Ranking the Sports of Our Youth From Best to Worst

No flag-football. No pickup basketball. No beer league softball. Those are all culutrally acceptable for a grown man to play. Today we look back at sports from a bygone age, living the good life catching fireflies and...other things kids like that we've forgotten due to the daily grind of adulthood. Eventually a man needs to let go of his musical chairs and red rover in exchange for stress headaches over bill payments whilst getting his rectum inspected regularly by a butt doctor proctologist. It's the Circle of Life for humans.

Since you're reading this section we assume sports played a heavy role in your youth. You go from playing them, to paying to watch other people play them. Again, Circle of Life. The more you participated in, the better prepared you were for life's lessons. Each one you participated in separated you from your peers, and vice versa. Maybe you found out about karate the hard way by mocking a kid during Social Studies and finding out right before recess that he was the class Tum Tum. It was also probably the first time you ever uttered "Oh, fuck me," under your breath. Having a healthy beating in front of your peers may've been the tutorial you needed in modesty and keeping your mouth shut.

All of these, of course, are subjective. Some of you may've relished "dodgeball day," whilst others feigned an injury. Some of you may've been the Jason Elam of the schoolyard, showing off during kickball, while others were picked last. Some of you may've been the bully, while others were the monkey in the middle. Individual memories may apply. Here are the Sports of Our Youth, Ranked From Best to Worst.

Replaced with: N/A

There's always a movement (see: one, or two, whiny parents) who think dodgeball is too violent a sport for kids to play. It's the same type of crap that ancient Mayan parents probably complained about when their children were playing 'ballgame" with a severed head.

But the greatest game in gym history allowed you to unleash your inherent caveman aggression on the very classmates boning your GPA by setting the curve. It allowed you to target your peers without contributing to a national dialogue on guns. In fact, kids born today may never know the simple joy of firing a gator-skin ball at a colleague from point blank because the PTA is as good at logic as they were at gym. And if the argument is that dodgeball has no practical application, remind us why the hell we ever learned cursive or a2 + b2 = c2.

Replaced with: N/A

Best played at night, the rules were simple: Hide your flag and be willing to give your life to defend it. Go on offense and get the flag and hope like hell when you hide that you don't encounter a territorial raccoon or possum.

If you were caught, you were at the mercy of your captors. Were they polite like guards in Sweden? Or did they make Abu Ghraib seem like a fucking ride on a Hansom cab? Hope like hell your team will come and save you before electronic nipple clamps were applied. Often the flag was just too damn hard to find in the dark and many a game ended in a draw. Still it's yet another diversion we'd forgotten completely about, but now makes us nostalgic for adolescence. We all have to quit at some point, and unfortunately for us it was around the time we started sneaking hand lotion to the bedroom.

Replaced with: Beer league softball.

A youth sport so big that they televise the Championship annually on ABC. Even if you grew up to hate baseball, you probably played a year or two in Little League (because your parents made you). Win, lose, or tie due to darkness, Little League was your glimpse into the culture of athletics. Whether you got beaned in the nads and the opposing coach argued you swung (Above. Although, he is swinging). Or an opponents' overzealous mom blew an air horn during your at-bat, you probably learned a valuable lesson: Adults care way too much about winning in youth sports. Still, it taught you teamwork. It taught you how to cope with defeat. And it taught you that your coach was a fuckin' peehole for screaming at a 16-year-old ump getting paid in free hotdogs.

Replaced with: Ice Hockey.

You no longer needed to wait until the winter to strap on your skates and unleash your inner Pavel Bure. With the perfect combination of rollerblades and pavement, kids in San Antonio could play pickup hockey like a Canadian, Norwegian, or any other cold weather warrior. The only thing that could ruin you and your friends' good time was a pothole, or a guy taking a right turn without looking.

Replaced with: Flag football.

A sport that's been thrust back into the limelight thanks to Esquire Network's Friday Night Tykes. Like we mentioned in the intro, your personal memories will dictate your own order of this list. Were you the quarterback (AKA: your dad the coach)? Or, were you overweight so you had a stripe on your helmet limiting you to line play? One's great. The other, is not. And even though FNT makes it look like every coach is a middle-aged doofus on a power trip, the sport instilled some benefits and simultaneously put discipline in perspective. For instance, after doing ladders in the July heat, who really gives a shit about a teacher threatening you with an office referral?

Replaced with: Snowmobiles/Snowboarding.

If luge is a sport, then sledding is a sport. After all, hiking uphill was three-fourths of the battle. A day of school for a winter storm meant dusting off the toboggan for an intermittent adrenaline rush. If you got the thrill you wanted, brown snow magically transported itself from the bottom of your boots to the inside of your ski pants.

Replaced with: Real golf.

Still fun to do from time-to-time, but not considered a mature alternative for a round of 18 on the (actual) links. The variety of mini-golf courses couldn't be matched. You had your classic windmill, but the imagination of the other holes were often only limited by budget. You had your crazy glow in the dark courses, to your massive waterfalls, to your proprietors trying their best to piss everybody off. Sink the 19th in one shot to win a free game. Or, just pretend you dropped your ball in the water and steal earn one yourself.

Replaced with: Soccer/Softball.

The soccer/baseball hybrid that swept the nation's playgrounds was an excellent vehicle to learn your place in life. Either you were the captain, the player everyone loved because he was good at sports. Or you were the last pick. The nerd. The spaz. The guy above.

Replaced with: N/A

Is tag a sport? Sure. It's constant breaks mixed with sporadic running. It's the closest comparable adrenaline rush we have to being gazelles in the wild. And lava tag gave us just the edge we'll need if a volcano ever busts an earth-nut without warning.

Replaced with: Wheelchair.

Did you own a trampoline? Did your parents leave you home alone when they went to work? If you answered yes to both, then you probably imitated the Attitude Era and/or wore a neck brace at some point. The '90s and early 2000s was an age of wrestling that scientists referred to as "The shit." Who didn't want to re-enact a Stunner with a can of root beer and a friend's sack? However, it didn't take many incompetent piledrivers before realizing the difference between professionals with doctors on site, and amateurs imitating what they saw on ER.

Replaced with: N/A

Find the kid with the out of control pituitary gland and stick him in back. Unless you were active in collegiate Greek life, you probably haven't participated in this test of strength since Elementary School. By then you've had your fill. Besides, by the time you hit puberty you'll be tugging more rope than you could've ever anticipated.

Replaced with: Actual fights that can land you in jail.

Karate really hit its peak amongst youth in the '90s. Perhaps it had to do with an '80s movie about some kid, whose name we forgot. It taught you how to best a bully with honor and respect. When you were able to punch through a wooden plank, you were ready to say "No," to an aggressor's demands for lunch money. Unfortunately, in the real world, street fighting has little to do with honor, or respect. Sensai taught us all we need to know to counter attack an open hand strike that our opponent announces. But, sadly, taught us little in the ways to defend a beer bottle to the back of the head while taking a piss behind a dumpster.

Replaced with: Hockey/Ice skating/Walking

We're unsure if roller blading was all the rage because it was the '90s, or because we were kids but roller rinks used to be the joint, and now they're covered by boards that say 'Condemned'. Still, nothing was sweeter than gliding to class until a badass high schooler abruptly stopped, popped his '90s Jeep in reverse, and tested your pads with his fists.

Replaced with: Handball

What did you do when your playground was no grass/all blacktop? You settled for four square and defended your quadrant from double bounces and argued over shots on the line. It was like tennis, with a big ball and no racket. Just the type of cheap distraction your school needed to keep the money they avoided spending on playground equipment.

Replaced with: Softball.

Baseball that could be played within a 50-foot radius. You didn't need nine guys, and you could put some Greg Maddux-style english on the ball without needing elbow surgery.

Replaced with: Basketball

Knockout was a game for hoopsters that attempted to simulate the pressure of shooting in a real game. Stand in line and if you miss your shot (and the dude behind you makes his) you're out. Simple concept. Eliminate foes one-by-one until the fifth grade Ray Allen is standing. It was a game that was born from a simpler era when people didn't have to worry about going viral. Now, Knockout means sneaking up on an unsuspecting citizen and blindsiding them while someone shouts "Worldstar!"

Replaced with: N/A

Much like the paint in basketball, 500 was a game where size trumped all. If you were a ripped clothes Lurch you benefited from your six-foot tall Elementary School frame to dominate over your diminutive classmates. It was all fun and games until somebody shouted "Bankrupt" too late.

Replaced with: Football/Rugby.

You had one objective. Get the ball and go beast mode. Get tackled and cough up the rock. This opposite of monkey in the middle had all parties practicing their gang tackling and punt returning in an effort to hold the ball the longest. One of the many perks of youth is that injuries heal quicker. The game doesn't hold up for adults who've learned what a bitch healthcare costs can be.

Replaced with: Handball/Racquetball.

Bobble the ball and run to the wall. No game tested your hand-eye coordination with this amount of pressure. Unless, you had a Little League coach that strapped dynamite to you when you took the field.

Replaced with: Table tennis.

Played by youngsters in gym classes, and again by old-timers in retirement villages. The best way to explain pickleball (for those of you who haven't completed high school gym) is table tennis with actual running (Or tennis with a wiffle ball). If we were in Australia, it'd probably be the first slide on this list.

Replaced with: Softball.

It's hard to discern whether Tee Ball was a great game, or a boring one. There was no pitching. That's good, because we know adults who can't throw strikes. Little kids with no experience aren't just going to pound the zone like a batting practice thrower. But every ball going into play (exception above) got old quick. Especially since little kids can't field, so it essentially became a barrage of running around the bases over and over, continuously. That can get stale too. Big Leaguers use it to maintain their swing, but ordinary citizens use it to get their kids out of the house for an hour or two.

Replaced with: Volleyball (usually, beach volleyball).

A ball tethered to a pole. And it was as fun as it sounds. The redeeming factor? It could be played one-on-one.

Once that ball got momentum it was like a boulder rolling down a hill. To be a gamechanger you had to ball a fist and smash that globe with the force of an Alabama husband. And if you ever caught that ball on your knuckles when it was 10 degrees out, well...you'd know why it's so far up the list.

Replaced with: Tennis.

Like a lot of kids, you probably had a badminton net in your yard at some point in your upbringing. And like a lot of kids, you probably ditched it for either volleyball or tennis within 10-15 minutes (you know, after it took your dad an hour to setup). That's because bending down to pick up the shuttlecock over and over is just as fun as picking up anything else over and over.

Replaced with: Treadmill

We're not sure if this was really a sport, but we are certain that it was awful. Climb into an over-sized sack and hop to the finish line. Fall down a lot and get laughed at. Grow up with a nose like Owen Wilson. There's a reason they haven't turned this into an Olympic event.

Replaced with: N/A

This playground favorite taught you all you needed to know about life in a metaphor deeper than the Mariana Trench. No, actually it usually started when a bully stole your shoe and ended with your first crush saying "Oh come on guys, give it back to him already." A disturbing chain was started that saw you wearing ladies underwear and ended with an intervention by friends and family. Conversely, if you were the bully, you have to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. We'd go make a Billy Madison-style phone call right now if we were you.

Replaced with: Marathons.

Cross country, or as you may know it: The sport you participated in when you had no skills.

Nearly every sport uses a diversion to distract you from the fact that you're really just doing conditioning. Basketball? Fun, but it's conditioning. Football? Fun, but it's conditioning. Soccer? Conditioning. Cross country ditched the balls and whistles to send you out into the woods to run your little nuts off until your ribcage squeezed your organs, and it felt like a stab in your liver (unless you've actually been stabbed, which is way worse).

That annual mile run in gym class every year? Add another two or three. Uphill. If you're one of the rare people who loved the competition of long distance running, you're in luck because marathon opportunities are plentiful. Just avoid the Kenyans and stick to races with fat people trying to prove something to themselves. After you're done, they'll give you a 26.2 sticker to put on your car and impress the people stuck behind you in traffic.