Last Monday I wrote a column called “The 10 Most Annoying Fans In Sports,” an article which received more positive feedback than just about anything I’ve done recently. After it was posted, Twitter and my text log blew up with friends, family and followers telling me not only how much they enjoyed the article, but also by sharing with me which fans annoyed them the most. The comments were nothing short of hysterical; some of the best ever posted on my website.

It’s also why I decided that it was time to do a Part II of the Most Annoying Fans list, with a catch: This time, virtually all of the submissions come from actual readers of the first article. After all, I can only be annoyed so much, but if that first article proved anything, it’s that there is plenty out there which annoys you folks as well.

So here it is, Part II of the Most Annoying Fans in Sports.

Years before I was born, my mom adopted a dog named Emily. She (my mom) was young, naïve and had no intentions of owning a pet, until one day her neighbor stopped by with the cruelest of ultimatums: he was moving, and couldn’t take a pet with him. If my mom didn’t take the dog, the neighbor would have no choice but to put it down. Given that my mom has a heart the size of Madagascar, the decision was a no-brainer. Within hours, she was a first-time pet owner.

Admittedly, I don’t remember all that much about Emily. By the time I was born her best days were behind her, and by the time I was a cognizant, functioning tiny human, she was down to her final months and days. When we did finally put her down, I remember being upset (any kid that age would be), but for my mom it was a cataclysmic event. When you’re that young, you just don’t realize the hold a good dog can have you.

Fast-forward a few years, and my sister and I got the urge to have a dog again. We begged and pleaded and pulled out the little kid heavy artillery of “We’ll feed him, and we’ll walk him and you’ll never even know he’s there.” That’s what little kids do, but my mom wasn’t convinced. Either that or she simply wasn’t ready for another dog.

We went to the pound a few times and came back empty-handed, before one day, we eventually met Oscar.

If I had to describe Oscar that day, the best I could come up with was that “He was half German Shepherd, half Australian Cattle Dog, and 100 percent personality.” All these years later I still can’t totally put my finger on it, but from the moment we walked in, something was distinctly different about him. He didn’t look different, he didn’t sound different, he didn’t move different, but he was different. All the other dogs in the pound were saying “Pick me!! Pick me!!” He was saying “You’re going to pick me, let’s go outside and I’ll show you what you’re getting.” To quote Les Miles Oscar definitely had “swag” and an hour later our family had a dog. I’ve heard many times that in life our pets choose us, we don’t choose them, and there may not be a better example of that anywhere than Oscar. He decided we were the family for him the second we walked in the door. We never stood a chance.

The idea for this column came on Saturday during the U.S. Open. It was about 7 p.m. EST, Tiger Woods was wearing a shade of green that could best be described as "blinding," and just as he was following through on his backswing on the third or fourth tee…

…some obnoxious guy screamed out at the top of his lungs “Get In the Hole!!!!!” You know, just like some obnoxious guy does on every hole, at every golf tournament played on tour all season.

And it was at that moment that I realized something: I really, really don’t like “Get In The Hole Guy.” At all. And apparently I’m not alone, since right after I tweeted about it, my timeline filled up, with folks either agreeing with me, and some actually wishing bodily harm against him. That may be a bit a much for me personally, but hey, to each their own, right?

Really though, it got me thinking: Is “Get In The Hole Guy” the most annoying fan in sports? If not, is anyone worse than him?

Well, after taking some time and jotting some notes, as well as soliciting advice on Twitter, I have come up with a list of the folks that I consider to be the 10 most annoying in sports. Your list may be a bit different, and if you think I missed someone, by all means, please feel free to share in the comments section below, or on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.

As a matter of fact, before we get to the list, here are a few submissions from Twitter that just barely missed the cut:

(*** With a slow sports weekend ahead and many folks heading out of the office early today, I wanted to do something a little different here for the Memorial Day Weekend and rather than write some new material, instead re-run an old article straight from my archives.

And with my grandma- the love of my life- celebrating her 96th birthday on Thursday, now seemed like as good a time as ever, to re-publish the article I wrote about her two years ago, on her 94th birthday. Now two years older, my grandma is pretty much the same. She moves a tiny bit slower sure, the same wit and wisdom I describe in the article is still alive and well today.

Regardless, here is my old, new column: A Tribute to One of My Biggest Inspirations. Enjoy, and please excused the outdated Magic-Celtics, Joe Paterno and “The Hills” references.
Have a nice holiday weekend!)

To some of you regular readers, I know you think of me as some crazed, bizarre, sports lunatic. A guy who falls asleep with West Coast baseball games on, and wakes up to replays of Sportscenter in the morning. A guy who watches classic college football games for "fun," reads passages from old Sports Illustrated's when he's bored, and even flips on the India-Pakistan cricket match when there's nothing else on TV. Well, with the exception of the cricket, you'd be right (Ok, ok, I watched cricket, but it was just ONE time. I swear!).

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Well, we’ve officially reached that point in the calendar year.

No, I’m not talking about the “point” when Josh Beckett decides to singlehandedly submarine the Red Sox season (although that does seem completely applicable on this particular morning). Nope, instead I’m talking about the “point” where I officially have no idea what to write here at Aaron Torres Sports. College football and basketball are over, Major League Baseball just started, and I still haven’t watched enough of the NBA Playoffs to have a real “feel” for any of the teams. As for hockey, well, let’s get real for a second: I stopped paying attention to hockey 15 years ago (wait, is Steve Yzerman still in the league?).

Therefore, I decided to do something a little different today. Rather than write some important and meaningful article on some big-picture subject in sports that will make you think deeply, and question everything you ever thought you knew… I instead decided to jot down the first 50 random thoughts that popped into my head.

Now granted, I’ve done these “50 Random Thoughts” columns before, but usually they at the very least, have a theme. Today, not so much. Instead, I just jump from thought to thought, from the NHL to NBA to bad reality TV, the same way Derek Jeter jumps from blondes to brunettes to… well, you get the point.

Regardless, here they are: 50 Random Thoughts….On Just About Everything.

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(Photo Courtesy: USA Today)

A few weeks back my friends over at My Golf Locker asked to do a post on the Masters, and the post was such a success that when the folks at Bunker Mentality asked to do another golf post, I simply couldn't pass it up.

Here is their take on all things related to golf away from the course, including apparel, balls and more...

A Guide to Professional Golf Balls in the Masters

To the lay person, golf balls probably all look the same. After all, aren’t they just small, white, hard spheres which people hit with golf clubs? The answer to this is yes. But also, no! There is, in fact, so much more to golf balls than just their initial appearance and feel. In fact, in all professional golfing tournaments there are strict rules over many aspects of how a golf ball must look, feel, weigh, and what material it can be made from.

About the Masters Tournament

The most prestigious golfing tournament in the world is, of course, the Masters. One of the elite four major championships in the world of professional golfing, it was first played in 1934 as the ‘Augusta National Invitational’ and won by Horton Smith.

Since its inception, the Masters has been home to some of the most impressive sporting victories in the world, including the famous ‘shot heard ‘round the world’ which was played by Gene Sarazen in 1935. And in the 70+ years since its humble beginnings, the Masters has seen victories by players from all around the world, including famous UK player Nick Faldo.

Golf Ball Regulations at the Masters

The Masters, like most other professional tournaments, has strict guidelines as to what kinds of balls may be used for play by competing golfers. These guidelines include, but are not limited to:

• The number, spacing and layout of dimples.
• The size and weight – a professional standard golf ball must not be smaller than 1.68 inches or more than 1.62oz in weight.
• Must be spherically symmetrical.

The reasons why professional tournaments have strict regulations as to the properties of golf balls is because all of these factors can influence game play in one form or another. For example, when a golf ball is moving through the air it becomes subject to various aerodynamic forces. A light ball will travel more easily, whereas a heavier ball will lag.

Golf balls can be made from a variety of different substances, and in a variety of different ways, but each player must ensure that his ball is officially sanctioned prior to play. A ball’s dimples must also be symmetrical in order for the ball to meet regulatory guidelines, as un-symmetrical dimples can be used to correct a ball’s flight path, thereby interfering with play.

Try Your Hand at Professional Golf

Before you can play like a pro, you need to dress like a pro….check out this range of high quality golf clothing. The difference between playing with a professional ball and an amateur ball can be overwhelming. Professional golf balls are available in a wide range of expertly designed styles and materials, all of which are designed to enhance play without masking a player’s true abilities. Amateur balls, on the other hand, fall into two categories. They either impede play by not performing to a high standard, or help to mask a player’s true abilities by improving his performance beyond reasonable measure. For all of these reasons, if you want to play like a pro you should check out pro golf balls at 118Golf.co.uk.
 

(Aaron's Note: This is an incredibly, incredibly long article, but something that what consider to be a very important one. Go ahead and take your time with it, print it out, or come back to it a few times. But do look it over it over closely. I think you'll be shocked at some of the stuff that's contained in here.)

In case you hadn’t heard, UConn’s reign as one of the elite programs in college basketball may have come to an unofficial end on Saturday morning. And its thanks in large part to a totally idiotic, inexplicably dumb NCAA rule.

The moment happened on Saturday morning, when 6’8 forward Roscoe Smith decided to transfer out of the program. Smith’s departure alone doesn’t signify the end, but it is symbolic; Smith is the fifth player to leave the program since the 2012 season ended with a first round NCAA Tournament loss to Iowa State. And while each player has a slightly different reason for leaving, all of them were helped out the door by UConn’s 2013 NCAA Tournament ban, thanks to a bad APR score.

Since this article isn’t about the UConn case in specific, I won’t get into too many of their particular details here. However, below are a few key bullet points on the APR, and why UConn will be banned from next year’s NCAA Tournament:

Simply put, the APR is an academic standard set by the NCAA, in which you lose points for every time a player leaves the school in bad academic standing. We’ll save how the APR score is tabulated for another day (when you’re less inclined to gouge your eyes out with the boring details), but essentially what you need to know is that the APR works on a four-year rolling cycle, and a school needs at least a 900 average over four years, or a 930 average over two years, to avoid sanctions. Previously, schools lost scholarships for falling below the APR line, but starting in the 2013 school year, they’re also banned from postseason play too. Well, in the case of UConn specifically, their two-year score for the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons, was 902 meaning they’ll miss the 2013 NCAA Tournament. That score is thanks in large part to an embarrassing score of 826 after the 2009-2010 season (the Huskies were well above the necessary APR threshold with a score of 978 during their 2011 championship season).

So in essence, UConn didn’t meet the NCAA requirement, and they’re banned from the NCAA Tournament. Seems simple enough, right?

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(Photo Courtesy: Australia.com)

(While this website is called "Aaron Torres Sports," I'll be the first to admit while I'm a pretty knowledgeable guy overall, there are some sports that frankly, I don't know much about. Cricket is one of them, and to be blunt, I know as much about that game as I do 18th century French art. Which is to say I know nothing about cricket at all.

Thankfully, the good folks at Talent Cricket are here to help, and have asked me to do a post today. Here's their take onthe current state of, and what lies ahead for one of the world's most popular sports)

Cricket administrators in England and Australia are getting a little nervous as they admit that three ashes series in two years could leave people indifferent about the game. Or, at the very least ‘a little of the magic will be lost’ if spectators are continued to be saturated with the game.

We’re three months away from the start of the first Ashes Test, and a few months after this England will be back in Australia and in 2015, the Australian team will be back for even more.

Wisden Editor Lawrence Booth is concerned that this much cricket all at the same time will mean that cricket will lose its sense of occasion, “10 straight Ashes Tests from July to January will be less of an occasion, more of a routine” he writes.  He argues that over the next three years the sport will be stretched to its limit, but “a little of the magic will be lost”.

(Photo Courtesy: USA Today Sports)

(When our friends over at My GolfLocker asked me if they could do quick a guest post on this weekend's Masters golf tournament, it was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up. No one knows the sport of golf and the history of this great tournament quite like they do.

Enjoy, and when you get a moment, hop over to their site, and definitely check out the good work they're doing.

While reigning Champion Bubba Watson has left his new hovercraft cart at home for this weekend’s competition, we’re reminded that the US Masters Tournament has played host to its fair share of astounding moments. From incorrect scorecards to incredible shots, let’s take a look at some of the events that have defined competition in Augusta.

1935: The Shot Heard ‘Round the World – In the tournament’s second year, Gene Sarazen managed to hole an incredible shot from the fairway. This was on the par 5 15th, giving him a double eagle, and eventually the victory. He remarked that “That double eagle wouldn’t have meant a thing if I hadn’t won the playoff the next day. The aspect I cherish most is that both Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones witnessed the shot…’

1968 - “What a Stupid I Am”: Robert DeVicenzo made a terrible error by signing an incorrect scorecard. His partner Tommy Aaron listed a 4 instead of a 3 on the 17th, costing DeVicenzo the opportunity to compete in the playoff with the eventual winner, Bob Goalby. The event led to the famous line, “What a stupid I am.”

1975 - The 3-Way Standoff: This year saw Jack Nicklaus, Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller engaged in a hard fought competition, in which Nicklaus emerged victorious by just a single stroke. Many regard this as the most exciting tournament in Augusta’s history. Almost a decade later, Weiskopf admitted that “Jack knew he was going to beat you. You knew Jack was going to beat you. And Jack knew that you knew that he was going to beat you.”

1989 – Snow in Augusta: Usually sunny Augusta was hit with snow through winter, covering the club in January. The weather eased in time however, with the course in perfect condition for the tournament. If you’re looking for warm golf clothing, Galvin Green from MyGolfLocker.co.uk is ideal.

1997 – Record Breaking Debut: Just a year after turning professional, Tiger Woods won on his major debut at the Masters. If that wasn’t enough, he was also just 21 at the time, and won by 12 strokes, his score breaking the record that had stood for 32 years. In total, he set no less than 20 Masters records that year.

2003 – Failed Protest: Martha Burk attempted to organise a protest at the Masters over admission of female members to the Augusta National Golf Club. She was denied a permit. Since then, womens golf clubs have become more common, and Augusta National now has two female members.

2009 – End of an Era: Legendary golfer Gary Player competes in his final US Masters Tournament. It is his 52nd consecutive competition at Augusta, having won on three occasions.
 

Every single year, I do the same thing. I sit around the entire month of March, exhausted, overwhelmed and secretly waiting for college basketball season to end. It’s not that I don’t love the sport (I love it as much as anything on this planet not named “Mila Kunis”), but when you write about college football and college basketball like I do, by mid-March, you’re just burned out. You just want to be able to relax on a Saturday afternoon, go to bed early on a weeknight, or heck, maybe even just read a book. If anything, you really just want to shut your brain off for a while and do anything other talk about, think about or write about sports. I’m not complaining, because I love what I do. But by mid-March I am drained.

So secretly, I wait for college basketball to be done, half-excited to have free time, half-depressed that the season is over… and then one day, poof, it’s done. Season over. Cut down the nets. Cue ‘One Shining Moment.’ And voilà, my workload decreases exponentially. All the anxiety and exhaustion of the last few months disappears, and is instead replaced by a new reality: What the heck am I going to do until September?

As I’ve said many times, of all the sports, college football and college basketball are far and away my favorite two. Sure, I’ll watch the NBA Playoffs or MLB regular season, and even flip on tennis or golf. But I don’t follow them like I do college hoops and football. In those sports, I’m a writer, a columnist, someone who tries to have opinions on everything. In the NBA, golf and baseball? Most of my thoughts boil down to sure “Hmm, C.C. Sabathia sure looks fatter than he did last year” or “Gee, I wonder if Tiger Woods is back to hanging out with those Olive Garden waitresses again.” Again, I like those sports. I wouldn’t say I love them though.

Which is why at this time last year I decided I needed to make a change. I couldn’t be sad that college basketball was over, but instead needed to embrace my newfound free time. That’s why a week after the Final Four, I decided to write down the things I wanted to accomplish in the off-season, a “Spring Cleaning” list if you will.

Some of the goals were absurd, some unrealistic, and some actually happened, as effortlessly as an Anthony Davis blocked shot into the fifth row of the stands. The point is though, that I did have a list, and it gave me the structure I needed in the off-season.

So what’s on my off-season to-do list in 2012?

Let’s take a look.

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