Saturday Night Rant

Okay.

First day back from the honeymoon starts out okay; I cover a baseball game in the afternoon. It goes downhill from there. The angle I was going to take is shot because the player is away for a wedding. Remember, it's my first day back (I got in 12 hours before game time!) so I know very little of how the team has been playing or who has been playing well. I suffer through the lobsided game and find a feature-type piece. We're a six-day-a-week paper so game coverage of a Saturday game in Monday's paper doesn't fly.

Next up, two one milers (yes, two four-minute races, a women's and men's). It starts at 8:40 p.m., a major horse race 25 minutes away starts at 9:40 p.m. Talk about cutting it close!

So, the women's is a photo finish. Then men's is a runaway win. But it takes race officials until 9 p.m. to figure out a women's winner. I (and other members of the media) actually interviewed the second-place finish after the race; she and all of us thought she won. But anyway.

Off to horse racing, a sport I have NEVER covered. NEVER. I know NOTHING about the event I'm off to. Not a horse's name, not a jockey, not an owner. I have been away for 15 days so I didn't even know the event a) existed, or b) was coming up.

The PR guy I am to meet is WORKING FOR THE TV STATION COVERING THE EVENT!! I have NOTHING leading up to the race. No background, no angle, no history, no contact, no nothin'.

Race goes. Total insanity afterward. I finally get the winning jockey and ask dumb, lame, he-can-tell-I'm-bullshitting-my-way-through-it questions. I still can't get PR guy for more than a commercial break. He's supposed to "hook me up with anything I want." Yeah, right. I can't find the owners of the horse (they are apparently "inside getting drunk" at this point). Finally, after 30 minutes of mulling around the track, I get ushered off by security because the guy I was to meet couldn't be met to give me my creds. Plus, the next race is about to start. I throw in the towel citing (in my mind) the whole "It's Saturday and this is going in Monday's paper" thing.

The kicker? The other sports guy WANTED to cover the horse race. KNOWS about the horse race. Was disappointed he wasn't covering it. And has been here something like 12 years. But my SE sent him to an ALL-STAR GAME!!!!!!! And me to the horse racing.

Sometimes, I don't understand scheduling and assignments.

End rant.

 

SoSueMe: You mean you weren't keep up with you beats during your honeymoon? FOR SHAME! And you call yourself a sports journalist.



[Sarcasm]

 

I see the problem... the word is "lopsided"

 

whoa

a woman ran a four-minute mile?

world record by more than 12 seconds, right?

pretty good story

 

Nah. I meant roughly four minutes. Women's winner was (I think) 4:31, may 4:37.

Guy was 3:56.05, he won a car.

 

sorry, should have had the sarcasm font on

but was this the Mercedes-Benz Mile thing up in Cambridge?

 

did you at least have fun on your honeymoon?

 

Not a problem... least I could do since I didnt send a wedding gift...

 

Sucks being you.

I hope the honeymoon went well.