Bob Oates in the LA Times has this comment on the Rams-Chargers game this coming Sunday:
*St. Louis by 7 over San Diego at the Edward Jones Dome: The Chargers will penetrate the Ram defense, and I won’t be surprised if they win, but a Ram defeat would be more surprising.
*
Umm, a Ram defeat more surprising than a Charger victory…ummmm…well…cough cough…
Have you LISTENED to ANY sports-persons in an interview?
“Well, I feel I can perform to the best of my abilities and hope to set an example for my teammates so that they might actualize a win.”
“I wasn’t really on my game today, I lost focus, but I won’t let that happen again, we’re on a good footing for a rebound, and I think we’re gonna be a much more focused team”
Understand, I don’t have the wiring in the lingustics portion of my brain to actually talk this way, so my examples may be a little off.
Only a handful of athletes these days say anything worth listening to. It’s all homogenized and you can expect a by-the-numbers set of comments.
As for sportwriters, well, they say goldfish have a memory of three seconds. That’s two seconds longer than the average sportswriter. They’ll make comments or predictions and then, when wrong, they act like they had done the opposite.
I’m especially conscious of the comments about the NY Mets. Back in the spring, all the sportwriters were saying, “Steve Phillips made a bunch of smart moves that will make the team a major contender.” At best, there were a few “Mo Vaughn is a gamble, but a worthwhile one” comments. And there were admiring comments about how Rey Ordonez had bulked up over the winter and how all the teammates were getting along well.
Well, the team stunk. And now, these same people are saying how “Phillips made a bunch of bonehead moves” and “What was he thinking when he signed Vaughn?” and “Ordonez is too fat” and “there was a lot of dissention on the team” (of course, that often happens when a team loses, no matter what the team). If Phillips was so dumb, why were they applauding his moves six months earlier?
Well, I’m certainly not one to defend sportswriters (I know a bunch of them personally, and by and large, they really are that vapid), but I can kind of see the distinction of the quote posted by Tretiak above. The guy’s point is that it would be surprising to see the Chargers win this Sunday, but it’s even more surprising to see the Rams lose anytime.
I didn’t say it was a good point; just that it wasn’t quite as meaningless as it might appear on the surface.
If anyone is interested, Geoff Calkins of The Commercial Appeal (Memphis) is an intelligent, witty sportswriter. Though his columns will probably be of limited interest to non-Memphians, since they’re mostly about Memphis sports. (And disclaimer: I work at The Commercial Appeal.)
My all-time favorite jab at sportswriters (even though I am one myself) comes from former baseball player Pedro Guerrero:
“Sometimes they write what I say and not what I mean.”