In certain ways, I’m biased. It’s allowed.

I don’t mind baseball announcers. Even when there are four or five of them in the booth, I don’t care about the randomness of their booth banter, or of anecdotes they share because I love baseball. Once in a while I’ll hear one relate a story from his idyllic childhood, how he’d come back from frog hunting one summer night, toss his slingshot on the floor and flip on the radio to hear a storyteller construct a baseball game especially for the little boy. Darling.

For almost every other sport, there are too many announcers. I know this, because among those hundreds of people (e.g. the small village that’s analyzing the NCAA Basketball tournament) is divided the commentary and insight of ten or fifteen actual people.

Some of the announcers are great, because they add just enough flavor and knowledge to the game experience. These men are few and far between.

My point: Most of what most of them say is bullshit, unnecessary filler to cram in our ears as the images flood our eyes.

Case in my point: The use and RAMPANT overuse of the adjective “athletic,” in the analysis of college basketball. The word’s often coughed up by the younger color analyst, rather than the older, play-by-play man, who knows the score and the world well enough to think of another freakin’ adjective.

Louisville here is a very athletic team.

Well, I should fucking HOPE so, shouldn’t I?

They’re in the Final Four. I’d have expected them each to sport more than a little pudge. That’s where champions get their energy reserves.

I see why these announcers use the term – as a vague, complimentary team description, and occasionally in an intra-squad manner, to demarcate the body-type schism between the swifter, shooter-forms and the stolid, low-post bulwarks (word-a-day).

But really, the players here are all athletes, they’re all athletic, they could run circles around you before kicking your dizzy ass. You’re a vapid moron who’d be better off not saying “athletic” or anything else ever again, and only being assumed a fool.

Stick to the analysis, or buy a thesaurus.