Bowling

Last Sunday, I very roughly planned my morning around going to the gym at about 10, so I could watch football while exercising. Just before I left the house, I looked at the paper and it turned out the game wasn't on until 12. Damn. Had my gym clothes on, so I went ahead and went. Well, there was no football on the gym TV, so, instead, they had on . . . bowling. (On ESPN, just like in the old days, before ESPN showed roughly 50% college basketball, 25% exercise shows and 25% SportsCenter.)

Yes, bowling. Don't watch bowling much. When I was a kid geeking out on sports on Saturday, I used to watch bowling once in a while because it came on between college football games and Wide World of Sports. Anyway, I still geek out on sports, but not to that pretty pathetic extent anymore.

So there I am on the elliptical machine, exercising away, and I notice that one of the bowlers was wearing a HEADBAND. Yes, the bowler, he was bowling away so much, exerting so much energy, sweating so much, that he needed a headband. Now, granted, the guy was bald. I suppose that it's possible that the TV lights are pretty warm and, when reflected on the clouds of cigarette smoke floating near the ceiling of the bowling alley, might make someone sweat, the bald guy who was wearing one on TV especially, I guess. But, oh my God, have some "athletic" pride. You're a bowler, not an NBA player. I still haven't quite gotten used to NBA players wearing headbands all over -- I still blame the Kings' loss in Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference finals on the fact that, for some damn reason, Chris Webber decided to wear a headband that day for the first time ever for some ungodly reason -- but I totally understand the need for them in the NBA.

But, in bowling, please. I saw a comedian one time who said that bowling was the only sport you could play while simultaneously shooting heroin. That might be a slight overstatement, but I'm pretty sure that headbands are uncalled for. I mean, what's next? Renting you headbands that other people have used while bowling? Why stop at renting you random shoes? Renting socks?

Professional bowlers should not wear headbands. Not even professional golfers wear headbands. Of course, that's probably because, if a professional golfer wore a headband, he or she couldn't rake in as much endorsement dough because headbands are too small to really show off those nice corporate logos on TV. Caps and visors make much better billboards. I mean, do you ever watch golf on TV? Those guys are like human stock cars.