Five Things That Sucked About 2004:

Vote Or Die: Most Americans make non-voters feel guilty by pulling out the "Do you know how many people died so you could have the right to vote?" card. Puff Daddy went the other route, apparently, and told America's youth, "YOU will die if you don't exercise your right to vote!" So what's worse, persuasion by guilt or persuasion by death threat?
Actually, what the hell does "vote or die" even mean? And what's the point of voting if you don't know why you're voting or if you don't care who you're voting for? Puff Daddy's answer: Shut the F up and vote, or I'll freaking kill you.
Probably the dumbest idea in recent history, maybe since Puff Daddy changed his name to P.Diddy.

--The Simple Life: Paris Hilton was sort of like the Gigli of 2004, meaning people bashed her because it was the cool thing to do and not because they ever saw her shows or had a reason to think she sucked. I actually did see her show a few times, though, and I'm here to report to you all that the rumors are indeed true: Paris Hilton sucks. And her show sucked even more.
There was nothing wrong with the premise of The Simple Life, it’s just that the show was so obviously scripted, and the casting director couldn't have picked two more incompetent ditzes to pull the acting job off.

--Productive Outs: I still don't get what Buster Olney and Elias were trying to accomplish by creating this stat. If they believed it correlated to more wins or more runs or more anything, they should've given us a number or a fact or anything that showed the correlation. They gave us nothing, basically, and the definition of the stat itself, it turns out, is totally impractical. For example, if a pitcher advances a runner with a flyball, grounder, or bunt with 1 out, it's a productive out. But if a position player does the same with 1 out, it's not..... WTF? How does that make sense?
Also, do you know which players had the top five POP's in the majors last season? Miguel Cairo, Brandon Inge, Tony Womack, Mark Derosa, and Alex Cora. Neifi Perez ranked 11th.
I will now ignore the existence of this stat for the rest of my life.

--Yankees/Red Sox on FOX Primetime: Whenever I hear Sox or Yankee fans say how great their teams are for baseball, I say a little prayer to myself, and in that little prayer, I ask the sports gods above to one day tear those two teams apart, stripping them of their best hitters and pitchers so that their team MVP will be someone average, like Scott Spiezio or Kevin Appier. Then I ask the sports gods to transplant those great players onto one team, like, say, the Atlanta Braves, who would suddenly have all of the game's superstars that other major league teams only wished they could have.
All of this would then allow me to say to Red Sox and Yankee fans: "You wanted it, America. You got it -- Atlanta Braves baseball!"
Amen.
Some of my favorite people in the world are ex-Yankee fans who realize how much it sucks that other baseball fans never get to see superstars play for their team, only against them.

--Theismann in the booth: I think you could make a case for all three members of ESPN's Sunday Night Football crew being on this list, but I think Joe Theismann tops them all by a country mile. I think he's the most self-important, self-indulgent analyst on TV. I think he thinks we all need to know that his observations are HIS observations. I think he likes to emphasize that. I think that's why his analyses always begin with "I think...." I don't think he can just say what happened. It's never, "Michael Vick made a great throw," it's, "I really think Michael Vick made a great throw." Bill Cowher doesn't just tell Jerome Bettis he'll get 30 carries. No, Theismann talks to Bill Cowher on Wednesday at a Starbucks on 23rd Street, and Cowher tells Theismann that he told Jerome Bettis he'd like Bettis to get 30 carries. With Theismann, it's always I think this, I think that, I think this and that. I, I, I.
Just say it, Joe. Just say it.