SID: "We're not claiming to be journalists."

The baseball SID at most schools is usually No. 3 or No. 4 on the food chain in most departments.

I understand what he's saying, but he's still a fucking idiot for burying the perfect game.

 

If I'm a GW fan, I don't give a hot damn if my team's great bullpen effort isn't mentioned first when they lost, and the other team had a perfect game. Yeah, I'm only interested in GW. That means I'm also interested in games GW plays in, which - and you can check my facts on this - typically involve a second party.

 

I wonder if the coach is a thin-skinned asshole.

The baseball coach I used to cover would've been mad at the SID for insulting the intelligence of every baseball fan that might read that dumb release. His team was no-hit in a game I covered and he joked "You're not going to rake us over the coals are you?" Before I could brush it off, he said, "no, no, I'm kidding. Write what you gotta write. If we didn't want bad press, we should've gotten a fucking hit."

 

I know a local baseball SID who errs on the side of a hit when it involves his players in 50/50 (or, honestly, 60/40) plays that could go either way, only because he knows he'll take shit from the coach for marking it an error. And vice versa when his team is in the field. So that wouldn't surprise me in the least.

 

There are better ways to glorify your athletes even when they have a perfect game thrown against them, but is there some SID code of ethics that I missed? Does this surprise any one of you?

 

Seriously, there has to be some middle ground between "glorifying the opponent" and virtually ignoring the accomplishment. It wasn't simply a guy getting five hits or throwing a shuout or any more routine great performance. I understand ignoring that stuff.

But this was a perfect freakin game.

I guarantee you when any one of those GW fans went home and told whoever about the game, "Dude pitched a perfect game" was pretty high in the description.

 

It shouldn't be used at all.

Do you publish stories on the Town Council meeting based on a submission by the staff of the Town Council?

So, why would you treat sports any differently? It's still supposed to be journalism.

 

Bah. On the scale of douchey things an SID flak can do, this one barely causes a burp. I seriously don't see what the big deal is.

 

I've definitely worked for papers that would have done that.

 

Here's something scary. Deadspin's morning challenge was expected and Narrative Science had the robot write the story: and it wasn't terrible.

http://deadspin.com/#!5787397/we-heard-from-the-robot-and-it-wrote-a-better-story-about-that-perfect-game

 

My problem with SIDs – all of them – comes from failing to note NCAA penalties in coach bios, reasons for forfeits (likely NCAA probation) in season records, and generally telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.