The fallout from sportswriting's filthiest @#$%-up

Couple of weeks ago I got a call at 10:30 on a Friday night from one of our local football coaches. He had been alerted that, while taking the team photo that morning, one of his sophomores -- who was seated front row center -- was subtly throwing up a double middle finger. Kid had his hands on his hips, but instead of having them flat like everybody else he had them turned out. Very sly, but clear as day once you knew to look for it. One of the parents who was also taking pictures noticed it and told the coach.
We went back and looked and the same kid had done the same thing in the team picture last year. We didn't catch that one.
Luckily, I had taken five or six frames of this year's picture and had one from right before the kid got the full bird flying. We were able to run that one.
The kid did not have a pleasant practice that Monday. Coach said he made him run a hill a couple dozen times while holding his helmet over his head, and then had him bear crawl for 400 yards. Also suspended him for a jamboree. We'll see next year if the message got through.

 

I volunteer to cover this rematch.

 

I know a guy who claimed he put himself in the transactions agate on his last day at one shop before leaving for another shop.

He wrote something along the lines of "Podunk Herald sends Joe Sportswriter to Big City News for future considerations."

 

When one of my sports guys and his wife (who was also a staff writer) had their first kid, I slipped his name into the transactions agate. It was a while ago but I think I had him as leaving the program at Western Ohio Methodist-Baptist or something like that.

 

See. Something interesting did happen in Winona.

 

For 10 years, each time I try to type Saturday, it ends up Saturdasy. The left ring finger just spasms to that S apparently.

 

Now that's hilarious

 

I remember Sam "Mayday" Malone was in the agate the day Cheers ended, I think.

 

With an ERA of infinity. Or was that a different episode?

 

Another memory, this one of a high school football Friday night long ago. The assistant sports editor who normally ran the desk at night used Fridays as a planning day, so the editor in charge was a notorious newsroom doofus who conned the executive sports editor into promoting him into a managerial role. The big game going on C1 involved a team whose star running back was Reggie Cook. One of our lead prep writers covered the game -- his copy was awful, but he was fast and we usually had enough time to make his stories passable if not perfect.

But this time, something happened -- either the game went into OT or he had computer problems -- so we got the story 10 minutes before deadline. Copy editor grabs the story, and making it readable is impossible. Editor in charge says, "Write a headline and ship the story. We have to make deadline." Unfortunately, the running back was identified early in the story as "Reggie Cock," and it got in the paper that way.

The assistant sports editor for the desk was in the next day and wasn't pleased. So was the copy editor who rushed the story through -- he was remorseful and almost in tears. Assistant sports editor asked him what happened and told him it wasn't his fault and not to worry about.

A few days later, I happened to witness the first encounter between the Friday night editor in charge and the assistant sports editor. The Friday night editor tried to blame the copy editor. The assistant sports editor said, "Wrong -- YOU made the call. It was YOUR fault." That exchange probably should have taken place behind closed doors, but it still was entertaining. And even though the guy they left in charge Friday night made the wrong call, our shop was a "make deadline first, ask questions later" type of place, and I very well might have done the same.

 

Many years ago, our SE at the time and one of our full-time writers played racquetball doubles against a part-timer and a friend of his. The bet was losers bought the beers that night at the bar.

So, as we're working on deadline on a football Friday, the part-timer slips over to the computer where our full-timer was working (he had gone to the restroom) and types at the bottom of his box score, "Who won the beer, you little wienerhead?" Full-timer comes back, sees the sentence, laughs, and just keeps working. Doesn't delete the sentence. None of the rest of us knew what happened.

Of course, it gets in the paper, because it's in agate type and it slipped by us on deadline.

Quite a few people noticed. Some of them laughed, but we got letters to the editor wondering if we were betting on sporting events. Our publisher at the time, usually a pretty level-headed guy, chewed us out pretty good.