There's something truly sad about seeing grown men trade insults in public, call each other names, gang up and tear down reputations.
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No, no - not politics. I'm talking about the Australian cricket team. If headlines are anything to go by, bitter feuds and long-harboured grievances are way over-represented in the top tiers of the 11-man game.
Those who wear the baggy green have a tendency to hate their own teammates more than sportsmen in any other code do.
The latest outbreak of acrimony came after former skipper Michael Clarke used his 2015 Ashes Diary (available at all good bookstores) to spit venom at ex-players Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds, but only because he reckons they'd bucketed him first. Not to sell books. No way!
“Andrew Symonds went on TV to criticise my leadership," Clarke complained. “This is a guy who turned up drunk to play for his country. It’s pretty rich for him to be throwing rocks.” (More on playing drunk later.)
But Clarke saved his biggest squirt of pen poison for former national coach John Buchanan. “I don’t think John knows a thing about the baggy green, having never worn one,” Clarke said.
“[Buchanan is] still living off the fact that he coached a team that anyone, even my dog Jerry, could have coached to world domination.”
Hurt, Buchanan hit back. Then Shane Watson - whom Clarke had once called "a cancer" on the Aussie team - weighed in to support his ex-coach. Then former Test spinner Stuart McGill fired back attacking Buchanan on Clarke's behalf. Then Glenn McGrath stole Michael Clarke's playlunch and they had a fight behind the bubblers.
It's all very childish and reflects poorly on the men and the game.
But this is not a new problem in Australian cricket. In 2009 batsman Simon Katich gripped Clarke around the windpipe in the dressing rooms after a win over South Africa because Clarke wanted to have the team song sung early so he could go home to be with his girlfriend.
In Katich's defence, he does take karaoke very, very seriously.
If I were to list all the other stand-offs and dust-ups that have boiled over from the Australian dressing rooms into the public space over the years, I'd need my own book deal.
So why do these extremely well-paid, extremely fortunate men find it so hard to get along? After all, they're just playing a game. Sure, there are fallings out in other codes, but nothing like there is in top-level cricket.
I believe it's because cricketers spend waaaaay too much time together. Just imagine standing next to the same bloke in the slips for three days. Let's say you're not exactly mates. You're in the hot sun. Just standing there. You and him. Maybe a couple of other dudes. Fielding.
Bowler runs in, striker tonks it back down the park and you stand up, fold your arms, look to your left and there he is. Still there. Chewing his chewy in that way you hate.
What if your openers don't get out all day? You and eight other guys have to sit together and watch them bat. What if you think half of them are wankers?
It wouldn't be so bad if you were playing, say, NRL. For one thing you're going at a million miles an hour so there's no time to stand around developing a deep loathing for one another.
Secondly, footy is all done and dusted in 80 minutes. "Yeah mate, good win. Seeya at training on Tuesday (ya f---in' dickhead)," ... under your breath.
In cricket there is no escape and make no mistake; spending five days with the same 11 men over and over and over and over again - year after year - is a recipe for disaster.
This overexposure is entirely unnatural. It's why men get married and have children - to get out of having to spend too much time with other men, including their best mates.
Then take account of the seeming endlessness of it all; the tours, the team hotels, the team buses, the team meetings, the team training, the team bonding, the team breakfasts, the team dinners. You'd wind up having team dreams.
To rub salt into the gaping wound, these poor bastards have to spend Christmas together so they can prepare for the Boxing Day Test. Whose sick idea was the Boxing Day Test? Satan's? If anyone desperately needs time alone with their families over Chrissy it's the Australian XI.
I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a first class cricket murder - yet.
The only reason a group of men should spend a whole day together in the sun - let alone half their waking lives - is if they're drinking beer.
This is where I reckon Andrew Symonds was onto something. By turning up to play pissed, as alleged by Clarke, he was most likely self-medicating against the vast stupidity of it all.
Cricket Australia has an opportunity to learn something from Symonds - before it's too late.
How about introducing a proper drinks break into Test cricket? I'm not saying the players should be getting shitfaced out in the middle, but surely a few cold bevies in the session after tea would lower the temperature of any simmering team tensions.
Imagine when the 12th man comes on, instead of Gatorade, he's got a big esky full of frosty ones and a port-a-loo. Play is halted for 25 minutes while the players sit on the grass and unwind.
The crowd could use this time to go to the bar or the dunny or whatever, and the Channel Nine commentators could have another segment in which they talk fondly about themselves.
We all know the therapeutic effect downing two or three crisp ones can have. It could be a vital pressure release that might see team harmony become as synonymous with Australian cricket as sledging already is.
I dunno, I suppose the powers that be would say it'd set a bad example for the kiddies and it will probably never happen. But I do know this - if something isn't done soon the next time a player wraps his hands around a teammate's throat, he might not let go until the bloke stops moving. Put that in your Ashes Diary.