Things a sports fan can care about until football season starts again

It's May. The yearly tease that is spring football has worn off, and the large number of Americans whose major sport of choice is football (or American Rules Football for all my international readers) are slowly starting to realize that it is a long four months until they get to see 22 men concuss each other for an hour a week again. But even if you do really only care about football, you still want to see some sports every once in a while, even if only to be able  to claim once again that if you only hadn't sprained your ankle sophomore year of high school, that that would be you out there. So I have thrown together some suggestions for temporary alternatives to football, that will still let you feed the burgeoning sports addiction that you and most other Americans have been afflicted with.

1. Basketball
Lebron James is out of the playoffs. Three of the remaining four teams left in the NBA playoffs are utterly hateable. The league is quite possibly rigged to get a big market team the championship every year. While all of these things are true, don't count out basketball yet as a sports possibility. The hope all lies in one man, Steve Nash. Even though the Suns are facing a 2-0 hole, they play great at home, so it's very possible you will see at least three more games of the great white hope. Nash is the greatest thing ever to happen to short white guys, because it makes us all feel like we have a chance to be atletic too. Hey, if some skinny ugly Canadian dude can do it, why cant we? (You can't because you probably haven't played basketball since junior high, but that's not the point) Also, as long as Nash is around, you have a free pass to make constant Canadian jokes, which is always fun. The other series offers its own intrigue. The Magic and Celtics have started getting pretty physical, so it is totally worth it to keep watching if only for the chance to see someone go full Bogut after a hard foul. And then after that you've got the NBA draft, which is dumb, but at least you might get to see John Wall shoot off some celebratory gunshots after being drafted by the Wizards, and you can see which team Evan Turner will lose on next year.

2. Hockey
Many of you may never have heard of this sport, or know that we have a team here in Columbus, but hockey is actually very popular, I hear, in certain desolate frozen wastelands of the world (Detroit). And for good reason, it's one of the manliest of sports. Burly bearded men attaching knives to their shoes to smash each other into walls sounds awesome enough as it is, and to top it all off there is even some sort of scoring thrown in there. And with the matchups as they are now, you can watch and cheer every time a dude from Philly smashes a French-Canadian into the boards.

3. Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a sport mostly for rich, preppy east-coasters, this is true. But grown men also get to hit each other with metal sticks. Even if you know nothing about it, for one weekend a year it is totally worth watching. On memorial day weekend every year, lacrosse games get 40,000+ person crowds to watch the final four, and there are usually some great games. Lacrosse can be boring on tv, but with a big crowd and the likelihood of some shaggy haired dude getting his clock cleaned every game, its worth throwin on. Also, at least three of the final 8 teams left have a central ohio product on your team, so you can root for them to overthrow the lacrosse establishment.

4. Soccer
Soccer? Yes, soccer. Even though it is boring, low-scoring, and full of skinny european dudes, this summer is the World Cup, the one soccer event that everyone should watch. Entire countries stake their reputation on these games, and there can be some unfortunate consequences for a poor showing. And even though soccer players writhe on the ground and embellish after every little tap they receive, it's actually a pretty dangerous sport, with 16 deaths since 1980. Also, soccer players have easily the hottest wives of any sport, and they will all be at the games at the world cup, so you can loo forward to seeing them on camera after their husbands score of the the two goals you'll see every game.

5. Baseball
The American pastime. Baseball may have lost some of its luster recently, but it is still great to flip on a day game during the summer and have a great nap time while watching a game. After watching a couple innings you'll for sure be in the mood to sleep go out and have a catch. Baseball is great because of its history, you've got the seventh-inning stretch, which is a collosal waste of time great tradition, horrible delicious Cracker Jack, and drunks great fans at the game. You really begin to love baseball when you see the excitement that the players have for the game. And, now, more than ever, baseball is a great sport to watch because you never know what you're going to see at a game.