You Can Feel The Momentum Shift

Television is where a group of illiterates with unbridled ambition preach to a mass of illiterates who lack the willpower to switch potato chip brands.

None of them can be stopped. For the past five years I have been trying to stop Johnny Miller with telepathy.

{Johnny. Johnny! Don't say it. Keep quiet Johnny!}

"That's good stuff, Gary."

"It certainly is good stuff, Johnny."

How many more times in my life must I hear this exchange? Years ago, when a man was asked to kiss a trophy, mankind assumed it was noteworthy. When a baby comes out of the womb, would anyone dare say "that's good stuff?" At a marriage, at a funeral, at a coronation, at a school play, hell while eating a decent hamburger, could it ever be appropriate to say "that's good stuff?"

Listening to sports broadcasters is like listening to the thought process of a slot machine addict. This is evident in their favorite cliche, the one with both drama and mystic insight:

"You can feel the momentum shift."

"You can feel the momentum shift" means: "I confess that I have no thought process about the game I am observing; I merely react to visual stimulus in the same way a gambler reacts to a lucky draw; I say things like 'wow' and 'that's a good hand' and 'if I could get another Jack, then I would have three Jacks.'"