Dear dimwit on the phone

Dear basketball players' mom,

You think we "said the rest of the team is worthless" because our writer did a story about two brothers playing on the team? Seriously!?!

No, we will not issue a correction. No, we won't apologize for it. No, I don't care if you cancel your subscription.

Kiss my ass,
Inky

 

We used to have some teen calling us all the time asking random sports questions for no discernible reason. Everything from high school scores, college scores and pro scores to the starting rosters for both teams at the Super Bowl, and everything in between. He didn't subscribe to the paper and didn't have an internet connection, yet believed it was our job to answer every one of his questions over the phone. Eventually I flat out asked him what he needed all this information for, and he couldn't really give an answer.

 

Aside from them needing that information because they sell that team's merchandise, which doesn't make any sense at all, that's funny.

I remember taking calls late summer every single year from some old gravel-voiced hag, asking for the rundown on the dates of the first day of the college football season, first day of the NFL, the opening dates of the baseball playoffs and World Series, when the major bowl games were, the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl, the NCAA Tournament dates, etc. Basically all the big sports dates for the next 6 months.

Turns out she ran some skeevy strip club in town and needed to know when to plan all the big sports-related specials at her place.

 

Because there are so many teams and games, there is an almost endless reservoir of programming. It's sort of like cheap porn.

 

We've had an occasional caller who asks for the results of obscure high school football games from decades ago "for his files." He's called for years, always the same sort of request -- usually teams in our coverage area, but never anything recent -- and always the same reason.

I do not want to see those files.

 

Well it's a good thing his competition doesn't know how to use the internet either, otherwise his business might be in trouble.

 

FXX is just an extension of FX. Fox Soccer still exists on my Dish lineup.

 

FXX is an extension of FX like TNT is an extension of TBS. They are separate channels. The satellite bandwidth that was Fox Soccer became FXX. Whatever you get on Dish is not the same thing as what was Fox Soccer before FXX was introduced.

 

I had forgotten about the fanatics of teams who are playing the teams you cover and what they think they're accomplishing when they contact the opposition's newspaper. Been getting a few e-mails lately basically saying, paraphrased, "Your team is bush league because they're bush league" (Not very many angry, crazy people who contact us seem able to come up with a predicate to follow their subject. A lot of talk radio callers are like that too).

Then on the other end of the spectrum, we got a call from a big fan one of of our teams who is worried that because they haven't been doing a certain thing all season long, they're going to lose, and someone needs to tell them to start doing that thing so that they can win. Surprisingly he didn't tell us we needed to write an article about it, but he was very concerned about getting his message across so I gave him the phone number to a sports talk radio station.

 

No, the sports section hasn't been put online, we had some computer problems last night. We'll put it up as soon as possible, you see, I just walked into the building. I said it would be up as soon as possible ... but if you really care, walk to the corner and buy a copy! May I further suggest home delivery!

 

How big was the welt on your head and the dent in your desk after that one?

 

Actually, didn't think about it the comeback line until I after I politely hung up. Will probably be the first one to complain if the pay wall goes up.