Can you write a sports story like this, that explains the ins and outs of a sports game, or do you have to be knowledgeable about the game to write about it?
https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/playoffs/2003-10-17-dreamseries_x.htm
You have to be quite knowledgeable, although I’m sure a journalist with a deadline to meet and an afternoon of furious Googling could probably produce something pass-able about a sport he knew little of.
I used to do this for fun in a sports message board; write fictional write-ups of games that had yet to take place.
Sports is with the balls and stuff? No, I couldn’t. Someone else may be able to, however, I think it would lack sincerity/heart.
Sure, I could go to a baseball/basketball/hockey game, jot down what happens and spit it back out in article form, but I think it would sound robotic. Without knowledge of the game, I couldn’t make references to how this game felt like that other game 20 years ago or this athlete reminds me of another athlete in his/her prime.
I wouldn’t be able to say talk about how the game was so close and if some specific person had done something a little different the entire second half would have played out differently.
So, that’s my take on it. I’m sure someone, even me, could get something down on paper, it wouldn’t be good.
Something else to keep in mind, I have zero working knowledge of everything surrounding the game. So even if I could come up with a quick article, I wouldn’t be able to discuss the last time these two teams played or how this game means one of the teams takes on their rival next week etc.
There’s far too many nuances that someone like me wouldn’t just miss, but wouldn’t even know they were missing.
^^^ Like Joey P said, you can write a story with the facts, but it would be dry - it takes context to sell the story or make it feel more meaningful (especially to a local audience).
Hypothetical fake story:
*Wide Left: Fifth Time’s the Charm
Bills win Super Bowl at long last, 17-16
(fictional write up by Velocity)
February 7, 2021
Body-slam the picnic tables. Set the pants afire. Spray the ketchup and mustard, Bills Mafia. Your Buffalo Bills are Super Bowl champions.
In the most topsy-turvy of sports years, the Bills capped off the most unpredictable of seasons with the most unpredictable of championships. In a year with a pandemic, recession and an NFL season that was nearly canceled, the perennial bridesmaid team from western New York won a title that no one saw coming as recently as five months ago. And to make it all the sweeter, it came courtesy of a kick gone wide left in the very same stadium where Scott Norwood went agonizingly wide right thirty years earlier.
The Cowboys were left to rue what could have been after Dak Prescott drove Dallas to the Bills’ 19-yard line in the game’s waning seconds only to see normally reliable kicker Kai Forbath shank his game-winning attempt two yards left of the uprights. It was a befittingly bungled end to a game in which Dallas’ offense, which had ranked No. 1 in the league all season long, failed to convert numerous scoring opportunities and was stymied by a Buffalo defense.
Buffalo, the city so famously starved of championships that it hung a “Got It” banner in its city hall to celebrate achievement of high-ranking urban recognized status in 2010 right next to banners bemoaning its lack of Lombardi and Stanley hardware, is now king of the league after a drought spanning six decades. The team that dubiously lost four consecutive Super Bowls in a row now mourns no longer. And they got it via payback on the very Dallas team that dogged them in '92 and '93.
The famously wild and violent Bills Mafia wasted no time celebrating, as honking was heard through downtown Buffalo after game’s end. As of early Monday morning, Buffalo police reported no fewer than six hundred arrests for revelry-related offenses ranging from public intoxication and reckless driving to arson and destruction of property.
The only thing that dampened the Bills’ celebration was the fact that they played in front of a Super Bowl crowd of fewer than 7,000, due to coronavirus social-distancing regulations. Whatever was lacking in in-crowd attendance was more than compensated for, however, by the largest Super Bowl television audience in history; 150 million viewers, as a sports-starved America tuned in to watch for catharsis from a pandemic.*
If you aren’t familiar with the way sports stories are written, it will be VERY obvious to the reader.
Here’s a line from the summary for the imaginary Game Six:
“With Boston trailing 4-1 and Johnny Damon on first, Todd Walker ripped a one-out double into the right field corner. When Sammy Sosa booted the ball, Damon was able to come around to score, but Walker was thrown out at third on the play by Cubs catcher Damian Miller.”
This was clearly written by a person familiar with baseball writing. “Ripped a one-out double into the right field corner” is baseball phrasing all the way; a person totally unfamiliar with this sort of thing would not relate that event quite the way. “Come around to score” is also a distinct baseball turn of phrase.
For sale. Hockey skates. Never worn.