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Annoying thing No. 37

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by greenlantern, Jul 16, 2008.

  1. Tell the coach next time you only run OPS stats. ;D
     
  2. friend of the friendless

    friend of the friendless Active Member

    Mr Express,

    Sage vet, you might be confusing the Annoying Thing list and the Soul-Crushing Thing list, the latter at last count being in the five digits.

    YD&OHS, etc
     
  3. BB Bobcat

    BB Bobcat Active Member

    Isn't the entire point of these Little League summaries to get kids names in the paper? I mean, seriously, is anyone out there typing in these things with the idea that: "Hey, readers are interested in the facts, here. They want to know the score and who drove in the runs, blah, blah."

    People want to read their kid's name in the paper. Period.

    The parents know it. The coaches know it. The paper knows it.

    If the only way to get a particular kid's name in the paper is to say he played good defense, so be it. To me, 99.999 percent of the readers care no more about the kid who hit three homers than the kid who showed "great hustle." It's sort of silly to draw a line between the two because one is objective and one is subjective, when most readers don't care about either.
     
  4. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    Yeah, the Annoying Thing list probably hits 37 in the first couple of hours of your first day, so I stand corrected.
     
  5. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    I get your point, but why not just run team rosters then? It gets everybody's name in the paper.
     
  6. ltrain1127

    ltrain1127 Member

    Batman,
    It's funny you mention that. At a previous stop, a place that has had an opening for its one-man (photo, layout, writing) staff in the past year, I had to cover little league, AYSO and middle school sports.
    The AYSO leage would send in results, hand-written (this was the late 90s), on 50 games. I drew the line at saying a kid played great defense when his team lost 15-1.
    The league prez took me to task for not running the reports as written. When I brought up the great defense in a 15-1 loss example, she had no reply.
    The truce we worked out was that she would EMAIL the rosters before the first game and I would run them, so all 750 kids got their name in the paper. After that, it was just scores, and scorers, also emailed.
    Gawd, I hate AYSO.
     
  7. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    Boy, the people who do the Yellow Pages must be dumb as shit. They get everybody's name in, and just give it away for free.
     
  8. greenlantern

    greenlantern Guest

    Annoying thing No. 37 ... that day.
     
  9. fossywriter8

    fossywriter8 Well-Known Member

    He sure gave an All-Star effort on those two errors. You know, he works as hard as the other All-Stars just to get a chance to make two errors on two consecutive plays in the bottom of the ninth inning with the score tied in the All-Star Game. At least he got his name in the paper. His mom will be proud.
     
  10. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Problem is, the game ended too late to get it in most papers. That's going to cost Uggla a scholarship.
     
  11. RedCanuck

    RedCanuck Active Member

    Played good defence is merely a synonym for tried really hard but didn't have anything statistically worth writing. I've had coaches admit to that time and again.
     
  12. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    I saw a couple of highlight reel-worthy plays when I was umpiring 11- and 12-year-olds. I saw catchers at that level who are better than current collegiate catchers (hell, they may even be better than Major League catchers!). It can happen.
     
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