Every sport has its thorn

Soccer is getting a lot of flack right now, and for good reasons: the scoring is as rare as a well-done Cuba Gooding Jr. movie, the players feign injury at every turn and its nearly impossible to separate the good players from the lower-tier guys.

That said, every sport — even the "major" ones — has problems.

Baseball

• Streaking: No one wants to see that. Plus, no one wants an already excruciatingly long game prolonged even more as the security guards try to restore order.
• Rituals: Is there another sport with as many completely unneeded yet time-consuming habits as baseball. This category includes but is not limited to furiously rubbing the ball, stepping out of the box, keeping a runner at first and coaches visiting the mound.

Football

• Overtime: Is there a more antiquated way of settling something than flipping a coin? The only thing I can think of is putting an apple on one captain's head while the other tries to shoot it off with an arrow. If the former gets hit, he receives possession of the ball and free health care. Let's work on this for the 2011 season, OK Roger Goodell?

Basketball

• The refs: The quality of officiating in the NBA has deteriorated to the level of BP cleanup engineers. Makeup calls used to be few and far between; these days they're a common occurrence. And the art of flopping has made marginal players such as Derek Fisher into NBA legends. Kudos, zebras. You're changing history, one blown call at a time.

Hockey

• Everything.

You can find flaws in any sport. Still, no blemish rivals soccer's No. 1 pimple: the insanity of shootouts to decide important matches. It's ridiculous to watch grown men decide crucial athletic events based sheerly on guessing whether they should dive to the right or dive to the left to defend a given kick.

Rolling dice would be just as fair.