Thanks, But No Thanks: The Six Worst Sports Traditions

It’s Thanksgiving Day, which means it’s time for somebody to carve up the Detroit Lions.

Thanksgiving is a holiday stuffed full of wonderful traditions'getting sloppy drunk at 10 A.M., inducing a coma with mass quantities of turkey and snapping wishbones in the hopes that we’ll get to put our face in Kim Kardashian’s donkey butt this year. One tradition that has no place in this mix is the NFL forcing football fans to watch the Detroit Lions get their tails whipped in a nationally televised game. Excluding 1939-1944, the Lions have been hosting T-Day games since 1934, but that doesn’t mean they should continue to even when they suck (the same goes for the currently decent Dallas Cowboys, who’ve been hosting since 1966 with the exception of 1975 and 1977).

The NFL added a third game in 2006 to counterbalance the wretchedness of its traditional games, but why not just use Thanksgiving to showcase teams that are actually good? Detroit hasn’t been in the playoffs since 1999, their current team is 0-11 and they’re playing the mighty 10-1 Tennessee Titans tomorrow (the 7-4 Cowboys face the miserable 2-9 Seattle Seahawks in another game that will put viewers to sleep faster than tryptophan). Traditionalists hate the idea of ever dumping the Lions or the Cowboys, but those assholes also think slavery and child abuse should have been preserved. So, this Thanksgiving, instead of trying to make our Kim K ass fantasies happen, we’re wishing for good football (to watch from the comfort of her donkey butt). Read on for five more horrible sports traditions that Complex wants to put an end to…

Offensive Native American Mascots And Chants
If not for the Native Americans who brought food to the Pilgrims to prevent them from starving to death in the New World winter, this country probably wouldn’t exist. Think about that the next time you dress up like a brave and do the Tomahawk Chop. If you still think it’s cool, you deserve to get your ticket scalped.
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Racist Fan Taunts
It’s 2008, worldwide fans of every sport from cricket to basketball still regularly taunt black players with monkey noises. Word to Axel Foley, somebody needs to stick a banana in their tailpipes.
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The American League Designated Hitter Rule
For supporting a ridiculous rule that masquerades as baseball and allows pitchers to bean batters and never face return fire, we place our balls squarely on MLB’s chin.
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All-Star Games
Professional sports leagues can attempt to attach meaning to their artificial, half-assed, weekend-long celebrations of excellence (and ignorant fan voting) but the only significant thing to come out of them is child support payments for groupies, strippers and call girls.
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The BCS Rankings System
Why determine the best college football team in the nation with playoffs when you can preserve uncertainty with a nutty selection system based on polls and computer number crunching? Seriously, the last time someone put so much effort into something everyone hated so much, it was called The Phantom Menace.