Alan Grant's Piece on Bobby Jenks

Well, considering what happened to John Rocker, Bobby Jenks could probably kills a black or Asian or Hispanic guy or two, and still will have four teams trying to sign him. That's what talent does for a pro athlete.

 

The fact that he cites Sosnick's mentioning of the same rumors and questioning of Jenks on the topic makes it acceptable. He heard stuff, Sosnick heard stuff, and both of them confronted Jenks about it. Then Grant wrote about how Jenks explained himself. What is the problem there?

To me, the only questionable sentence is this: "Guillen could most certainly self-destruct, Williams could go down with him, and Jenks could drink himself out of the league," but even that's OK because the theme of the piece is the mystery behind Jenks. Speculating on what could happen to Jenks -- and "could win the Nobel Prize" would have fit right into that sentence also -- is kind of the point.

 

First time I read this thread title I thought "piece" was "penis".

 

I hate the insinuations that anyone who drives a pickup truck or listens to southern rock is some sort of backwards hillbilly. The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Drive-By Truckers, etc. have written some of the most vibrant music of the last 40 years. There's this Skynyrd song called "Things Goin' On" that is essentially a callout to white, privileged America to fix the country:

"Well, have you ever lived down in the ghetto?
Have you ever felt the cold wind blow?
Well, if you don't know what I mean
Won't you stand up and scream?
'Cause there's things goin' on that you don't know"

Anyway, Grant doesn't specifically call out this band or anything, but the judgmental-of-southern-culture vibe is definitely present and it's maddeningly inaccurate, and I thought that passage might help illuminate the other side. Alan Grant rails against racism, says he can detect it just by talking with someone, but he spends this entire piece using a tired stereotype of people of Jenks' background. Lame, Alan. Just lame.

 

Damn, 85 beat me to it.

I'd need a thesaurus to come up with the words for how much that sucked.

Basically, it boils down to: Jenks is a hillbilly hick with an IQ lower than Jonathan Papelbon's ERA but I went to see him so I'm cool.

 

That is some wacky reasoning there. I'd like to see you explain all that to an actual copy editor, as opposed to the rubber-stampers at espn.com, and see how far you get.

But I'll give you a break, Barbaro, because of all of the surgeries you've had recently. That much anesthesia, even local, can have an effect on the brain.

 

It sounds like AG is disappointed Jenks isn't a racist. Now, he doesn't have a story, but, lucky for us, he wrote one anyway.

 

Among my many problems with the story is that it's poorly written and confusing.

How many people never got to Jenks' denial about Aryan nation because it was too hard to read? Are they left thinking Jenks is a racist.

Nothing about the way the story was written leaves anything clear at all.

 

Given the "Q&A" format of the story, I'd barely call it written.

 

My point, actually.
85bears gets points for mentioning the DBT, though.

 

The big truck = hilbilly is funny too. I've lived in many states that are not considered "hillbilly" states in the north and just about everyone drives big trucks. It is a fad of the last 10 years everywhere except in the giant cities where you can't drive one because you can't park it.
Anyway, I've been to Spirit Lake many times and while there was a big Aryan Nation thing up there in the past - think Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge - but the Feds and the state of Idaho cleaned that up quite a bit. So, beyond it being a terrible "story" it is also not factually true and makes terrible generalizations.
And to think, most of SportsJournalists.com thinks Simmons is the worst thing about Page 2.