Dear dimwit on the phone

We can only dream.

 

If only they would stay on vacation.

 

So today I get a press release from a midget hockey program about announcing they still have spots available for the upcoming season. That's great in all but don't care since we don't post anything like that. The release continues saying the team is the new affiliate with a Junior A league in Ontario (what I like to call an Outlaw league because it isn't affiliated with Hockey Canada). The release says a certain player who played in this league a year or two ago just got drafted by the Boston Bruins. I double checked not true he wasn't even drafted this weekend by anyone nor invited to the Bruins development camp this week.

I respond saying you better check your facts.

He E-Mails me back saying sorry he wasn't the one that wrote the release. So he re-sends a new release now stating this player is a Bruins and St. Louis Blus Draft prospect. Which is impossible since two NHL teams can't have the rights to one player. Once again respond making sure I have the right player and send him the Bruins release on their development camp roster with the player's name not mentioned.

He hasn't responded to that E-Mail yet.

The St. Louis Blues haven't announced their development camp roster, but I am not expecting to see his name on it anyways.

 

Our college summer baseball league turd-brain called again today. "Turd-brain" is really just a pet name I've given him.

I was as polite as I could be, but at the end of the conversation (which was pretty much 10 minutes of him being all whiny) I had to tell him that the releases he was sending were un-printable -- I actually used the word "garbage" at one point when I was nearing the end of my rope.

The team owner was in here 3 weeks ago, and assured me that they would send us game results in the format we needed for every game. They have done that three times in those three weeks.

Oh, yeah, and this is after he called my editor last Friday to complain that we don't care about them.

My patience wears thin.

 

Perhaps kin to the people who run the one of the race track in town, saying we aren't running their releases (short as they are, we are) and the other track gets more attention.

Well, let's see ... the complainer are more of a starter track with younger drivers. The other one is at the fairgrounds and not only has the larger sprint and stock cars, (like, say, every other fairgrounds track in the country) also hosts a few of the USAC touring circuits. They also have a web site that's easy to negotiate, so the Sunday night guy can get results for Monday's paper.

They also DON'T send us releases three days after the races with leads like "Little Sally Songbird did an awesome job on the national anthem and The Rev. Pontus Pilate from Podunk First Baptist did the the invocation." I'll spare you the rest since you've probably read them from your local tracks.

Oh yeah ... they've also had racing the last couple of weeks, and you've been dark. Do you think that's why they got more attention in last week's racing notebook?

 

I'm pretty sure he's washed his hands of further involvement with that track.

 

Caller: I'm looking for a listing of local games.

Me: It's on Page 4 of today's sports section.

Caller: Oh, I don't get the paper.

 

Did you hang up on them?

 

I'd respond with a "Well, here's how you can get a copy."

 

I'd ask, what's the difference between a whore and a slut.

Then, I'd point him to the web page, where we're just giving it away.

 

Although many papers including ours don't toss everything onto the web or go behind a paywall. I know game listings wouldn't be anywhere on our website.

 

I probably should've used the blue font.