As a sports fan, nothing makes me angrier than the gross overuse of clichés during telecasts of sporting events. There's no love lost between me and clichés.
The problem with clichés is that they're a dime-a-dozen. I feel like this trend needs to be put to a stop. With that in mind, I'm going to suggest that all broadcasters, writers and others of their ilk be taken to task on this issue.
I feel passionately about this, so I'm going to give 110 percent and write the best column I'm capable of. This is going to be an uphill battle, but I feel like I've got one great column left in me.
On any given sportscast, one assumes that there is an assemblage of great minds there to analyze the game, along with one slick linguist to paint a picture (if it's on the radio) or lend that perfect extra touch to a great moment on TV.
Think of the call of Kirk Gibson's Game 1-winning home run in the 1988 World Series. It was arguably the most dramatic play in baseball history, but the call was gloriously simple. Jack Buck, one of the greatest men of the microphone who has ever lived, just said, "I don't believe what I just saw!"
And you knew he didn't. No awful clichés, just emotion and passion and simplicity. These days you'd have some moron spewing forth things like "They never stopped believing" and "He got his pitch, and he hit it" or some other hackneyed garbage. Sadly, the garbage is starting to take over.
You'd think with all this material, pounding out this story would be a slam dunk. It hasn't been. This column is proving tougher to write than I thought. It's turning into a real nail-biter as my editors eagerly wait to see what I dump on their desk. It's becoming clear to me as I write that I simply haven't brought my "A" game to the keyboard tonight. I'm just going to have to do the little things and grind out a decent column.
I tried to forge ahead on this thing alone, but I finally realized that there is no "I" in T-E-A-M and enlisted the help of my roommates. Luckily, they all stepped up, I got some contributions off the bench from a few friends on AIM, and I got some more ideas.
The whole cliché movement is so pervasive that a guy like Dick Vitale, who actually knows a good deal about basketball, is reduced to yelling "He's a diaper dandy bayyybeeeeee" and "Oh now that guy is a PTP'er!"
Does that last quote confuse you? Are you unsure as to precisely what a PTP'er is? Don't be ashamed. Vitale is one of many announcers who pepper their commentary with so many clichés that they have to make up their own just to keep up. For the record, a Diaper Dandy is a talented freshman player, and a PTP'er is a Prime Time Player, which is either a variation on the crunch-time cliché, or an odd homage to Deion Sanders.
It's do-or-die time. If we as a people don't rise up and stand as one, clichés will dominate all facets of life. Right now it's sports, soon it will be business, and before anyone realizes it, clichés will take over the world. They have a killer instinct like that.
Maybe I overreacted. I guess if we're really going to get down to brass tacks, I'll admit that I'm not terribly worried about clichés taking over the world. I am, however, worried about their ruining televised sports for all eternity. When I watch my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers this weekend, I do not want to hear about a quarterback "managing the game" or a player having a "nonstop motor."
It's now or never. If we as couch potatoes don't rise up from the ashes and stand together against the overuse of clichés as one, these played-out sayings will take over broadcast completely, and then conquer print. That would be a real shame too, because everyone knows that reading a column full of clichés is like pulling teeth.
