As if I didn’t have enough problems with this season of High Stakes Poker, Norm MacDonald goes and calls poker a sport. Oh no you didn’t! (Picture me now doing three snaps in a Z formation.) I’ve always scoffed at similar broadcasts condoning the same thing, as the morbidly obese degenerates on my television sets were in said to be in direct relation to the guy I see on Sunday running back a football 87 yards in 10 seconds. I laugh just thinking about it, really. So I ask you: Are poker players athletes?

In truth, there would probably be more validity to me calling myself an “athlete” because I played little league in 4th grade than a poker pro saying they’re part of a sport. You don’t see poker players doing wind sprints before they sit down to tournaments. The majority of your average cast of characters at a given table would probably have a heart attack just thinking of running to anything that wasn’t a buffet line opening up for afternoon service. They are some of the most fair-skinned, anemic, and rotund specimens mankind has to offer and embody everything throughout every facet of their lives that an athlete does not.

Let’s try and put things in perspective. For example, these guys are all athletes:

“Dear god…seriously?” would be a perfectly normal reaction to that lineup. Poker can make you sweat, increase your heart rate, and involves a fierce competitive spirit often seen in athletes who are physical specimens excelling at a sport which involves precision and power in motion. Do these similarities warrant announcers calling them athletes? Using your tubby forearms as showcased above (which, might I add, look like clear plastic bags filled with tapioca pudding that were given five fingers) to lift chips up and toss them into the pot doesn’t constitute athleticism, because by that reasoning, literally anyone with a functioning upper torso could consider themselves part of Team Poker. Once that happens, there’s no holding back on the amount of tail that will open up to the athletes on the high school chess team.

And sure, some players sweat, but that’s not a sign that poker is a sport. If it’s not due to the fact they’re coked out of their minds, their overactive glands which leak sweat as they remain stationary stands a testament to just why they aren’t an athlete (as well as symptoms to many underlying health issues sure to catch up to them very shortly in life).

Don’t tell me that since it comes in a wrapping, is a mixture of different things, and tastes good when I chew on it that my hot sausage is a lollipop. Poker takes time, practice, patience, and dedication, all things of which a successful athlete builds upon with a meticulous physical contribution. I mean sure, you can reach and find similarities, but just because my old Razor X scooter has wheels, does that mean it’s a Cadillac? Is fried dough and pizza one in the same since they’re both flattened carbfests? Stars are shining in the sky, so can I refer to them as “suns”?

Greg Raymer an athlete…think about it.