It’s back – Halloween, the holiday where it’s actually legal to scare those pesky next-door neighbors off your lawn — the same kids who keep playing whiffle ball with real baseballs and metal bats, forcing you to repeatedly replace those new-and-improved windows you got from Home Depot, which supposedly claimed they’d keep your home precisely 75 percent warmer, but those same people forgot to tell you it’s hard to keep your house warm when there’s a huge hole harboring all the warm air fugitive in the wrong place; outside, which by all means isn’t your home.
So you spend your Thursday nights avoiding “diamond league” balls from landing in your minestrone soup, but not this Thursday; no, you’re gonna show them why you don’t use metal bats and real baseballs the good old-fashioned hard way, just like Pops showed you. Yeah, you’ll be in jail, just in time to hang out with Aaron Hernandez and Alfonzo Dennard. As scary as that scenario might be, there are some equally horrifying real life events that make even the most hardened criminal shriek with terror. Without any further delay, pending any baseballs hitting you in the face, let’s start with some spooky, hard to believe stories about when, in sports, truth can be scarier than fiction. 
Twas’ one foggy night in March, the stage was bright, the lighting proportionally off in comparison to the rest of the stadium. Who plays basketball in a football stadium? The geniuses over at the NCAA office once again were scheming a way to generate more money. How could they do it this year? The only way they knew how led to the converting of various football stadiums into basketball stadiums to increase seating. Somewhere in that fog, player safety was thrown out the window; Kevin Ware jumped, a tiger howled (why was a tiger howling no one will ever know), Ware landed, this time on three instead of two legs followed by a delayed loud crunch — and no this wasn’t the man in row four eating his nachos — this was the scary side of not portioning the stadium correctly. So remember kids, avoid diabetes; eat candy all month long, rather than enjoying it for one night. Kevin Ware gruesomely broke his leg and lost his season all because the NCAA forgot about portion control — a scary sight indeed.
When Mike Tyson was a kid his parents said, “no Mikey, chocolate is bad, and Skittles will rot your teeth.” So he woke up one morning to the smell of his feet, remembering he could now eat without his parents defeat, he looked for something to please his stomach’s constant growls and tease. He was hungry, but nothing did the trick, he was in desperate search of a treat.
He entered the ring and noticed Evander Holyfield’s ear. He wondered if it could be true, so he circled nearer and nearer. After a few nibbles it was certain; another man’s ear being made out of chocolate was unequable. And kids, this is why we always discount “double-check the crap out of our chocolates” on Halloween.
Have you ever heard of a man named Rashad Johnson? He plays for a team relatively close to Wisconsin with a man named Eric Barry who, when it comes to horses, is a fairy. Equinophobia is the proper term, leave your finger in their way, and you’ll be doing the scream and squirm, but not Rashad Johnson, because he has no finger. This has nothing to do with Halloween, and barely rhymes, but remember kids, feeding the pets at the zoo is no crime, but having one less finger makes it impossible to cut lemons and limes, or better yet butterscotches and chocolate dimes. Now remember, football can be very scary, and horses are detrimental to the mental health of men like Eric Barry, but this Halloween is all about reaching your candy actuary.
Thanks for reading the scary sides of sports, go on and scream and squirt, as your teeth will surely rot, but don’t leave without this thought: a trick is as equal to a treat, but how much do you value your two front teeth? Eat meat if your not a vegetarian, go swimming if you’re a pescetarian, and make sure you bring some candy for Jon, myself and all the University of Massachusetts Boston librarians.