Dear dimwit on the phone

I just figure if you're going to sugarcoat things, why not write:

"Podunk High School lost to East Bumfuck, 12-11, and even though they had 12 games, coach Marty Smith said the kids tried really, really, really hard and we agree."

 

This describes many college SID releases that come across my desk.

 

I think there's plenty of gray area between "East Podunk's Jim Smith totally fucked up the game" and "The kids tried real hard but lost 16-1." I get the feeling that we're all kind of agreeing on the same thing here, with some skewing to either straight-up no bias and others willing to give HS and younger kids some slack (but not to excuse everything that happened) because they aren't pros.

 

Unless it's a local kid in the (real) World Series or Photo of the Year quality, I'd have a hard time imagining 5 columns for baseball art. Just saying.

 

Re: Photo of shortstop.

True story. I'm at a Little League game years ago, maybe a decade, watching a friend's son, and some older kid's running the PA/scoreboard for five bucks and a hot dog. The kid thinks it'd be a good idea the flash the error bulb 27 times, and of course some mom picks up on that. Then he starts announcing who committed the error. "Error by Billy Smith..." That lasted a half-inning before a big-gutted dad for the other team spun around on one chubby ankle and yelled "Let's cut out the shit before I <i>knock</i> it out of ya."

 

No, Jackwagon, you can't call at 5 p.m. and get s to come out to a district golf match the next day at 9 a.m.

Besides, it got rained out. Ha ha ha.

 

Which just means you now have more notice. See you at the links tomorrow!

 

Paired in the betting with:

Dear high school tennis coach:
Thanks for the note at 8 this morning to let me know the team is playing for second place that afternoon at 4. We'll drop our plans to cover a rivalry game for first place in baseball (and the reciprocal softball game) for that.

 

Dear irate softball mom:

Yes, the baseball team lost -- got skunked in fact in both games -- and the softball team won. But no matter how hard I try, I can't be in two places at once. The doubleheaders looked to be of equal importance at the beginning of the day, so I went with my "rotation" system and covered baseball. Had the baseball team WON both games, it would be tied for first place. Even though your girls skunked an unbeaten team, they're still only in second. If I could predict the future, then, yeah, maybe I'd have watched softball.

As long as I'm at it, I might as well piss you off some more. I'm going to miss the battle for first place on Friday because of the home track meet, the only time the track team is at home this year.

(Up) Yours,

Apeman

 

That kid is awesome.

 

So go buy him another hot dog...come on, don't cheap out!

 

Apeman: Don't you LOVE how people think we have the Back to the Future powers and can predict who will win what games? Happened to me during basketball area tournament. Local team upset the (easily) No. 2 seed and they were mad that I covered a 2-3 match up between two teams who split during the regular season.