Maybe seeing your son in the paper isn't your biggest priority right now?

Got an e-mail the other day that started out, and I paste "I'm not a typical sports mom.. who thinks their kid is the greatest athlete on the planet etc.."

That's when I knew I was in trouble
It goes on to talk about how her son has played baseball ever since Little League (hmm...never heard of that before) and he throws a 90 mph fastball and is hoping for a D-I scholarship (wasn't even all-league last year, and wasn't mentioned by the coach for our season preview). She even says her son "never gets frazzled" and wears a "sly smile when striking out opponents"

Makes me wonder if this kid hired the mom as a PR agent???

And the whopper at the end...the parents are divorcing and if we could put a feature of him in the paper wouldn't it make things easier on the kid. Are you freakin' kidding me??? Really lady??? That line made me more bonkers than most anything I've received. How about taking the time you spent writing me this e-mail and spend it working on your marriage instead. You want to save your son the pain of a divorce...work on your marriage. Mixed up priorities.

 

I never say I've heard it all in this racket, but now I'm one step closer.

Obviously she means well, wanting to ease the pain for the kid, but if the story's not there, it's not there.

 

I don't care about the story...I'll keep my eye on the kid over the course of the season, but I highly doubt there's anything there.

Just seemed so silly to think that a feature on the kid would take away the pain of their decision to divorce. Get some perspective parents...c'mon now.

 

maybe her son is incredibly shallow

 

Is the mom hot? You should be able to at least get something from her by vaguely promising to cover her kid.

 

Careful with that one. She could later blog about how you shorted her on inches.

 

ah shite, Stich and JD took the best lines already.

 

She won't get 12 inches.

 

I love the sly smile line, though.

 

Just make it a "short" (and) "brief" item, Flex. ... Sorry, couldn't resist.

Seriously, this is a new one in my book, too. With the quitter - I'm sorry, divorce - rate being what it is these past several years, I'm surprised we haven't heard this one before. I'm down with Flex here, and on top of that, while she should be working on her marriage instead of bucking the local SE for a story on her kid, she could be self-recruiting her kid. Probably doesn't know the first thing about it. I did a big story on self-recruiting last fall. Drew huge hits online - well, for our paper's typical traffic anyway.

 

"Ease his pain."

And go the distance with the mom.

 

Wow. Quitter?