COLUMN: Handball

I write this column every 4 years without apology, and I'll continue to do so until America starts celebrating the greatest sport in the world.

It was the olden times -- you know, the 1990s -- and I had just returned home from a long night of DJing. It was 3:30 a.m. and I was WAY too amped to sleep. That's when I remembered the Olympics were on. I turned on the TV thinking I could drift off to swimming or basketball or gymnastics. But at 3 a.m., you don't see those events. You see the WEIRD stuff.

For the next hour, I sat transfixed by the most awesome sport I'd never heard of. That was the night I became a HUGE fan of team handball.

Imagine water polo -- without the water. And instead of water, they replace it with PURE UNADULTERATED VIOLENCE. Team handball is the most pointlessly high-impact sport I've ever watched. If you want the energy and insanity level of rugby, except INDOORS, team handball is the sport for you.

Like soccer, it has goals on each end of the court and a goalie tasked with defending them. Teams of 7 advance a ball the size of a cantaloupe up and down the court. You can carry the ball for no more than 3 steps and no longer than 3 seconds, at which point you have to pass or shoot.

From what I can gather, the goal of team handball is to leap through an army of defenders while chucking the ball at breakneck speed squarely at the goalie's head. Sometimes the ball will miss the defender's head and instead accidentally sail into the net, thus scoring a point. The winner is presumably the team with the most points or fewest decapitated goalies by the end of the match. It's amazing to watch.

Don't believe me? Every Olympic sport has its own logo, right? Track-and-field has a little stick figure running, cycling has a little stick figure on a bike, etc. Stop what you're doing right now and go look at the Olympic logo for team handball. The little handball stick figure is on a suicidal dive, arm cocked back, ball in hand, milliseconds away from decapitating some hapless goalie. EVEN THE STICK FIGURE LOOKS INSANE AND THREATENING. If it had a mouth, it would have fangs and be yelling, "MURRRRRDERRRRR!"

I'm not a bigtime sports enthusiast. If you want to watch me fall asleep, turn on a baseball game. Soccer can take an hour for anything to happen, and the "anything" is often a tie. Handball games end in scores that are like 52-41. I'm sure there's strategy involved, but from an amateur spectator standpoint, it just looks like crazed bloodlust for an hour straight. It's the sports equivalent of a mosh pit and crazy fun to watch.

The problem is figuring out when and how TO watch it. Team handball isn't exactly a high priority in America, and Team USA seldom qualifies for the Olympics, so it's the kind of thing you can usually only catch at 3 a.m. on CNBC or something.

It's a shame, because this sport needs to be seen. We should be cheering on American handball players like Amar Amitovic, Maximillian Binderis, and Abou Fofana. (Even their NAMES sound intimidating!)

I think the first time I wrote a handball column years ago, I said I wanted to play. I take that back. I prefer to keep my head safely ON my shoulders, thanks. But I WOULD pay good money to see a handball match live. Maybe Team USA needs an official DJ? I'm all in and mostly available between the hours of 3-5 a.m., unless something even weirder's on TV.