Opinion The 10 Least Prestigious Individual Awards in Sports
#10 – Comeback Player of the Year Award
The NFL, Major League Baseball and the PGA Tour all name a Comeback Player of the Year. This would be a fine award if it was always given to a player returning from a serious injury or personal tragedy. But more often than not, the Comeback Player award is given to someone who simply sucked the previous year. All this award does is remind everyone how terrible you were.
Better Award Title: Wow You Really Blew Last Year Trophy
#9 – Most Improved Player Award
Better Award Title: The Congrats on No Longer Sucking Award
#8 – NASCAR's Most Popular Driver Award
NASCAR's Most Popular Driver is determined by fan votes. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has won this award every year since 2003: nine consecutive years. Earnhardt, Jr. last won a race on June 15, 2008, and has never won a Sprint Cup. Even if another driver eventually wins this award, it's forever associated with failure.
Better Award Title: Dale Junior Cup or Congratulations On Being Loved By Moron NASCAR Fans Who Will Fall In Love With Whoever Is Marketed The Most Via Cheap Plastic Collectibles No Matter How Lousy Of A Driver He May Actually Be Trophy
News Red Sox Ask Josh Beckett to Stop Hitting His Pitching Wedge in the Outfield During Games
"I only pitch once every five days," said Beckett. "And even then, usually for only a few innings. So I see it as a favor to them that I show up at all for games during my off-days. I just like to get some wedge work in. The grass is pretty nice out there, kind of like the first cut of rough. But now they say I can only do it between innings."
Beckett's short game practice has been a sore subject before. Red Sox outfielders and opponents have complained about the divots all over the outfield and the pitcher almost refused to report to the team this spring when team management denied his request to install a practice sand trap at the base of the Green Monster.
"I just didn't see the problem with a sand trap," said Beckett. "They already have a huge wall, that's not normal for a baseball stadium. I explained to them that if I could get better at getting up and down from bunkers, my mind could focus more on baseball. But they didn't want to hear it."
Beckett is signed through 2014, but there are reports that he will push to be traded back to his native Texas, preferably to the Astros.
"Josh is familiar with the Astros' stadium," said a friend. "He knows they wouldn't have a problem putting some bunkers and a practice green in the outfield. That would be no more out of place than a random hill with a flagpole on it."
Opinion 11 Infamous Self-Inflicted Sports Injuries
1949: Ben Hogan slams his car into the front of a Greyhound bus in a misguided attempt to make golf seem exciting.
1985: Joe Theismann lines up behind center in complete disregard of the fact that Lawrence Taylor still plays football.
1988: Greg Oden is born.
1989-2010: Ken Griffey, Jr. plays baseball. (At least one of those several dozen trips to the DL had to have been his fault.)
1998: Cal Ripken, Jr. watches an evening of CBS' primetime lineup, instantly making himself an old person and effectively ending his consecutive games streak.
2001: Bill Gramática tears his ACL while celebrating a successful field goal, setting off a chain-reaction in which millions of Americans injured abdominal muscles while laughing.
Opinion The 10 Best Bespectacled Athletes of All-Time
Oakland A's infielder Eric Sogard has brought eyeglasses back to baseball. It's time to rank the greatest glassletes of all-time.
#10 – Al Arbour
#9 – Kurt Rambis
Video Golf Fans are Less Athletic than Golfers
Congratulations. You win least athletic person at a golf tournament.
Picture Bubba Watson's Anthony Davis Unibrow Tribute
Soon every athlete south of the Mason-Dixon will have one eyebrow.
Video Masters Leader Drops Spectator with a Body Shot
That guy needed a green flak jacket.
