Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Baseball, Cleveland Indians, Cliff Lee, Cy Young, ESPN, Jay Mariotti, Joe Morgan, Journalists, Major League Baseball, MLB, Sports, Sports Journalists, Sportswriters, Time Lincecum, Woody Paige, Writers
In other news, Clay Aiken is gay.
Joe Morgan is livid.
And four people need to be banned from press boxes:
Demoted to the minors last year, Lee went a major league-best 22-3 this season with a 2.54 ERA. He received 24 of 28 first-place votes and 132 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced Thursday.
Please take the ballots away from writers until they promise, all of them, not to embarrass themselves with this contrarian bullshit every year. Hell, let the drunks in the bleachers vote.
Yesterday, Jay Mariotti wanted to know who left Tim Lincecum off the ballot entirely.
Woody Paige raised his hand, grinning like he was buttering the bread that got him the ESPN gig in the first place. I can’t imagine he has a vote. . . does he?
Whoever it was must have privileges revoked.
Bad refs get demoted all the time. Voters should be treated the same way.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Boston Celtics, Comedy, Humor, NBA, Satire, Sports, Sportswriters, Sportswriting, Thoughts, Writing
Nobody realizes how much the people who write about sports despise the subject they write about. There is nothing they hate more. I know that seems paradoxical, and most of them would never admit it in public. But give them four drinks in a deserted tavern, and you will hear the truth: The people paid to inform you about the world of professional, collegiate, and high school athletics would love to see all sports — except for maybe the NCAA basketball tournament — eradicated from the planet.
What’s depressing is that this was not always the case for people.
So if you want to become jaded and bitter in the shortest period possible, become a sportswriter. You will spend your Friday nights trying to write up some grueling pseudo-informative SLAM Online article until you’ve reached the point where hitting the backspace key wants to make you throw a deadly dart doused in poison at the people or things you are writing about.
That’s not the worst thing about it all, though.
The worst part about being a sportswriter is that no one will ever have a normal conversation with you for the rest of your life. Everyone you meet will either A.) want to talk about sports, or B.) Assume you want to talk about sports. Strangers will feel qualified to walk up to you somewhere and complain about Rasheed Wallace; and if you’re trying to be frank with your ex-girlfriend’s parents, her father will immediately ask you oddly specific questions about the New York Yankees. Just a couple of examples (the last sentence is an experience of mine).
You may have insightful thoughts on the Middle East, religion, or racial disparity, but no one will care; they will be interested in your thoughts on middle relieving or the premise of the designated hitter.
Over time, you will see your life disappear into sweat and depictions of Plaxico Burress contract negotiations and descriptions of the wishbone offense. And you will hate it. And normal sports fans deserve to know this. SO NOW YOU KNOW IT. They deserve to know that people telling them about the Boston Celtics or San Antonio Spurs enjoy pro basketball as much as Christians enjoy watching George Carlin’s Religion is Bullshit.
But I feel like the one guy who accepts one very important truth: The single best part about loving sports is hating sports.
