Dear dimwit on the phone

Then there's the track operator who sends in an advancer on the weekend's race and adds: "I just spent $xxxx to advertise this one in your paper, there'd better be someone out there to cover it." Yeah, sure.

Parental units: You're never gonna make them happy. Like the parent who wanted to call in soccer scores from the tournament, but forgot the name of everyone who scored except their spawn. When pushed a little further, she says "That's all we want in the paper." Have a nice day ...

 

Have had a guy pushing me to get to a "National" racquetball tournament this past weekend, sorry not going to be on my radar with basketball playoffs underway and the state wrestling tournament going on.

Anyway, Monday rolls around so I check out the website and find that within the 18 different brackets there were a total of three local kids who won matches.

The funny part, and we all get this, is that he kept pounding home the point that this was a national championship, yet after looking through the brackets 90 percent of the kids were in the metro area within a 30-minute drive to the athletic club. A few trickled in from a neighboring state (and we're close to the border) and a bus load of kids must have come from St. Louis to play.

So in my brief recap I use this phrase, which will be in play for all future "national" events in which it applies.

Joe Schmo of Podunk High won two matches at the high school national tournament, comprised mostly of in-state players, last weekend in BigCityVille.

 

One of our freelancers apparently offered to advertise his full-time business in our paper in exchange for becoming a columnist. I don't think he'll be freelancing for us anymore.

 

I will say this - the opposite is just as annoying. One of the smaller Patch sites up north had a big sporting event with a couple thousand people attending, from all sorts of areas, and I got a release sent to me about 24 hours beforehand. When something big is actually happening, I sometimes think there is the assumption that we all already know about it.

 

Dear softball dad, I'm sorry we didn't have a story about your daughter's first varsity softball win in the paper this weekend. But with 18 teams alive in postseason basketball - and only six writers - we didn't have anybody available to cover the softball season opener.

 

Only six?

 

See, I cringed at 18 basketball teams still alive. We've got five left, and I feel overburdened. Sounds like they have a pretty extensive umbrella of preps coverage. I'm guessing 6 writers doesn't stretch as far as they'd like.

 

What kind of advertising?
When our last staff photog retired, they never filled the spot. Eventually we worked a deal with a freelancer where we pay him like 125 a week and he shoots 5-7 events a week, retains rights to his photo and we put his website in the photo credit. Essentially, our paper is his ad.
Is the guy looking for a post-column note or like a quarter page ad?

 

Sorry high school basketball coach, but when you forfeit a league semifinal, I want the story. And not just your half-baked, let's all run in a field of buttercups and chalk it up as a learning experience story.

So when I find out that threats made over Facebook led to it, you're damn right I'm running with it. So much for the eight years you've been nice to me, now you're threatening me and telling me how to do my job? Fuck you.

 

Nice job on digging for the truth!

 

I would love to read this story.

 

The freelancer was not invited to become a columnist. In fact, he's probably going to be fired (again) after the season because he's incompetent.

He's trying to bribe the sports editor, saying he'll buy ads if he gets to write about what he wants.