is a little too “AAAH BALLS RAPE FUCK!” for my taste, but that’s because I’m an effete New Yorker who sometimes listens to jazz. (Second side note: I’m not that effete, you guys.) Still though, it was pretty tight when they superimposed Bears QB Kyle Orton’s head onto John Cusack’s body doing the boombox-in-the-air pose from Say Anything. Man. I friggin’ hate Kyle Orton.

17. "Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request", Steve Goodman

This is a long list, so I’m just going to copy-paste some stuff I wrote a while back:

“As a kid from Buffalo who pulls for Minnesota sports teams, I know a thing or two about senseless devotion. If he’d stayed away from the Cubs, this titular fan might have a few years left. Yet Goodman’s good-natured cynicism is both touching and hilarious; you can hear him smiling the whole time, through defeat and even death.”

Wow, that was a bit douchier than I’d like to admit. Anyway, it’s a great song. And apropos of recent developments in the MLB postseason.

16. ESPN.com's Page 2

Page 2 can be pretty hit-or-miss, frankly—and I’m pretty staunchly opposed to Bill Simmons, especially when he makes tacitly racist claims about black quarterbacks—but I respect the hell out of most of their staff. Scoop Jackson, Paul Lukas, and DJ Gallo are all great writers and funny guys, and I’ve really come to depend on Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, because I, too, hate unnecessary punting in football. Oh, also, every once in a while Chuck Klosterman (yet another famous Minnesotan) writes for them? Sweet? (Once Rob and I constructed an elaborate joke about Chuck Klosterman judging a Chuck-Klosterman soundalike contest and subsequently coming in fifth, behind Mugsy Bogues or someone.)

15. Fire Joe Morgan (blog)

Mostly I just like how angry these guys are. Sometimes they approach even Trump-rant levels of anger. Also, this is a sweet list—and I WOULD KNOW.

14. Major League

Any movie where Tom Berenger isn’t playing a sniper (ie: any movie that Tom Berenger is in that isn’t from the Sniper series) is fine by me. This movie nails the number one commandment of sports movies: Have many, not just one, great characters. Young hotshot renegade who did some time in prison and rides motorbikes? Check. Fast talkin’, fast runnin’ black man? Check. Pagan home-run hitter who talks to his bats? Check. Corbin Bernsen? Check. This movie owns like Snorlax.

13. The Detroit Lions

ZINGED!

12. "Prince: Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories" (Chappelle Show sketch)

It is so incredibly lame that I can’t find a clip of this sketch on YouTube, and yes, once again, it’s not really about sports, it’s about how ridiculous Charlie Murphy is and what an incredible impressionist Dave Chappelle is, but come on, the montage of Prince and the Revolution playing basketball against Charlie and his crew is a defining moment for The Chappelle Show. “Game, blouses,” indeed

11. Bull Durham

This is one of those movies I watched waaaaaaaay too early in my life. We would quote it during Little League. We didn’t really know what we were talking about, but we sure had fun saying it. (Turns out, it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars. Tiiiiight.) Plus, it’s basically the only Kevin Costner movie I can sit through. (Yeah. I said it. Listen, Field of Dreams makes me cry, but that doesn’t make it a good movie.) And any movie that opens with Susan Sarandon giving the “I believe in the Church of Baseball” speech is A-okay in my book. (PS: YouTube doesn’t have it—LAAAAME—but it has this, this, and this.)

10. Straight Cash Homey (blog)

This is maybe the second funniest thing that Amir (of Jake and Amir) has ever done, in my opinion. The premise is brutally simple but perfectly executed: reader submitted photos of folks about town wearing the jerseys of tarnished/awful/washed-up or otherwise embarrassing athletes. I wish Miroslav Satan would get washed-up soon so I could start wearing his jersey again and make it to their blog. (Yet another side note: I wore my Miro Satan jersey to the New York State finals of the Geography Bee and am relatively certain that an especially devout judge gave me impossible questions because of it.)

9. The Year I Owned the Yankees, by Sparky Lyle

I’ve probably read this book more times than any other, save perhaps Cat’s Cradle. Lyle—who also famously wrote The Bronx Zoo, a blow-by-blow recount of the tumultuous 1978 Yankees season—imagines that following the removal of George Steinbrenner, he is put in charge of the team’s operations for the 1990 (?) season. The book is peppered with both real players and bizarre fictional ones (like an Asian reliever who can read minds and a farmboy who pitches a perfect game in his first start), and despite its predictable Hollywood ending, it’s still a wonderful pinstripe parable. (Plus there’s an awesome scene where Lou Piniella destroys the Skydome in Toronto. Seriously, fuck the Skydome.)

8. Caddyshack

I almost didn’t put this on because, come on, golf counts as a sport the way candy corn counts as food. (To borrow Rob’s words, nothing you can do while casually drinking and smoking is a sport. Add your own bad-ass words about how frequently you do things while casually drinking and smoking.) Even so, this film will never, ever, ever, ever, ever get old. And I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever understand why that one girl is Irish. 1812 Overture + Bill Murray + nah nah nah nah + “I’m Alright” by Kenny Loggins + Baby Ruth in the swimming pool = YESSSSSS.

7. Slap Shot

Dear Paul Newman,

You were my favorite. I’ll buy you a beer in heaven. In the meantime, I will watch this movie over and over and over again while eating your popcorn.

Love,

A fan.

PS: Okay, fine, my name is Peter and I run a listblog. Do you have the internets in heaven?

6. "Philosopher's World Cup" (Monty Python sketch)

Rob lobbied hard for the inclusion of this and for good reason—it’s not just funny sports comedy, it’s really one of the funniest things that Python ever did. Best line: (Socrates scores a goal for Greece and the Germans dispute the call) "Hegel is arguing that the reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically it exists only in the imagination, and Marx is claiming it was offside."

5. "Baseball vs. Football", George Carlin

We lost quite a few great ones this year and this man was definitely (and unfortunately) one of them. He was more than just a standup comedian, he was a theologian, a sociologist, and here, he displays his unparalleled skills as a linguist. On paper, this bit doesn’t really work… he’s just comparing one thing to another. And yet, I can’t watch this without laughing my ass off.

4. The This is SportsCenter commercials

Perhaps there are some folks out there who weren’t too thrilled when ESPN decided that its anchors should have just as much celebrity status as the athletes they cover. But… I was cool with it. Funny people deserve the opportunity to show it off. Now, as far as the ESPYs go… that’s just basically one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard of. What even is that. An ESPY. You’re just being ridiculous, Universe.

3. SportsNight

I don’t think that I’ve ever followed a TV show as intently as I followed SportsNight. (And the fact that the dynamic between Casey McCall and Dan Rydell is partially inspired by the relationship between Keith Olberman and Dan Patrick is just… just… well, that makes me happy.) But aside from all the rapid-fire Sorkin walk-and-talks and the will-they-won’t-they-will-they-ever-again Dana and Casey love-plot, it was a flat-out hilarious series. And second to only Arrested Development on the list of TV Shows canceled before their time. (But the AVClub already did that list last week, so… I guess my thunder has been duly stolen.)

2. The Onion Sports

Yo. It is a personal quest of mine right now to meet the guy who writes for Onion Sports. And high five him. …And then ask for a job. They have an absolute knack for making the joke you were thinking about, perfecting it, and then taking it to the next level of hilarious. Read this, or this, or this. Sports and comedy and journalism are a beautiful marriage. Or, um, threeway? This got weird.

1. "Who's On First" (Abbott and Costello sketch)

My dad showed me this when I was like, 6. I still can’t keep a straight face when I watch it. That’s just about as glowing a recommendation I can give to a piece of entertainment. After 17 years, six minutes of sketch comedy is still hilarious. Plus, they show it every hour on the hour at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Oh, also, fun note: last season, the LA Dodgers were playing the Padres. The Dodgers have an infielder named Chin-Ling Hu. The dude hits a single and Vin Scully got the honor of saying, wait for it, “Hu’s on first.”

Top 7 Quick and Easy Ways To Name Fictional Characters

I don't know if any of you people are writing a novel right now, in fact, I don't know if people still do that... but I do know that whenever you take a trip to Fiction Land, you have to have neat names for all your players or else no one will read your stuff. (Unless you're José Saramago...) Well, once again, I decided to act in your best interests and give you a blueprint!

7. shm-reduplication

Lookit. The fact of the matter is, all the good names are already out there. There's nothing new under the sun, only redesigned packaging. Time to corner the packaging market with a little shm-reduplication. (By the way, thanks Rob, for the wiki-link.) It really simple. Hey, here's a great character name: Humbert Humbert. Multiply that by a little shm, and you've got Shmumbert Shmumbert. No one will a) know what hit them, and b) not love your new-and-improved character name! (For you mathematicians at home, that equation was: Humbert Humbert x shm-constant = AWESOME.) Man, at this rate, you can knock out a whole cast list in no time... full of colorful characters like Shmay Smatsby, Shmolden Shmaulfield, and of course, Shmurtz. (Although, except for ol' Shmurtzy, it looks like all your characters have the initials S.S.! This is maybe inappropriate?)

6. character frequencies and random.org

So I don't know if you caught it, but I did a little sweet math back there in the shm-blurb. Well, the math-hits just keep on comin', because I decided to ratchet that shit up a notch, math-style. I made a totally random name. Lemme break it down. First, I decided my name should be 24 characters long. Then, I checked on a table of character frequencies to figure out which letters to use and how many times to use each one. After that, I put those letters in Column A of an excel sheet, entered a random ordering of the numbers 1 through 24 (courtesy of random.org) in Column B, and sorted by Column B. That's how I came up with "Omlnus N. Atocas-Wetrferdhte". A) Could I be more of a nerd? B) How sweet is that name? He is like some sort of Indian brave whose feminist mama married a German officer. I can't wait to write the story of his life!

5. use the names of people from your childhood, especially if you are writing about your childhood, specifically about grudges that you refuse to give up on, even though it has been, what, fifteen years?

Yeah, this actually might not be the best strategy…

4. incredibly blatant names

I guess these are more properly considered aptronyms, like Mrs. Malaprop of The Rivals or Worldy Wiseman of The Pilgrim's Progress. I think you can go further than Misters Sheridan and Bunyan and have a little fun with it. Maybe you’ve got a policeman in your novel… a grizzled veteran who sometimes has to play by his own rules. Consider naming him Detective Maverick Grizzle. Or, if you want to be a bit more on the nose, try Officer Handgun. Perhaps your protagonist is a young mayor with big ambitions. Mayor Freshface McIdealism. If he’s more sinister than that, go with Mayor Top-hat. Finally, you can always use a name to denote physical traits of your characters… attractive young quarterback? Johnny B. Musclyarms. Loveable goof? Warren P. Gangly. Cheerleader with dreams of leaving this small town and making something of her life? Suzie Q. Ingénue, obviously. And that, my friends, is the makings of a beautiful love triangle.

PS: There’s a pretty great mini-debate regarding aptronyms vs. nominative determinism on, where else, Wikipedia.

3. deity from antiquity plus common surname

Hey! It's time for a little props-giving! You may notice that there's been an addition to our list of links you should click on--in fact, the list has swelled from 12 to 13 items to include My Unpacked Library, a lovely literary offering from Matt Schratz, one of the all-time best guys. (Note: I have yet to begin work on my list of the top 261 all-time best guys, but don't think I don't have extensive notes.) Matt hails from the Western New York area (like me!) and once upon a time, at his house in Lockport, he divulged a fantastic theory of character naming to me. You take the name of a preferably ancient god or goddess (Greek, Norse, Hindu, etc.), put it in front of a common surname (Jones, Smith, Brown, etc.) and you are golden. You can gussy up the godly given name, if you want--shorten it to make a nickname, for instance.

Fun examples: Odin Jones, Persephone “Persy” Brown, Arjuna Smith, Siegfried “Siggy” Stevens, Jupiter Cooper.

PS: Juno MacGuff does NOT count. Eff that ess.

2. porn star names

First off, I should say… these aren’t real porn star names. Because I obviously don’t know any real porn star names. Ron Jameson? Is that one? (Oh great, now we’re going to get all that porn traffic. Awesome.) So, you’ve all heard this old chestnut. You take your middle name for the given name (or first pet, there are variations…) and the name of the street you grew up on, and that’s your porn star name. Mine is Emmanuel Winspear. My roommate’s is Roddy Lancaster. I’m just going to stop right there and say that even though I’ve never seen a “porn-o”, the pairing of Winspear and Lancaster would surely a Boogie Nightsworthy team.

By the way, just because you have named a character using this technique does not mean they have to be a porn star in your novel. They could be a fireman. Or a nurse. Or a physics grad student who needs to make a little extra cash because her grant is criminally underfunded. …Or a nurse.

1. army callsigns

If it worked for Wilco, it can make you into a great novelist! There's this neat thing called the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, in which each letter of the alphabet is assigned a code word. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, for instance, the 2001 Wilco album, stands for YHF and... I don't know the significance of that. Anyway, maybe you could take your initials and translate them into code words! Let's try it with my name! Okay, so... PMS becomes Papa Mike Sierra. Oh snap! That is a baller name, fo' sho'. Papa Mike Sierra is probably the leader of some mountain enclave... he's got like, 4 wives and 5 guns and 6 different words for kickass. With the help of his trusty sidekick, Tango Kilo (who is totally some sort of native-warrior-turned-guide), he's got to defend his fortress, Hotel November, against the forces of Uniform Charlie, a totalitarian dictator who wants to throw Papa Mike's ass in the hole. But on the eve of battle, Papa Mike's one true love (aka: not one of his four wives) Juliet Whiskey reveals... she's pregnant! Who will reign supreme over the mountain enclave? Will Tango Kilo remain loyal? Will Papa Mike get to shoot all of his five guns? Will the baby be named Oscar? (Hint: Uh huh!)

Ohmygosh, someone please write that. I basically did all the work for you.