Dear dimwit on the phone

Fucking Broncos.

 

Yeah, but ... that's a perfectly fine expectation for the local readers, and that includes me as a reader, too. Isn't it? The local teams have natural prominence where the paper circulates, so it's both logical and practical to stack them higher in statistics. Not favoritism, though, but mindful convenience, too.

 

I used to send out the emails of league standings to the coaches. More than once, I'd get an email saying, basically, "We beat the guys we're tied with. Shouldn't we be listed above them?"

Sorry, but your league doesn't use tie-breakers, so tied teams are listed by overall record, then in alphabetical order. Take it up with your league commissioner.

I had only one league in my area that did use tie-breakers — a thing that's rare among Kansas high schools. Tied teams remain tied no matter the outcome of the game(s) between them.

 

Is it really a tie-breaker if it has the exact opposite effect?

 

Alphabetical. Be consistent and it saves a lot of headaches. Do you really want to tell a reader Prep is a quarter-mile closer than High, so we list it first?

 

When someone calls after Week 1 and bitches because the home team isn’t listed first, tell them it’s right because they lost the ninth tiebreaker against the other tied teams. Let them go find out there are only six ways to break a tie (or whatever the number is).

 

Back in the day, we sometimes struggled with the team managers who called in high school football scores. They were mostly teenage girl volunteers who didn't know the game and had to be walked through the whole thing.

An editor at a local weekly became so vexed, he wrote a column about it, and straight out stated the girls only did it to meet boys.

He quit the next day.

 

If he hadn't quit he should've been fired.

 

Dear dimwit posting high school girls volleyball roster on MaxPreps: Eight players listed at 3-foot-0? I'm looking forward to seeing this!

 

Won't have to worry about any net violations from them.

 

Kind of like that summer basketball league they had with no players taller than 6-5.

 

My all time favorite call came when I was in Jacksonville
“Hey buddy. Did Bill Elliott win the pole in Martinsville?”
“No, sir. That was in today’s paper.”
“I don’t get the paper. Don’t be an asshole.”