Addendum

That isn't an endorsement of anything else that goes on in Star Wars books. This is, though: People would definitely watch and bet on blob-racing if it existed.

Addendum

A few of those entries will need to be altered in certain settings. For instance, in a far-future interplanetary milieu, the judge may have invented the space piano.

Types of Circuit Judges

Seize upon your favorite randomization method and challenge fate!

1. Stern
2. Amused
3. Lax
4. Mage
5. Priest
6. Dragon
7. Secretly looking for something
8. Philanderer
9. The king in disguise
10. One of five mighty guardians animated by the country's founder
11. Impostor (conman)
12. Vampire
13. Forbidden to enter capital on the grounds of worrying popularity
14. Sports lover
15. Impostor (comrade on expedition fulfilling his dying friend's request to take his place rather than let that scoundrel have it)
16. impostor (supernatural being)
17. Tourist who resents all these cases that keep spoiling his travels
18. Rumored strongest swordsman
19. Collector
20. Inventor of the piano

Come to think of it, first generate a number to decide how many of these to use. They aren't mutually exclusive. Before that, in order to determine whether to include a circuit judge at all, consult the random official table, which does not exist. Here at least.

Addendum

Readers with no fear choose fanfiction, naturally.

This Is to This as Those Is to Thems

If magical realism is fantasy for cowards, and it is, what's science fiction for cowards? Articles about comets? True crime? Moneyball? Probably all of those. One of the reasons science fiction struggles is the abundance of substitutes.

A Ceremony Often Practiced but Never Rehearsed

When people groaned the deepest at their subjection to Tyrant Winter, then arrived resplendent Youthful Spring who with one blow from his gleaming brand laid low the dreadful season.
"Rejoice, for again the time—"
"Watch out," the trembling people warned, and with reason. Tyrant Winter rose and shook himself as if checking for thorns stuck in his clothing.
"This sometimes happens," Youthful Spring assured them. He turned and with one smack from the ivy-wrapped hilt dropped the stubborn foe. "Now rejoice, for again—"
Again indeed, as screams from the people alerted him, but a roundhouse solved the problem, once. Then a knee to the stomach, and a throw, and soon Spring and Winter were locked in a grapple, the former demanding that the latter give up already, had he looked at a calendar? The people marveled to see the contest. From that they invented the sport of wrestling and the art of professional wrestling.
Finis

Technology Defeats Itself

In the future, we'll be able to play different sports on the floor, ceiling, and walls of a gym simultaneously, but we won't have to because of the practically infinite room available in space. This is only one example explaining why we don't do everything we could, but it suffices to teach the inherent tragedy of the human condition.

The Hardships of Life in Space

During the clothes-drying hour, the station will have to spin really fast, which will disrupt ongoing backgammon games, not to mention the near-constant touch football required to stave off muscle deterioration.

The Zoo of Mankind's Yearning

We limped away from the encounter fortunate only by comparison.. The Yuengians, who style themselves independently minded but are in fact pirates, suffered what they intended for us and what still might transpire, unable to resume our course as we were.
Our researches yielded a planet nearby which was registered as habitable. We could do no better. The prospect improved upon approach when we detected signs of not just potential but the thing itself: A vast compound existed near an artifically regular lake easily capable of accommodating our entire convoy.
The job of trying to raise the inhabitants devolved to me based on the reasoning that many who closed their doors to regular strangers opened them for correspondents, particularly ones as famous as the captains pretended me to be. My rejoinder that the opposite often pertained did not win me free from the responsibility. I proved, not the respect accorded my profession, but to have some small knowledge of interstellar celebrity when I recognized Herzerd Klobsarn, the genuinely famous gene theorist. Nor was he displeased at the recognition; in that at least I may have aided my fellow survivors a little.
Klobsarn provided hospitality far beyond the most optimistic projection. The many empty furnished rooms, he said, had been used by laborers who had long since departed. He had seen no reason to bother with tearing down the surplus quarters, negligence which seemed to us a miracle. He maintained stores such as sufficed to feed us and effect repairs out of what he described as two excesses, one of caution and the other of curiosity, for his projects demanded resources.
He was happy to show us one. The complex housed an unthinkable menagerie of creatures created by mingled design and serendipity. If I tell you to imagine horns that are not horns and wings that operate according to unconventional mechanisms, you will not understand me, and in that I have succeeded. For I did not understand what I saw there.
"But why?" I asked. More detail seemed a superfluity.
"Across greater humanity, some seventy-six million sports teams are called the Wildcats. Another twelve million are Bears or Bruins, and barely fewer are the Cardinals. Each planet, each continent, each region must have its own species. I leave it to the denizens to name them, but I take it upon myself to make them."
I was impressed more than ever by the benevolent character of Herzerd Klobsarn.
Finis

Competition's Deepest Folds

The king proclaimed a commission with its purpose to determine how beneficial was every sport to the development of its participants with regard to the perfection of civil and martial life. Strength, obedience, adaptability, wit, numerical facility, all those were to be judged. Three superior sports would be encouraged by royal grants; banning was the fate of all the rest.
Five months later, the commissioners left their opulent homes, bought after their appointments, and met in the palace along with representatives for the various sports. They presented their conclusions, and somehow three of the sportsmen knew to smile from the outset.
The king nodded. "I congratulate the victors. Clearly you have bribed, colluded, and coerced. That is good, for my subjects must understand the world's ways. Your methods require improvement however. These others came to me directly. I have confidence you will excel in their sports, the only three henceforth permitted."
The disappointed representatives accepted the loss in a sportsmanlike fashion. As for the commissioners, they offered tournament prizes out of their wealth, not as a punishment but from their own inclination.
Finis

Continuity

Ten thousand years from now, when planets are dedicated to storing copies of a single person, people will still be advocating for either raising or lowering the pitcher's mound. Do they have opinions on the upcoming draft? They do. Assuredly they do.

Addendum

"It must have been a stylistic choice to make the sports scenes in these movies this slow-paced" - sports fans of the future
"In Rookie of the Year we see the beginning of athletics as we understand them." - movie critic of the future
"Why are Jedi Knights so bad at jumping?" - people of the future

Future Athletic Performance

In the future, physical excellence will have reached such a peak owing to improved conditioning and genetic engineering that people won't even imagine today's sports anime aren't documentaries.

Addendum

Though if underground horrors keep popping out, the digging of holes might be highly regulated. Maybe people in that situation invent air golf.

Sporting Contorting

The problem with coming up with a fun fantasy equivalent of golf is that everybody would probably just invent golf. You hit a ball into a hole. Everybody has those.

The Challenges of Spaceflight

The matchmaking pool for games and sports will be alarmingly small. We'd better improve our bot technology for several definitions of "bot."

How to Integrate Mechs Into Your Setting

Do it on page one.

Contact Scratch

The door of the pool hall on New Platte opened. In stepped an alien. None of the regulars or those passing by had seen its sort before, and their system of etiquette didn't preclude staring.
"Hello, human players," the traveler spoke, its voice filtered by its mask. Undoubtedly it would have sounded less ominous otherwise. "I am currently touring the galaxy. This is the first human planet I have visited and I am interested in your games. Who wishes to make a small wager with me? Something minor simply to give the 'authentic experience' as they say."
"What's your name, stranger?" the barman asked.
"Is that your custom? Very well. I am Xychglubnhi, which in your speech signifies 'Useless Stupid Dumb Lazy from Xytl.'"
"Looks like we have a hustler here, boys," one of the humans said, and Xychglubnhi marveled. How did they know? Were humans truly the greatest players of the galactic sport as the rumors said?
Finis

Addendum

Or squash. Those people have money also. Don't bother with skating, though. In the first place, Bionic Lester covered that ages ago.

So why was he called Bionic Lester? Does anyone know? I just don't get it.

Addendum

Would it be gauche for the card game to have dragons in it? Humans don't see it that way, but you know how dragons can be.