They’re Fouling the Air

Listening to sports on radio and TV is something a lot of us do. I, myself, would make a poor sportscaster. I would rather scribble than babble.

But perhaps I can be of some help.

For years now, I have been listening to the same expressions, again and again. They are fingernails on the blackboard of my mind.

Maybe you have a few of your own, to share with me. You know, things you hear that drive you nuts.

For example, the word snuck.

As in: “He snuck over for the touchdown.” “He must have snuck into the stadium.” “They snuck through the back door.”

I hate to break this to you, sportscasters, but snuck is a colloquialism, that is to say, slang. The word you are looking for is sneaked.

Then there is the word less.

“He scored less points than he did last year.” “There are less than five minutes left to play.”

No, there are fewer than five minutes left.

And by the way, a team doesn’t play a touchdown-less game, or an error-less game. The game was touchdown-free, error-free.

The word may also bugs me.

“He may pitch Friday.” “The Cowboys may go for it here.”

That implies permission. The word you are looking for is might.

I know this seems a little picky, but I was 5 years old when a teacher first explained to me the difference between “Can I go to the bathroom?” and “May I go to the bathroom?”

Look, some days I don’t know my grammar from my Grandpa. And on radio or TV, one doesn’t get a chance to correct oneself.

But that doesn’t excuse someone saying, “Dallas looks the worst they have all year,” when Dallas is an it, not a they, or saying, “Sanders ran further on that play than he has all season,” when what he did was run farther.

Oh, about these teams that held “a meeting behind closed doors.”

As opposed to where? One of those meetings held out in the open?

And the kid who was hurt in “a tragic car crash.”

As opposed to what? A nice crash?

There are expressions that we use every day, ones that come to us so naturally, we don’t even think about them any more.

As in boxing: “May the best man win.”

I presume there must be three men fighting in that ring, or more, because otherwise, may the better man win.

“He is one of the better backs in the league.”

No, he is one of the best.

The grammar police are out there, believe me. I remember going to Norway for the Winter Olympics and writing a few hundred thousand words, only to come home and find more letters criticizing me for a grammatical error than for anything I wrote about Tonya Harding or Nancy Kerrigan.

And the hostility of these letters, you wouldn’t believe. Whenever I write something incorrect, whether error or typo, I get mail as though I had just foreclosed on somebody’s mortgage. “You call yourself a writer?” they usually begin. No, I call myself a plumber.

I can see why people get so angry. Sometimes, I sit in front of my TV and want to go for the sportscaster’s throat, like that NBA player did to his coach.

“This game has had a myriad of mistakes.”

No, the game has had myriad mistakes.

I don’t expect a football game to be broadcast by William Safire and William F. Buckley, but there are times when it seems as though the announcers are Don King and Norm Crosby.

Finally, I have a favor to ask.

If I have to hear the word unbelievable one more time, I am going to scream.

I am not saying that it is being used incorrectly. I suppose that a number of unbelievable things are going on out there in sports land.

But after years and years of “this is unbelievable” and “that is unbelievable,” I believe that there is nothing left in the world for me to believe. By the way, I just snuck this line past my editor.