I’m not a sports fan. However, because of my many insecurities, I always worry that admitting that will reflect poorly on my masculinity. My male self-confidence is further eroded when I mention that I live about as close as you can get to the absolute center of Toronto’s gay and lesbian district and that, despite being straight-I always quickly add that I’m straight-I think it’s a good place to live. But never mind that; I don’t usually go off on tangents this early in my blog posts.

Let’s get back to where I was going with this before I got diverted by my insecurities. Because I don’t watch sports often, there are a lot of sports rules that I don’t understand. In some cases, when I hear the ref or ump call an infraction I haven’t the foggiest of ideas as to what he means by the call. In other cases I know what the rule is, but I don’t understand why it’s part of the game.

I know a little about hockey because I used to watch it regularly as a kid. I had to. When I was growing up here in Canada refusing to watch hockey was a felony offense. Our legal system has progressed since then. Now it’s just a misdemeanor. These days, rather than watch, I pay the fine if I’m caught not watching. Nonetheless, my devotion to the game as a child taught me a little about the rules.

For example, I know what being offside means. The problem is, I have no idea why there is such a rule in hockey. Understand, hockey is a sport where a player can beat the crap out of another player and typically spend only five minutes in the penalty box before he’s let out to beat the crap out of another player. And sometimes the penalty is only two minutes. At the end of some games there isn’t a decent crap left in any of the players on either team.

The fighting happens because fans insist on it. If there aren’t at least two fights during a game the paying public at the arena demand their money back.

If hockey players behaved outside of the arena the way some of them do on the ice they’d never get out of jail. So if all they’re going to get is a two or five minute penalty for beating someone senseless, why should anyone care if a player happens to be across a line ahead of a puck? Being offside seems way too trivial to worry about in that context, doesn’t it?

In baseball a foul ball counts as a strike unless it would result in the hitter being out. What’s that all about? A foul ball? OK, so the ball smells bad. Is that any reason for it not to count as a hit? Get over it. These guys are paid big bucks to play the game. If the ball smells a little foul they should live with it and play the game. It’s not as if the pitcher rubs the ball in some dog shit that happens to be on the mound. Or is that it? I might understand if that were the case. But, still, at the salaries the major leaguers are paid they should just suck it up, so to speak, and get on with the game.

In football there’s a rule against illegal motion. I honestly don’t understand that. Did someone flip someone else the finger? If that’s illegal I’m going to check that my passport is up to date because I may have to flee the country quickly.

Wait; I think I get it. Sometimes television announcers talk about “illegal motion in the backfield.” Maybe backfield is a euphemism for ass. After all, the players are always touching each other’s butts. Maybe there’s some sodomy going on. Is that it? There are still some places where sodomy is illegal, but when they’re playing the game somewhere other than those places, I think they should just overlook this rule. I’m straight, but I strongly believe that what goes on between two consenting adults is nobody else’s business.

If anyone reading this understands these cockamamie rules, please fill me in.