If you have been paying attention – and I am talking to all four of the regular readers of this august blog – you have noticed that there has been a distinct difference in the topic and tone of what I write as compared to what the proposed raison d’etre of this blog is supposed to be.
And sometimes I wonder if I am just being a hater, cause I can do that in a hurry. (What did you say? The sky is blue? I think I see hues of green and yellow there! And what about at night? Is it blue then? What about when you are looking at the sky through smog? It sure isn’t blue then! And what about…..)
So yeah some of the time I can be a pain in the ass just because.
Not this time though.
I think we can all agree that sports today is at times an excuse for a media orgy. Large corporations have figured out that content – at times dripping with tedium and fraud – will keep people coming back again and again. It doesn’t matter if it is crap as long as it keeps changing its’ appearance.
So this week it is some blather about Multi millionaire Dale Earnhart Jr and his feud with his multi millionaire stepmother, and a few weeks ago it was all about whether or not the Peyton Manning love-in would be ordered to a close by the FCC, because porn isn’t legal over the public airwaves yet.
(That is not to say that the current media overload hasn’t had some positive impact. I don’t think we will ever automatically equate heroism with sporting proficiency while sober at any point in my lifetime. And by the way, the oedipal connotations of Earnhart and his step momma might just make these pages in the next few days.)
So I though I would list a few things that I call bullshit on, on a daily basis in the wide world of sports writing, and locate the kryptonite to these mendacities.
Pre season predictions down to the end of season champion.
Is there any refuge as reprehensible as the beginning of the season prediction? No one ever goes back and says ‘yeah I thought that The Redskins were going to the Super Bowl. Turns out every one of my reasons were about as far off as could be. Hey I still get paid right?’
Or
‘I know I told you to draft Texiera in the first round, uh, my bad?’
That the pre season prediction game is such as morass of displaced credibility and has taken on a life of its’ own is one of my secret joys at the start of each season. Witness the mountain of publications and websites touting their champions and who to draft where. Is this not taking away the inherent reason that we watch sports? Because we don’t know what is going to happen? And except for the American League East division, ( uh, Yankees, Red Sox, Jays) are any of these predictions worth the $5.75 we paid for them. Or that one time offer for a yearlong subscription? A remarkable waste of pages and pixels.
The Kryptonite
Look for the articles that talk about the dramas that are going to unfold like ‘How is Bud Selig going to make himself disappear when Barry Bonds breaks the Home Run record?”
Or, “Will T.O. still be able to get the entire ESPN football division to follow him again?”
Guys Playing the right way. Or the ‘Playing with emotion’ spiel.
Commonly known as ‘how to give credit to the less talented (most often white) media suck up cause the true top player treats us like a bunch of vanilla cupcakes with microphones and notepads’. Case in point, Raptor Fan favorite, the Junk Yard Dog Jerome Williams. This guy got paid MILLIONS for what? Doing what any number of JUCO players could have done. That he was such a big part of the proposed Raptor Future was more an indictment of the front office – now blown up – than it was regarding the talent level of the team. Why didn’t anyone have the stones to talk to Oakley? Sure he might have slapped you, but he would have educated you before the assault.
The Kryptonite
Every time you see Brett Favre chuck up another helpless hail mary of a pass, while the announcer goes on about how he is ‘just having fun out there’, turn to the person next to you and say, ‘He sucks now. He has sucked for about four years. He needs to retire’. Trust me, you will feel great afterwards.
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