It's a Very SJ.com Xmas Part VIII: Starring Slappy4428!!!!

That's right, it's an SportsJournalists.com tradition unlike any other! I've been doing this eight years now. If anyone can come up with a good way to list this on my resume, I'd appreciate it. Anyway, for those of you new to the board, every year I tell the story of a jaded SportsJournalists.commer who is visited by the ghost of message boards past and informed what life would have been like if he/she had never become a sportswriter. It's a little shorter than usual (TWSS) but I've been crazy swamped this month so this will have to do damnit. Merry Christmas!


Slappy4428, the only person in the gym, sat back in his seat alongside press row at Bumfuck High School in Alabama and sighed. Covering a quintuple header of girls basketball wasn’t his idea of the perfect Christmas Eve, especially now that the lede for another 72-7 thrashing wasn’t pouring from his fingers, but he supposed it was too late to wish his life had taken a different path.

Here he was, not quite a bitter young hack but not yet the age of a certain northeast-based copy editor; familiar with Twitter and Facebook but still most comfortable hunting and pecking on an old Smith Corona. He was too young to quit and too old to start over. So here he was, scratching out a living but still wondering why he couldn’t get a break.

Stumped for inspiration, Slappy visited sportsjournalists.com, where the dickheads and bitches and fanbois and prickly fucks always seemed to jolt him into action. But the first thing he saw was a new thread on the journalism board about a Bleacher Report writer who got the Dodgers gig at the Los Angeles Times. Something about user-generated content being the wave of the future or some shit. Fuckin kid, Slappy thought, going from his Mom’s basement to the big time while I sit here costing 4-foot-11 junior varsity players scholarships to Duke.

He shook his head and went to Amazon.com, figuring he’d buy a book. Maybe Jones or Double J had a new one out. But the homepage was trumpeting the new book by Mitch Albom: “Mondays With Mateen.” MOTHERFUCKER, that fucker did it again. Albom was selling millions of books to unsuspecting foofs who sucked up his pap and Slappy knew the truth about the guy long before he wrote an advance column about who didn’t watch Michigan State at the Final Four.

It was enough to drive a man to drink. Unfortunately, all Slappy had was a diet Coke. He tilted his head back and took a swig. He felt a little better. Can’t let Albom ruin another day…I’ve got my pride and my good name, fuck that guy…I’ll be…WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

Among the items listed under “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…” was “Spooning With Saban: The Best Of Paul Finebaum.” Oh that fucking does it, Slappy thought. I’ve busted my ass for years, run the best college football pool in the country while people who barely even look at the scores in the Sunday paper get big-time gigs and now Finebaum has a fucking best-of collection. The world is just not fair.

“I WISH I’D NEVER BECOME A SPORTSWRITER!” Slappy yelled, his voice ringing off the dust-ridden bleachers.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” a voice said behind him.

Slappy whirled around and saw an old man of indeterminate age standing there.

“Can I help you?” Slappy said.

“No but I can apparently help you,” the old man said.

“Unless you can come up with a way to spin anything other than an AP lede out of this train wreck of a game, I highly doubt it,” Slappy said. He turned back to his computer.

“That’s not true,” the old man said. “I’m the ghost of message boards past.”

Slappy stopped. “Are you—are you Spnited?” he asked.

“Fuck off, dickhead,” the old man said in a cigarette-ravaged voice that had more than a hint of New Jersey in it. “I’m here to show you what your life would have been like if you’d never become a sportswriter.”

With that, the two found themselves outside a fast food restaurant in the middle of some non-descript small town. “Oh joy, another fucking McDonalds meal,” Slappy said. “I didn’t miss these when I WAS a sportswriter.”

“Shut up,” the ghost said. “I’m here to show you a famed SportsJournalists.com personality—YGBFKM. He’s the one running the fryer.”

Slappy squinted. He saw a guy wearing a Styx “Kilroy Was Here” hat and Lovie Smith jersey.

“Who the fuck wears a Lovie Smith jersey?” Slappy said.

“YGBFKM does. When you were a sportswriter, he felt he had a kindred, cynical soul. But now that you’re not a writer, he gave up. So he just lives life by his statistics, listens to his Styx, doesn’t question authority or Lovie Smith and writes prep stories in which he doesn’t mention anything negative. Here, listen to him now.”

Slappy craned his head for a better listen. “…and that’s how I managed to get seven names in the paper and never mention the final score or any play-by-play when the team I was covering lost in football, 123-0!” YGBFKM said to a co-worker who promptly jumped into the fryer and died.

Slappy shrugged. “So YGBFKM is a loser without me. Big deal. He was pretty much a loser when I was a sportswriter.”

“There’s much more,” Spnited, err, the ghost said.

Next Slappy found himself at a strip mall surrounded by big-haired, foul-mouthed people. “Am I in hell?” he asked.

“Close,” the ghost said. “Long Island.”

“Do I get to see what that eternally tardy dickhead BYH is up to?”

“Not yet. Now you find what your boy JackReacher is up to.”

The ghost pointed at the bespectacled dork wearing a Hofstra hat, a Hofstra sweatshirt, Hofstra sweatpants, a Hofstra belt and Hofstra shoes. He was carrying a sign that read “DO NOT WATCH A DOG KILLER.”

“What the hell is that?” Slappy asked.

“That’s Sonner. Back in the day, he reveled in going against the grain, attending the worst school in the world and rooting for the most deplorable people in sports. Now he cries about the time one of his favorite players got punched in the balls and only roots for nice people. And he pickets sports bars whenever Michael Vick and the Eagles play…or whenever Kobe Bryant and the Lakers play.”

With that, Sonner changed sandwich board signs to “DO NOT WATCH A RAPIST.” He was pushed into the mud by somebody wearing a George Mason sweatshirt.

“OK so Sonner is a silly donkus,” Slappy said. “He always sucked anyway. Douchebag.”

“Shut up,” the ghost said, and the two were now in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., where a crowd of people were gathering around two people screaming and punching each other in front of the fountain pool.

“That’s outofplace and BYH,” the ghost said.

“Ahh, good, I see nothing has changed,” Slappy said.

“Not exactly,” the ghost said. “Outofplace is a New York native and Yankees fan running for president on the idea that salary caps are unconstitutional and BYH is a Pirates and Steelers fan who believes every sports league everywhere needs a cap, including Pop Warner football.”

“FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!” BYH screamed, his nose bloodied. “I’M FUCKING SICK OF YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES RUINING ALL MY FAVORITE TEAMS! WHY CAN’T WE HANG ON TO ZACK DUKE?”

“I don’t know, probably because your ownership is ill-prepared to own a professional sports team,” outofplace said, calmly fixing his cufflinks. “It’s not my fault you weren’t born a blessed fan of the Yankees and Red Sox, the two best-run organizations in sports. Why don’t you go back to your little backwater burg, pound some of that Iron City swill and fuck your sister.”

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!” BYH screamed as he was tapered into unconsciousness.

Slappy seemed shaken. “OK, so BYH is still a screaming moron, just about something different,” Slappy said. “I find it hard to believe my life, or anyone else’s life would have been better if I did something else with my life.”

“How about now?” the ghost asked and pointed to the disheveled guy stocking shelves.

(MORE)

 

“Who is that?” Slappy asked.

“That’s YankeeFan. When you were a sportswriter, he was a confident, right-leaning guy who crafted a lucrative career out of selling coffee makers. But now he just stocks Eight O’Clock Coffee at A&P…at least when he’s not getting in trouble.”

“For what?”

“Watch.”

Slappy saw YankeeFan glance around him and then reach into the shelves, pull out a Mets hat and the New York Times. He sat cross-legged and began reading the paper. “Oh I completely agree with everything I read here and I love David Wright!” he exclaimed, at which point a boss-like figure appeared and began yelling at Yankee Fan.

“This is terrible,” Slappy said. “I feel awful for that guy.”

“Wait til you see what’s next door,” the ghost said and pointed to The Lemon Tree.

“The place for cheap haircuts?” Slappy said.

“Yup,” the ghost said. “The head hairdresser is Mizzougrad96. But he kinda sucks. All he does is throw lemons at people.”

Slappy gazed in at Mizzou. “This is not what I expected when I took this job!” he yelled and flung more lemons at unsuspecting customers.

Slappy began to cry. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I was wrong to ever badmouth sportswriting. I’m sorry. Can I take it back?”

“Not quite yet,” the ghost said.

There was so much more for Slappy to see: Chef, a back alley surgeon…imjustagirl, writing about North Carolina men’s basketball for Bleacher Report…Care Bear, birthing Josh McDaniels’ love children…Zagoshe, operating the website JAYCUTLERISTHEFUCKINGBESTQUARTERBACKEVERANDILOVEJEFFFISHERTOO.net…Boom_70, writing columns for ESPN.com…21, authoring Choose Your Own Adventure books about an Alzheimer’s-ridden grandfather…Ilmago, a lawyer who sues plagiarists…Armchair_QB, the agent for Kevin Gregg and Night Ranger…JR, the author of a book “Why The CFL Sucks”… HC, writing “Glee” fan fiction…Double Down, a heavyset African-American sportswriter who outs people on message boards and has an unnatural devotion to Jeff George…Smallpotatoes, a columnist who advises people how to deal with enraged parents…Flying Headbutt, who operates a message board for fans of the University of Maryland—at Baltimore County…The Big Ragu, editing the graphic boxes on the front page of every section of USA Today…Cranberry, working for WalMart and busting unions…Oz, who follows the Milwaukee Brewers around the country and yells terrible things at Zack Greinke…Cosmo, the world’s biggest Sidney Crosby fan…TigerVols, the leader of a group called “Fuck The NFL in Los Angeles”… TheSportsPredictor, blogging about the Miami Heat…Moderator1, sitting atop a billboard in Montreal until the Expos return…old_tony, author of “Why Obamacare Works”…Starman, coaching the Charlotte Bobcats…Inky_Wretch, coaching the Cleveland Browns…Ace, finally good enough to take phone calls at the Plain-Dealer…Captain_Kirk, touring as the replacement lead singer for Lord Tracy…Bubbler, running a website to get Rush into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…Piotr Rasputin, running a website to keep Rush out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…Guy_Incognito, attending law school and writing a column offering fantasy owners advice on how to deal with lopsided trade offers…shockey, a radio talk show host who goes by the name “Bavaro”… Double J, trying like hell to sell his book about the movie “Youngblood”… greggdoyel, fashioning a reputation as a columnist who wonders why everyone just can’t get along…poindexter, a lawyer representing teachers accused of having sex with underage students…Chris_L, screaming about Daniel Nava to nobody at all…heyabbott, the author of the best-selling book “Blow Jobs on Thanksgiving”… buckweaver, the author of the book “Why Baseball Sucks,” which has yet to sell a single copy…dooley_womack 1, lecturing at colleges nationwide about the time he had a better copy editing test than some guy at the Saturday Evening Post…Junkie [this post has been deleted by the user]…and of course Huggy, still singing mid-80s Rod Stewart and early-90s Bryan Adams song at karaoke in front of absolutely no one at all.

“This has certainly been an eye-opening experience,” Slappy said. “I guess, as tough a gig as this is sometimes, there are worse fates out there.”

“There certainly are and that’s a nice, pat way to end this,” the ghost said. “Which is convenient since it’s really fucking late.”

“No shit,” Slappy said. “Speaking of late, I gotta file this story. You got any ideas for a lede about a 72-7 girls’ basketball game?”

“Sure. How about something like Christmas came early for the winning team and the losing team found coal in its stocking?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

-30-

 

Tremendous, as always. I laughed. I cried. I laughed again.

Spooning with Saban. Just beautiful.

Take the rest of the year off, sir.

 

I felt funny covering an 87-30 girls game on Monday.... I now know why....
Well played, dickhead. Well played....

 

That was a home run, power play!

Some guys really do have all the luck!

Well done, Beej!

 

Um, it was Collier's. Other than that, bravo!

 

Nicely done, BYH.

 

Outstanding, sir!

 

Brilliant as usual, you fucking dickhead!
I'd wish you a Merry Chrsitmas but I figured I'd wait until tomorrow since you're late to everything.

 

I like the part where I was kicking your ass, BYH.

 

You know, it's no accident that the guy on the Pulitzer looks exactly like BYH.



I wave a Candy Cane Tootsie Pop in your general direction and wish you a beautiful Christmas, and maybe a little sleep.

(Moddy on the Montreal billboard, I'm going to be laughing all day...)

 

Good god. Do NOT make me laugh that hard when I've got pneumonia. I can't even take a breath right now and you've got me gasping.

"All he does is throw lemons at people."

Awesome. So very, very awesome. You are a god among men, at least at this.