"A Beginner's Guide to Baseball." Published in August? Thanks, LAT!

For some reason the LAT has moved Chris Erskine over to Sports...and here's his latest effort.

Go figure!

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-erskine20-2009aug20,0,7920527.column

 

Never read him (on the Home page) before they decided to let him have some space on the sports page. I've been very unimpressed.

His first column in Sports was a fan's bill of rights, I believe. How original! I've only seen that idea from about a hundred other columists over the years.

This one was not only pretty bad, but rather pointless. Maybe, maybe, it's halfway interesting in the Calendar section or a lifestyle page, and as TigerVols may be suggesting, it would make more sense in a season preview section or tab. But in Sports, where 95 percent of the section's readers know the game like the back of their hand, it just insults the reader's intelligence.

 

Man. This makes me want to fly to LA and try to convince them to give me his job. My goodness.

Sorry to sound like a schmuck. I was just overwhelmed with the awfulness and had to let it out, I guess.

 

Lesson No. 1 --- the season started 4 1/2 months ago

 

This is called moving someone to another department and finding a place for them, even if it isn't necessarily their best role but moving them around, because of long-time value, seniority and status.

He will bump someone else in sports who is lower on the totem pole/considered less respected if and when there are any more cuts there.

 

He's not full-time in sports.

 

Well baseball is 90% cuisine so he got that right. Article reminds me of the 2 page spread that the Ariz Republic ran when D Backs were in World Series for the bandwagon fans. I did not think it possible that so many people could be that unknowledgeable about the game.

 

That was horrible.

 

You published this in the wrong city. This should be in the Chicago Tribune.

Full disclosure: This poster is a Cardinals fan.

 

This loser has been writing for the sports section for most of this year. His writing comes across like a high schooler who just discovered sports and knows nothing about it.

For fuck's sake, the LA Times sports section is just dying on the vine, and the powers that be decide that the *addition* to the staff is going to be this tripe? Utterly mind-boggling.