Terrapin Tables

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay
I sleep all night and I work all day
He's a lumberjack and he's okay
He sleeps all night and he works all day
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavat'ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea
He cuts down trees...
He's a lumberjack...
I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I love to press wild flow'rs
I put on women's clothing
And hang around in bars
He cuts down trees...
He's a lumberjack...
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspendies and a bra
I wish I'd been a girlie
Just like my dear papa
He cuts down trees...
He's a lumberjack...

And as far as golf/poker/pool as sports, they are not "sports", they are games. Just like rock-climbing isn't a sport, it's an activity..like jogging or weightlifting, while it's very athletic it's not necessarily a sport.

I've got my money on any one from Canada...

I was thinking about the "what's a sport" confusion after I posted that, and I found a pretty simple answer: individuals use multiple definitions of the word, but ESPN - America's emissary of activity - uses just one. See, Nate mentioned my rock climbing, and I'm about to walk out of here and ride a mountain bike about 20 miles in the woods, up hills, over rocks, jumping over fallen trees, etc. In each case I'm exhausted afterward from physical effort, and each is a classic "outdoor sport." But why will ESPN never show a guy cruising around alone in the woods? Because they use a definition based on one thing: competition. If you are battling another person for a victory you have hit upon the essence of sport, says ESPN, says me. Hence the poker, hence golf, hence chess. There's that whole tapping-into-of-primal-urges thing going on. Again, look at cycling: me riding around aimlessly in the woods is activity/hobby/play, but me and 20 guys following a trail and trying to get to the end of it first is a sport. That's why me riding my bike to the Fe the other nite wasn't sport, while the Tour De France is the greatest sporting event in the world.

So there you go; ESPN says "sports" is any activity where two or more people compete directly for a win of some kind. Actually, they're not even stuck on people, because I was watching FUCKING DOGS last night.

I feel that a sport is an activity that involves a competition of different players that have to utilize physical skills to win. So for me, thinking games like poker and chess are out, along with physical activities like skydiving and recreatioal biking.

Personally I enjoy watching the dogs jump in the water. I think there is a consensus that poker & chess are not sports. However, it becomes harder to determine if you talk about billiards, darts & the like. There is a physical skill, there is a competition & there is scoring. Some argue that figure skating, diving and anything where the outcome is determined by the scoring of judges without physical contact between the particapants (i.e., boxing is a sport, but has judges) is not a sport, but rather a performance. My problem with the judged sports is that the goal is to look good while doing something (admittedly difficult). In competitive sports, generally the goal is to accomplish something by any means neccessary.

All valid points. However, careful giving too much power to ESPN. I mean, they did spend an hour at a hotdog eating contest! There was a "play-by-play" guy, a color commentator, and a sideline reporter. Of course Chad and I watched the whole damn thing. Not sure what that says about us.

I have no problem with the dogs jumping in the water. It is far superior to them showing a dog show (unless Fred Willard is involved). They seem to know what is going on and that there is competition. For me, I'll take lumberjacks and dog jumping over that X-Games shit any day.

What time was this on anyway? I mean, they have to fill 72 hours of programming a day with 3 networks, plus it was 5 am when you wrote this.

I saw a promo for the dog-jumping in a SportsCenter ad yesterday and thought it was funny. Sounds like something they should show on ESPN 8 - The "Ocho" (for those that have seen Dodgeball).

"For me, I'll take lumberjacks and dog jumping over that X-Games shit any day."

I believe that was directed at me personally. Now I shall slap you with a glove, demand satisfaction, and see you at dawn with pistols. Have at you.

Yeah, the dog jumping was over at 5, I think, then they went into Sportscenter repeats. At least in the hot dog dealie, there were people competing. PEOPLE. My classification for "what is a sport": the ability to directly negatively affect your opponents. That's why croquet is more of a sport than golf. Of course, the lack of aerobic exertion still keeps it relegated to "game" status, but hey, in golf you drive a damn cart.

And maybe solo mountain biking is a sport...my left foot is swollen (I thought I broke it), my right shoulder is tweaked and stiff, I have monster bruises on my ass, thigh, forearm, and my legs I feel like I've been chased by venomous Komodo dragons from beyond the moon all day. I felt better after football games. In golf, you get sunburns on your arms. Stinks.

No, not directed at you personally - it was on an ESPN2 commercial when I was home for lunch as if we should know these people they are plugging. However, it is probably best served to be directed at you. And if you are looking for a duel, I accept your offer. Let me find my dueling blouse.
"I have monster bruises on my ass" - Chris, you should know better than to toss this one out there.

Ok I do have to defend this golf vs. croquet and the idea of thinking that croquet is more of a sport. Last time I checked, tournament golfers (PGA, Nationwide, Champions, LPGA) have to WALK the entire course, not just trot around their back yard plunkin' gramdma's ball farther away than yours. If you figure the average men's tournament course is 7200 yards, and there is probably about 30 yards between holes, that gives you 7740 yards. 7740 yards is equal to 23220 feet. 23220 feet is about 4.4 miles of walking. And no course is completely flat, there's severe uphill and downhill slopes in some cases. There's also a hell of a lot more mental toughness involved in golf competition. The amount of practice it takes to learn to hit, chip, manage, putt, etc. a course I'm sure far outweighs croquet.

Is it too late for me to enter the nerd competition?

Meh. I probably walked 7200 yards in my kitchen this morning looking for a clean bowl for my Cocoa Krispies. Further:
-There is no such thing as a severe hill on a golf course. Period.
-My 74-year-old grandfather walks 18 holes 4 times a week. Walking is not athletic. I think he shoots like high-80s too, so being good at golf is not necessarily athletic either.
-It also takes practice to get good at pinball, musical instruments, CounterStrike, masturbation, cooking, etc.
-Also, mental toughness was dq'ed with Rick's "a sport is an activity that involves a competition of different players that have to utilize physical skills to win."

See, if a guy of John Daly (or 90% of the PGA)'s "stature" can be a professional at an activity, it can't be a sport. I think the only other debatable activity with less athletic people involved is bowling, which is utterly and completely not a sport.

I think that Rick's definition is good enough. It's all just semantic, anyway. Whether you want to call a certain activity a sport or not does not change the nature of that activity.

And it's about time that you sports people have something to complain about with ESPN, considering that the Discovery Channel and TLC have gone down the crapper, what with the eight hours a day of motorcycles on Disc, and non-stop reality TV about clothes or cleaning your house on TLC. Why can't they just show documentaries like they used to? Hell, if it wasn't for the extended channels on digital cable, I'd hardly ever watch TV anymore. What would I do with my life then, read?

Oh yeah, I don't really think that physical activity by itself is enough to declare something a sport, or else ditch diggers would all be athletes. And I don't think that walking 4 miles qualifies as strenuous activity, either. I've done plenty of back packing, and for the most part, walking all day with a pack is pretty easy. Replace the pack with a lighter golf bag, and put me on a groomed course instead of a mountain trail, and it'd be a cake walk.

You can't go bringing in an individuals 'stature' like Daly's, because examples of him can be found in all sports...umm...Ted Washington, Refridgerator Perry, Oliver Miller, Charles Barkley, Cecil Fielder, Craig Heyward, Tony Paige, John Kruk...all a bunch of fat fucks that had careers in sports.

Dumbing down the practice argument is just invalid, because football, basketball, baseball, and everything anyone would consider a sport all take practice.

And don't dissmiss grandpa's skills. He could have a damn fine golf swing, just as a QB could have a great throwing motion or a guard has a pure jump shot. Ali is suffering from parkinsons but he still has quicker hands than any of us.

Those are, mostly, really skewed examples. Those guys were paid to be big fat fucks and nothing else. Ted Washington, Fridge, guys like Siragusa, are 90% "good" because they're too damn big to get out of the way. They are not good all-around football players, they are big fat fucks.

I don't know who Craig Heyward or Tony Paige are, and I'm pretty sure Oliver Miller is a basketball player. But I'm guessing they're guys like Shaq - big, not necessarily skilled. If Shaq were 6' 3" he'd be in Louisianna working for a living. Barkley had much better skills, but succeeded on physical play along with size, as I remember it...which is probably wrong or short sighted. Kruk and Fielder were both first basemen, right? The bare minimum amount of movement and athleticism required in baseball...they could hit so they kept playing. Remember what a joke it was to watch Fielder try to leg out a double? It is possible to be "good" at a sport when you are incredibly specialized - hitting, taking up the paint, not being pushed out of the way - but being good at a sport doesn't make you a good athlete, it makes you a technician or, in the case of NTs, a big fat fuck.

Yeah, it does take a lot of practice to get good at a lot of sporting activities. But you also have to practice nearly everything else to get good at it. Real athletes are naturally good at things like that. Michael Vick runs, throws, and improvises like no one else...pure athleticism. But that's a crap example, because you can't practice improvisation. But do you think I could ever learn to throw a football like Marino if I practiced everyday? Hit like Ted Williams? Shoot like Mike? If any one person can practice enough to get pro-level at something, then it's a skill, not an athletic endeavor. If my granddad worked his way down to 70 (65?) and made a PGA cut would you suddenly consider him an athlete? No. Athletic skills are only posessed ny athletic people, and as golfers aren't athletic people, they're skills aren't athletic.

You last paragraph about natural skills argues against your points on golf. Athletic skills are natural to athletic people. If you can practice and get pro at some activity regardless of athleticism, it's not sports, it's a game. I could never play basketball. John could not play defensive line. I think Rick would get a black eye playing tetherball. Some things you just have to be born with.

Since when did being a good athlete make you great at a sport? Lance is probably the best athlete in the world, but he wouldn't be my 1st pick in some 3 on 3 b-ball. Those are 2 very different arguments. Olympians are fantastic athletes, so are ice-dancers (probably), but that doesn't speak as to weather or not what they do is a sport or not.

Lance is the best athlete is the world? Ugh. In their primes weren't Bo Jackson, Dave Winfield, Jackie Robinson & Jim Brown arguably some of the best athletes in the world, or at least in the US? Is Lance in their category? To be a great athlete, do you have to do one thing well?

There are arguments - pretty good ones - for and against Lance as the best living athlete. On the plus side, there is scientific and performance evidence. Scientifically, his VO2 max - the ability to convert oxygen, which translates to endurance and aerobic ability - is the highest ever recorded, over 150% of the "high" standard for the test. His resting heart rate averages about 33 bpm, but his max clears 200, which he can sustain for almost an hour. Unfreakingbelievable. Performance wise, he has won convincingly the most difficult sporting event in the world for five straight years, is on track to do it a record 6th time (not a record because they're in a row - no one has ever won 6 TdFs in a lifetime), with the best athletes in his sport specifically trying to take him down. On the negative, he's limited by size and strength. While he can cycle better than anyone ever, he's not going to out box any middleweight, outrun any college sprinters, outhit any minor leaguer, or survive an NFL training camp.

If/when he wins his 6th Tour in a week he will have accomplished something greater than Michael Jordan, young Mike Tyson, Barry Bonds, FloJo, or anyone else that was said to dominate their sport, but he is obviously limited by size, strength, and specialization. The argument for Lamnce is, in my opinion, a good one, but it all comes down to an individual's highly subjective interpretation of what an "athlete" is.

Correcting an error: Lance doesn't sustain his max heart rate of 201. When time trialing, the all-out single cyclist rides against the clock, he sustains at 180-190. That's about 5.5 times his resting rate, for an hour or more. Jim Brown couldn't do that, but Jim Brown can kick his ass. So we have a conundrum.