Humor and truth combine to come up with "11 Reasons Why You Should Stop Crapping On the WNBA."

1. On some level, your dislike is rooted in latent sexism.

....About 15 minutes in [to my research], it finally dawned on me what was happening here. Wailing on the WNBA is a societally-accepted way to unleash your deep-seeded, subconscious sexism. You're ripping on the quality of the play (Simmons), the lack of athleticism, the absence of dunks... and, even more insidiously, the heavily lesbian WNBA fan base (Mohr), the manliness of some of the players (Spike) and the five-figure salaries.

Underlying each and every point, though, is the inescapable message, however unintended: Here's a job that both men and women are doing, and the women suck at it compared to the men. A major columnist couldn't get away with saying that about, say, men and women CEOs (I did it tongue-in-cheek here). Men and women bankers. Men and women writers. Men and women teachers.

But you can say it here -- "Men are better than women!" So people do. With an unwarranted amount of passion. These aren't WNBA fans, these are people who've never (or maybe once) watched a game. The level of disgust is completely disproportional to the effect the WNBA has on your life. Maybe 90 seconds out of a 90-minute SportsCenter, a barely-visible link on the top ESPN.com, a blurb six pages deep into the sports section of the newspaper, and bumping rodeos or the 2003 World Series of Poker from ESPN2 for a night... that's not close to enough to inspire the verbal bile the WNBA is constantly splattered with.

There's something more here. There's something more.