Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and all the folks out there at home. It’s the first Monday of the month, and you know what that means!  It’s time to play “Name … That … Sport!”

Now, for those of you joining us for the first time today, I’ll explain how it works.  I’m going to describe a key characteristic of one or more sports, and then you guess which sport or sports I am describing.  Simple.  If you guess all the sports correctly, you could win a brand new … opportunity to comment and brag about it. 

So, let’s get started.

Our first sport tonight is notorious for having no set ending time.  Matches in this sport can drag on for hours, sometimes to the chagrin of less-enthusiastic spectators.

Baseball?  No, but good guess.  The correct answer is Mock Trial.  Although each team has a set amount of time in which to complete their direct and cross examinations, because objections are made off the clock, some of the more contentious matches have been going on since the Reagan administration.

In our next sport, a single school’s team has two parts: an offensive team and a defensive team.  Though the offensive players and the defensive players from one school are never in the game at the same time, they scrimmage against each other and offer their support from the sidelines.

Football?  Close, but not quite.  The sport we have in mind is much more violent.  The correct answer is, once again, Mock Trial.  Each school has a prosecution and a defense team, only one of which competes at a time.  Unlike football, where offensive and defensive players each take the field during a single game, only one half of a school’s team participates in each mock trial.

Our third sport is rated on individual performance.  Though players compete as part of a team, they participate in their events individually, and the points they score count toward their team’s final tally.

Gymnastics?  Admirable conjecture, but no.  Height doesn’t work against you in this sport.  The correct answer is Mock Trial.

The fourth and final sport tonight is characterized by a significant amount of trash-talking.  Members of the opposing team are assigned derogatory epithets by team captains in an attempt to dehumanize and belittle opponents.

Pro wrestling? I’m afraid that’s way off the mark.  This is a team sport, and epithets, though absurd, are designed to mock — oops, I mean “ridicule” — not to terrify.  I’m sorry, did I hear that correctly?  “Street” ball?  By which I presume you mean a playground form of basketball?  That is also incorrect.  The correct answer is, of course,  Mock Trial.

Well, folks, that’s all the time we ha— ... What was that?  You have an objection?

We have an objection, ladies and gentlemen, from a member of our studio audience.  Could you speak up please?  Again?  You … you … you what?  You don’t think mock trial is a sport?  You think our answers are invalid, that because mock trial involves no physical skill whatsoever, it somehow doesn’t qualify as — well, let me ask you something.

Have you ever tried to approach the diagram in four-inch heels? Have you?

Have you ever tried to impeach a witness, making it all the way up to the stand and back while remaining calm and composed, without seeming like you’re hurrying although you know that every second the clock is ticking, ticking, eating away your precious time?  Have you?

Have you ever sat up straight in your chair, holding a relaxed but interested expression, through a half-hour pre-trial argument, keeping your posture erect as opposing council drones on and on off the clock in response to a question of contextual relevancy from the judge? Have you?

I didn’t think so.

So, now.  If there are no more objections, and I trust that there aren’t, that is just about all the time we have.  Tune in next time, and thanks for watching “Name … That … Sport!”

Rachel Wolf is a senior at Palo Alto High School. Her column, “Wolf Bytes,” is published on this blog the first Monday of every month.