Over Used Terms/Phrases/Cliches in Sports Media

So over at Mgoblog.com today a thread was started on the most annoying modern day media cliches.  I borrowed some of the better ones and created my own. Here is a brief list.

• Using "Gate" to Describe Scandals
• SEC Speed- You cannot be more ignorant if you say or believe this.
• This is a bad time for an error/interception/fumble- When is a good time?
• Giving 110%- This is most prominent in youth sports and pissed me off in my childhood.  100% will do fine
• The kid has great motor, can tackle in space, can make all the throws, factor back, game changer, potential upside- Mel Kiper, FUUUUU
• Describing white players as gritty, smart and tough. Black players as athletic and fast, and Hispanics as fiery
• Comparing all White Receivers to Wes Welker
• Calling Black Coaches in football class acts
• ____ Nation.  It was bad enough with the Red Sox can we stop the epidemic from spreading
• Finally _____team is back.  Last I checked Michigan Football is not back but I have heard it several times in the last couple seasons
• Pluralizing Bostons Miamis, Dukes.  Sportscasters love to say team X is good but they won't be elite until they can beat the Alabamas of the world.  Last I checked you can't pluralize singular entities.
• Remember there has to be indisputable video evidence to overturn the call.
• The game is war- No it ain't
• Manchester United is 18-0-1 when Wayne Rooney scores the first goal of the match.  Really I didn't think goals were so important in Soccer.
• The other team didn't want it bad enough- Sometimes this is true but sometimes one team is better.  Really you don't think Butler wanted to win a National Title?  They probably just decided to mail it in.
• Football:  This team needs to figure out how to make plays.
• Baseball: He has a closer's mentality- He's crazy?
• Any ESPN Catch phrase after 1996
• Calling a Running Back a Home Run Threat, A baseball draft pick a slam dunk pick
• Nicknaming anyone with Rodriguez as a last name as ____Rod
• Using the term literally when you really mean figuratively.
• He catches the ball at its highest point.- Actually far from it man.
• College Sports: The kid gets in done in the classroom

Players say the same canned answers in interviews

• One game at a time
• I'm just happy to be here
• I just want to help the team

When you don't have anything intelligent to say you regurgitate snippets of information and do not bother to research something intelligent to say.  The downsides of a 24 hour newscycle is you have to deal with more idiots in the media.

NAGAYT's Official Unofficial Post-Christmas List

Now that the wrapping paper has been thrown away, the 24 hours of A Christmas Story have passed, and the sounds of Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis, and Andy Williams are giving way to normal music again, allow me, on behalf of all of us here at NotAsGoodAsYouThink, to wish our followers the best for the remainder of this holiday season. And now I'm going to tell you a bunch of stuff that we'd all like to see in the coming year. Consider it an unofficial post-Christmas list.

-A definitive, authentic, well-written, compelling, authoritative movie made about Babe Ruth. The Babe starring John Goodman was terrible, and 1948's The Babe Ruth Story is only remembered today for how cheap and tacky it was. The technology is there, the expanded knowledge of the man's life is there thanks to new biographies and documentaries that have come out in the past decade-plus, and the void for a solid baseball movie is certainly there. Obviously the thing won't go from tee to green in a year, but to even hear that the wheels are in motion for such a project would be great. Who's with me?
-Jon Gruden to do us all a favor and step out of the Monday Night Football broadcast booth and back onto the sidelines. Maybe even in Dallas.
-NFL Network to find a way to get Gus Johnson onto its broadcast team. It may make their coverage borderline watchable.
-The St. Louis Rams to get to 8-8 and win the NFC West, if for no other reason than the country has already had enough of the "REVAMP THE NFL PLAYOFF SYSTEM!" outcry from every corner of the media. Think the overtime debate of the past few years, and multiply it by 10. No thanks.
-The Miami Heat to lose in the first round of the playoffs.
-Keep the baseball playoffs the way they are. This idea of adding a second wild card team is idiotic. You have 162 games to assert yourself as one of the top four teams in your league - that's more than enough of a sample size.
-A Super Bowl that goes to overtime. We've come close to seeing one several times in the recent past. Come on, wouldn't that be fun?
-For once and for all, anyone who ever, ever, ever talks about the Super Bowl in written form uses it as two words. It's the "Super Bowl." It is not the "Superbowl." Get it right. It's not that hard; bloody Toby could do it.
-A one-way plane ticket to Tonga for A.J. Burnett.
-On that same token, one more year for Andy Pettitte.
-The Arrested Development movie. Please.
-If a sequel to The Hangover does come out, please let it not be an embarrassment to the first one.
-For those of us who have become Chris Lilley fans over the course of 2010 (and that includes all of our contributors and a good amount of our followers), we would want nothing more than for his new series Angry Boys, due to air on HBO in March, to include Phil Olivetti as a main character. This really needs to happen.
-The Northeast to finally learn how not to overreact to a snowstorm.