Dear dimwit on the phone

You should have written the story ...

And made sure to point out how her granddaughter is either A.) Not talented enough to be considered a real college prospect or B.) How her lack of skill is holding her teammates back.

 

it's Kentucky. Be amazed the guy knew how to use the phone.

 

And your state is any better?

 

Dear amateur footba...[cough] excuse me. Dear "semi-professional" football team. No body cares about you. You lost 68-0 with 12 players on your roster. Two weeks ago, you had a third down and 52 yards to go. The only people who attend your games are WAGs. You don't know what "WAGs" are? Wives and girlfriends, dummy. We're not writing a story about "how hard you tried." You didn't demonstrate "tremendous heart" in a 68-0 loss. You can't even fill the stands at the middle school field, let alone the high school stadium.

 

Okay, I'll cop to it - I'm kind of interested in them. Anyone who is willing to get their brains in 68-0 on a consistent basis is interesting to me. This isn't even high school, where they presumably still want to use this on a college application. If they're semi-pro, they're either paying or trying to make money on this. Some of the best parts of "Loose Balls" were about the Virginia Squires and the Baltimore Claws.

That being said, yeah, it's probably not a centerpiece thing, but I could definitely see it being a good story during a slower period. (Example: I have a single team alive right now, and their connection to my area is tenuous since it's a private school.)

 

The day you leave your paper, you should call her and tell her that you worked there X number of years after she threatened your job. Then laugh.

 

I've gone through this the last two springs with the semipro team. First thing they always bring up is a centerpiece newsside did on them three years ago. Then they ask if we can cover games. No we can't ... but you can always e-mail or call us with results. Then a day or two after a game, I'll get an e-mail from someone who starts with "I'm no writer, but ...". You guessed it: "The Podunk Dairymen defeated the Brownsville Bulls 30-0 on Saturday, allowing only 25 yards defense..." followed by 10 paragraphs about how they provide "great family entertainment," how some of them are "living out their dream of getting a college scholarship or going on to pro football" and how we "need to get the word out" about this team ... yet not a single mention of who scored the touchdowns, who the leading rusher, passer, etc. were.

 

Ugh, yeah, eff that then.

 

Sports department, this is Inky.

How come there's nothing in the paper today about the NCAA basketball tournament?

Sir, we ran a story about the NCAA Tournament expansion and a story about Charles Barkley doing TV commentary on the tournament.

Where's the bracket?

Umm, Selection Sunday is this coming Sunday. There's no point in putting an empty bracket in the paper.

<click>

 

Dear bowler,

I'm sorry we misspelled your name in the headline of our bowling column. We truly regret the error. However, there is no way we can reprint just one copy of that paper with a corrected headline for your srabbook. To answer your exasperated seriously, seriously we can't just print one copy of the newspaper.
Please call back tomorrow so you and my SE can figure out what to do.

 

Why not just print out the page like you would for proofs and mail it to him? Or, if he wants it in color, why not send it to him in PDF form and tell him to go to Staples and print if for $1.50?

 

That's what I think we will end up doing, I just want that call to come from my boss. He was serious about the reprint of the section though, and I didn't have the heart to explain how much effort that really is.