Overheard in the press box

I imagine that you wrote:
"She is unavailable for tonight's game due to body issues."

 

This veers over to the news desk but is similar. We had a funeral home that would tell us everyone who passed through died of "natural causes."

One day, we had a wild shootout. Two cars passed back and forth down the street, with the drivers shooting at each other, until one guy "won." The driver who was shot then crashed into a nearby building and died.

Funeral home obit: Natural causes.

Makes sense. He was shot and crashed into a building, so naturally, he died.

 

I knew one coroner's office guy who would purposefully not cover the phone and ask somebody nearby "Hey, didn't Mr. So-and-So commit suicide?" "Yep. Shot himself." Then, he'd come back on the line and give some vague COD. You could almost hear him giving you the wink over the phone line.

Beautiful move. Hey, he didn't tell me it was a suicide. Plausible deniability.

 

Got one obit when I was working in Arizona that went like this: "Joe Schmoe was born in Germany. He served in the military during World War II. He emigrated to the United States in 1950 and became a citizen in 1960 ..." I took the hard copy, walked over to the woman who typed the obits and said, "Did you see this? This guy was on the other side!"

 

I was at a high school football game tonight. Home team -- a school not known for its football prowess -- is getting blown out in the third, and everyone in the press box wants to go home. The guy running the scoreboard consistently starts the game clock rather quickly.
The home team puts up a couple quick touchdowns, and it's a one-score game. The home team's assistant coaches in the next room yell, "Hey, you're quick on the draw starting the game clock." Everyone in the press box giggles.
"We're serious," they said.
"If you were really serious, you would have started playing defense," the timekeeper growls.

 

That's why the GHSA requires the ECO to be an official. Maybe your state needs to consider that.

 

This afternoon's juco game: The punter keeps falling down hoping to draw a flag. It doesn't get called until the third quarter, when there finally really was contact.

In the fourth quarter, there's another roughing the kicker call. The play clock operator says "Why don't they put that guy on your dance team?" The guy running the scoreboard corrects him, "No, he's acting, not dancing. He needs to audition for the fall play."

Turns out that on the second roughing call, he got knocked out cold when he hit the ground. Another guy has to punt the rest of the game.

As the first punter is being led off the field, the stats keeper for the visiting team says, "I won't be going to any movie you guys recommend because you know nothing about acting!"

 

Stringing last week for h.s. football.
Home school's very good-looking female athletic director walks in, talks to some of her coaches at half time and leaves. Coach at other school says to no one in particular,"I'm at the wrong school."

 

We had that too.
We would write something like "SO-so was credited with six stolen bases."
When the coach called to complain, we told him why we wrote it that way. Never had a problem after that.

 

We stole 85 bases in one season. Was state record for three years (before we broke it, the record stood for 18 years). But we took FULL advantage of the "courtesy runner" rule, and had three people on our team who did nothing but steal bases. Everyone knew they were going to steal, but they couldn't stop them. (1A catchers just aren't very good most of the time).

 

When games get out of control, there needs to be some milking of the clock.
The problem is, sometimes funny shit happens and then you have to have a clock operator who knows to reel it back in.
Most of the time, coaches just want to get the hell out of there when the game gets ugly. I was at a game Friday where the local school went up 35-0 at half, then put in the JV (they don't have a second team because between varsity and JV, there;s 24 kids in the program). The other team kept their starters in and with like 10 minutes left in the fourth, it was a two score game. Then the local school put its starters in and their RB popped a 67-yarder on the first play from scrimmage, so the quick clock continued.

 

So I am in the press box for a Jets game in the Meadowlands.

As I am about to get on the elevator, a security guard asks a very well known media member (not well liked, well known) to open his bag. Well-known media guy says to the guard, “How much do you make? Are you the only one in NY who doesn’t know me? I want your name so I can talk to the ownership of this team about having someone as unprofessional as you. I leave tips for waitresses bigger than your weekly pay check…”

It went on and on. So we get upstairs and sure enough he starts right in on a Jets official as soon as we get off the elevator. As he walks away I tell the Jets official that they guy was just doing his job and wasn’t bad at all. He promptly tells me and some other media members, “When I tell the owner he will probably get a raise.”

Every time I see that guy on TV or read a column I think back at that game. I never asked the security guy if he got a raise, but I should.

That was classic.