Tom Barrabi

General managers are paid huge salaries to crunch numbers, rate prospects, and work out deals that will put their teams in a better position to win. Unfortunately, even a transaction that looks great on paper can have disastrous (and potentially hilarious) consequences.

Innovative touchdown celebrations are something of a dying art, thanks to the No Fun League’s penalties on excessive showboating. $10,000 fines have a way of making a player think twice before pulling out a prop in the end zone.

Even with the advanced conditioning techniques of the modern athlete, staying healthy for a full season is no easy task. The 162-game grind of the baseball season is bound to produce a few nicks and bruises along the way, causing players to wear down by August or September…most of the time.

For baseball fans, witnessing a home run at a critical moment is only part of the fun. It’s up to each team’s announcers to lend a sense of scope and excitement to the moment.

In Broward County, Florida, telling an athlete that they “throw like a girl” is about to become a compliment.

Even with years of practice and training, it’s hard enough to become a star player in one sport. So when an athlete decides to try his hand at a new game, the results typically aren’t pretty.

It’s no surprise that more and more sports are turning to video review.

The 2012 NFL season will feature the pro debuts of quarterbacks Robert Griffin III and Andrew Luck, a pair of top three draft picks that enter the league with sky-high expectations. Griffin and Luck will be hard-pressed to match the yearlong production of these legendary rookies.

Over the course of their careers, major league pitchers throw tens of thousands of pitches. Most of them will end up in the general vicinity of the catcher’s glove. Others will miss so badly that baseball fans will have no choice but to laugh at the ugly result.

Every major sport has its share of hard luck losers — the players and coaches who routinely outperform their competition, only to fall just short when it matters most.

Between endorsements and increasingly larger contracts, athletes are earning more money than they ever have before.

Some guys just don’t know when to hang up the cleats.