New Olympic sports

You've probably heard the disappointing news that baseball and softball will not be included in the 2012 London Olympic Games. I mean, why should they? The two sports are only popular in a tiny corner of the world that includes the U.S., Venezuela, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and Cuba (among others). It's not like they have anywhere near the fan base of real Olympic sports like fencing, dressage, or trampoline-jumping.

The question remains: what sport(s) should we add to the Olympic schedule to replace these deletions?

Wonder no more. Here are my top five candidates for new Olympic sports that athletes from all over the world can enjoy:


5) Greased watermelon
Water polo is for sissies. Real athletes would much rather use something that weighs 20 lbs, is more slippery than a banana peel on a wet hockey rink, and always carries the risk of exploding if it hits your head. I'm talking of course about the great game known as "greased watermelon." The fact that this is not already in the Olympics is a preposterous travesty that must be corrected immediately.

4) Beer mile

The #1 complaint about Olympic track events is that they're very poor tests of an athlete's drinking ability. Problem solved! The other great thing about the beer mile is that it allows the U.S. to have a chance to finally beat the Jamaicans in a running event. I mean it's not the weed mile!

3) Bog snorkelling
What Michael Phelps did in Beijing is nothing compared to the daily struggles of the brave men and women who crawl through sludge, dodging salamanders, old tires, rusted beer cans, and mosquito larvae for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. That's right, I'm talking about the world's elite bog snorkellers. It's about time we recognize these real athletes on the global stage.

2) Fantasy Olympics

No country had a more heartbreaking showing in Beijing than Greece, who despite having invented the Olympics ended up with a grand total of zero gold medals. But hey, if you don't have enough athletic talent to actually win a gold medal, maybe you can be the best at picking who does win. That's where Fantasy Olympics come in. Similarly to Fantasy Baseball/Football, each country picks a team of various Olympic teams (the Chinese women's gymnastic team, the Kyrgyzstani men's trampoline team, the Finnish men's bog snorkeling team, etc). Whoever picks the most medallists wins. Even poor, pitifully unathletic Greece has a chance at this one!

1) Octopus wrestling

Because Greco-Roman wrestling is a little too much sweaty man-on-man action for most people to stomach. Sweaty man-on-octopus action is much better!

Fantasy Fantasy Baseball

I have been a fantasy baseball and football player for many years and really enjoy the game. But then again I am extremely hardcore - I used to play REAL baseball in high school. For some people, fantasy baseball and football are a little too close to the action. I mean dealing with real players and using real stats makes for a pretty intense game. If you are one of these people, do not worry because there is a game for you: fantasy fantasy baseball (and football too!).

Unlike fantasy sports where you put together a team of your favorite sports stars and get points based on how well they perform, fantasy fantasy sports is a game where you put together a team of your favorite fantasy sports players and get points based on how well their fantasy sports teams do. For example, in the first round of a typical fantasy fantasy baseball draft, you might pick someone like ESPN's fantasy sports expert Matthew Berry and in the last round you might pick someone like...I don't know...your grandma, or someone.

So for those of you who are looking to get into the exciting world of fantasy fantasy sports, here are my top three tips for putting together a winning team:

1) Don't draft the league douchebag.

Nobody likes the guy who's always saying things like "Yeah! I got Tom Brady, bitches!" or "Your mom was really good last night. No, seriously, dude, I'm not even joking, she was. Dude. Really." People will not want to trade with this guy. That will hurt his team, which will in turn hurt your team.

2) Try to pick up players who can keep a cool head.

Is Bob from Baltimore going to drop Evan Longoria just because of a bad run of games or because he's tired of his wife sitting around watching "Desperate Housewives" DVDs all day? You do NOT want an impulsive player like that on your team.

3) Always look for upside.

Who would you rather have on your team: the grizzled vet who has finished in the middle of the pack each of the last five seasons or the promising newcomer who has had a rough go at it so far but has showed flashes of brilliance like when he grabbed Edinson Vólquez off waivers early this season? The first one? No. You're wrong, idiot. It's the second one.

Why play baseball when you can play FANTASY baseball? And why play fantasy baseball when you can play FANTASY fantasy baseball? Why sit at field level on the 50-yard line when you can hang out in the nosebleed section? If there's anything more exciting than being part of the action, it's being as far away from the action as possible. If EA Sports' slogan is "It's in the game," Fantasy Fantasy Sports' slogan is something like, "It's pretty damn far from the game, because let's face it, 'the game' is just way too intense for people like you."

Coming soon: fantasy video games, fantasy office jobs, fantasy fantasy fantasy baseball, and even combined fantasy leagues. ("All right! Karen from Dallas got promoted to Assistant Director of Marketing, A-Rod hit two homers, AND Kenny from Brooklyn got a new high score in Guitar Hero! Woo hoo, 12 points for me! Eat that! Who's the man?")