New Year's Day. Thanksgiving. Christmas. You can watch a professional or collegiate sporting event (or two or 20) on all of these important holidays. Same goes for Easter. And Halloween, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day. Heck, even on Arbor Day you can watch some baseball.

But not on July 12. What's so important about July 12? Is it some international or global holiday of which I'm unaware? Nope. It's just the day after the Major League All-Star Game. Apparently, this day is important enough to shut down the world of sports.

What sports programming is on tonight? ESPN2 is running the AAA All-Star game, which could be interesting except for the fact that I'll know exactly none of the players. ESPN has the WNBA All-Star Game, which could be fun except-aww, forget it, it's not fun. ESPN Classic has the All-Time Greatest World Series. Although I'm not sure if it's a recap or if they'll be showing 14 straight hours of old baseball. The Red Sox' flagship station (NESN) is airing Roger Clemens' 2nd 20 strikeout game from 1988. The Yankees' flagship station (YES) has a "classic" game from May. Of 2006. Even the NFL Network is having trouble with quality programming tonight. They've got 2 hours of highlights from the Super Bowl runner-up Seattle Seahawks' 2005 season.

I know we all need to take a break from the TV every once in a while (heresy to some, I know), but shouldn't we be able to decide for ourselves when that should be? The television networks and sports leagues shouldn't be telling us when to take a break.

So I've come up with 10 events that could have made for riveting programming, in
light of the fact that there's nothing on tonight.

Defensive Baseball Derby

Sure the Home Run Derby was fun, but what about the rest of the guys? I mean, defense wins championships, right? So how about a little "Defensive Baseball Derby." We can have the Double Play Derby. And the Diving Catches Derby. And the Caught Stealing Derby and the Picked Off Derby. And my personal favorite, the Robbing Home Runs Derby.

Wimbledon Finals

Forget Sunday morning breakfast at Wimbledon (our time). Play this tennis match at 1am local and put it on in prime time in the U.S. Because it's all about us Americans, you know.

Outside the Lines:

4th Place

, A History of Failure

 

In both World Cup soccer and Olympic team events, if you lose in the "final four" you have to play another game for 3rd place or a bronze medal. The loser ends their journey with back-to-back losses and a true sour taste in their mouths. What could be worse than watching everyone on the medal stand knowing you were one win away from joining them? Or playing so well throughout the World Cup only to go home with nothing? ESPN's Bob Ley investigates the shame of 4th place, and the suffering that goes along with it.

NASCAR vs. IRL Challenge

Here are two of the most popular racing leagues in the world, and yet these two sets of drivers never meet head-to-head. We could change that tonight with the NASCAR vs. IRL Challenge. Here's how it would work: The All-Stars from each league meet in a custom-designed square track. Flip a coin, and the loser has to go around the track in the opposite direction. Combine the Star Wars pod racing scene with the fastest game of chicken ever, and you've got a can't miss made-for-TV event.

The World Bocce Championship

I had the opportunity to play Bocce for the first time over the July 4th holiday, and I have to tell you I'm intrigued. How has this game escaped me all of my life? Part bowling, part shuffleboard, part lawn darts, this game's got it all. There's skill involved (reading the lawn as if it's the greens of Augusta), as well as athletic ability (those Bocce balls are heavy). Now I know where the Canadians got the idea for curling. I say the best players in the world jump in a big van (the Boccemobile) and show up at some unsuspecting homeowner's backyard. They push the grill and the lawn chairs out of the way and throw down.

The ESPYs

So the ESPYs are going on tonight. Live. But not on TV. No, you'll have to wait until Sunday to watch who wins (even though you can find out online all week). What is with ESPN and MTV, with their tape-delayed awards shows? It makes no sense to me at all. Here's how to do the ESPYs right. Hold them in the same city as the All-Star Game, get all the baseball players to show up, and show them live tonight, when there's nothing else on. Must I think of everything?

200 Home Runs

Highlights of the best 200 home runs from this season. Show each homer twice, starting with the local broadcast of the opposing team, and then with that player's home broadcast. This could easily keep me entertained for three hours.

NCAA Kickoff Classic

Look, the NCAA college football season begins earlier and earlier every year, so why not mid-July? Let's get the season rolling with some huge match-up like a Notre Dame-USC rematch.

The Rocky Marathon

Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV-there's 8 hours of sports right there! There were only 4, right?

Survivor: Major League Baseball Edition

 

In this edition of Survivor, two Major League Baseball teams-Major League in name only-get sent to the minors. According to loyal reader Scott H., this sort of thing happens in European soccer leagues. I think it's time to give it a shot here. The worst four teams in the league go head-to-head with the losers banished to the minors for the rest of the season. I mean who wants to watch these guys anyway? Tonight's doubleheader would be Pittsburgh at Washington and Kansas City at the Cubs. You win, you keep playing with the big boys. You lose, your season's over.

I'll make a few calls and see if we can get some of these ideas working for next year. Until then, there's nothing on tonight that's more appealing than watching the WNBA women dunk. They can dunk, right? Thank God for TiVo.

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