Stating scores backward is incredibly annoying

Stating scores backward has to stop. Not tomorrow. Not next fall. Now.

Admittedly, I have been dealing with some heavy topics in recent weeks in this space.

So something to lighten the mood is probably punctual.

With that in mind, we have a scourge in our midst.

It is a habit right up there in annoyance with nail-biting, driving 55 in the fast lane and breaking down a cheeseburger order in a drive-thru with a line of cars behind you down to the crispness of the lettuce.

Its origin makes absolutely no sense on any level.

Yet wonderful people, every single day, are guilty of it.

And I don’t get it ... like, at all. Stating scores backward. It has to stop. Not 30 seconds from now. Not tomorrow. Not next fall. Now.

Back in my high school days 20 years ago, I was a newscast anchor and football and basketball play-by-play announcer on WHHS Channel 30, Harvey’s educational access station serving the City of Painesville.

It would show up on scripts, along the lines of, “The Red Raiders boys basketball team battled hard, but were defeated Friday night by Conneaut, 74-79.”

No, they weren’t. They really weren’t.

It looked so odd, and that feeling of bewilderment has carried with me since.

I see it constantly in tweets from area schools – again, by wonderful people: “Our football team gave a great effort, but lost, 21-28.”

No, they didn’t. They really didn’t.

Statisticians submit box scores that way.

“What was the final score?” “We lost, 0-4.” No, you didn’t. You really didn’t.

In virtually every sport, the objective is to have a larger number than your opponent.

The team who has the most points wins.

The team who has the fewer points loses.

To the victor goes the spoils.

How is the most blatantly obvious spoil not having the number that was accumulated to be a victor going first?

I defy you to try it right now.

Write it down. Say it out loud. On paper: “We lost, 0-3.” Verbally: “We lost, 0-3.” Doesn’t it just not feel right?

Even in sports in which a lower number wins, such as golf or cross country or timed sports such as swimming and track and field, there are easy ways to avoid it and make it sound better.

Instead of, “We won our cross country invitational over the runner-up team, 25-46,” you would say, “We won our cross country invitational, totaling 25 points. It was well ahead of the runner-up team, which had 46.”

The latter is more explanatory and doesn’t sound like my 5-year-old daughter being taught basic math principles.

Now granted, the bigger annoyance in cross country is any invitational that has the gall to state “early bird” as one word, which should be a felony against the English language. But that’s for another day.

Saying it backward almost makes a lopsided score seem worse.

Let’s say a volleyball team has a rough day at the office and loses a match in three games, 2510, 25-10, 25-8. If you say your team lost, 10-25, 1025, 8-25, it seemingly puts more emphasis on the smaller number. Wouldn’t you rather it was not quite that emphasized?

There are exceptions. With a scoreboard, for example, each game is listed with the visitor first and host underneath. That’s OK. It’s a standard format, allowing people to know, if they didn’t already, who was visiting and who was at home. Scoring by quarters, halves, etc., always lists the visitor first for the same reason.

And, of course, you want to relay updates from your school’s or general area’s perspective. There is a line, however. Cinder tracks, leather helmets, hockey rinks with fencing instead of glass panes on the boards – at least those things once had a place in sports before evolution.

But nobody ever said at the infancy of a sport, “You know, we should state a score backward, and here’s why we do it.” It was never a thing. There are other things that really make no sense – I remember two years ago, when the Perry football team played in a Division IV state semifinal against Steubenville, a pregame graphic on the scoreboard read, “Division IV state semifinal championship.”

I joked with my colleague John Kampf, “Does the winner get half a trophy, then the other half if they win the final?”

There are wonderful people, every single day, who are guilty of this backward-score practice.

I urge you to consider shelving that in the same obsolete place as VCRs and pagers.

And if it comes down to it, so help me, I will carry a jar around in my computer bag. Similar to putting change in like a swear jar, if I hear or see anyone I know in high school sports doing this, I will demand change for the jar. The proceeds will benefit mathematical education programs.

I’m kidding. Well, maybe ...

But regardless, we can do better.

You never want to see someone bite their nails. You never want to be the person behind someone driving slow in an express lane. You never want to be four cars back while a family of eight places their order in a drive-thru.

For the sake of the rest of us who so inherently believe one number is larger than another for a reason, please stop stating scores backward.

There is a better way. It’s time to use it.

NEWS-HERALD FILE The scoreboard is shown during a 1983 football game between Richmond Heights and Kirtland.