What do you think of this Plaschke gimmick?

I thought it was cute. Not necessarily awesome, but I think it made its point decently.

 

I liked it better when Lewis Grizzard did the same trick a couple of decades back.
I believe the column, coming after a Georgia loss to Georgia Tech, read, "Frankly, I don't want to talk about it."
And he was done. The rest of the column space ran white.

 

I really respect him. I'm old enough to remember him covering an entire MLB season as a traveling beat writer and then immediately finishing the rest of an NFL season on that beat when the need arose. My God, that would kill most people. So I know he isn't lazy. But I think this column is worthless.

 

I get the idea and the point. I understand the angle. I know what he was trying to do. I like Plaschke, and usually, his work, too.

But I don't like this.

It seems cavalier, unbecoming, and beneath him, even if it's really just supposed to be a creative approach, and cute.

I consider it, you know, careluss and sloppe. (Really, should we ever intentionally leave words misspelled, even for the sake of staying in keeping with the cute premise, and just hope the readers get it, when it's our job to catch such things?)

It reminds of the time when I once was the Opinion page editor of a college newspaper. We were doing a themed issue -- something on how funding issues were affecting campus programs and college life, in general. Every item on the Opinion page, including two really strong editorials, had to do with the unsettling, almost entirely negative impact.

I got the bright idea to run the page upside-down, and yes, the advisors let me do it. At the time, I thought it was creative and cute, and had references, and headlines citing how the college, and many programs, were being turned, well, upside-down, by a lack of funding, and we printed and distributed a few thousand copies of the edition, with the Opinion page upside-down, as I'd ordered.

Thankfully, everything else was run right-side up. Well, I had fun, and a few laughs, watching everyone, all over campus, turning the paper over when they got to my page, trying to figure out what had happened.

Most people got it, but still, I realized in pretty short order that I'd kind of gone over the top for the sake of something that was really just a stunt.

 

So what happens if they play another stinker the next game? More of the same?
It's a Scoop Jackson-esque gimmick piece. Spare me, particularly when better wordsmiths are collecting unemployment checks.

 

Sure it's gimmicky. Sure it's not the best thing he's ever written. But you know what, most readers will get a good chuckle out of it, and I'll bet most of them will like it. They won't consider an affront to the man's legacy of better work, they won't worry whether he pissed off his editors by not delivering 900 words, and they sure as hell won't think any less of him because he misspelled a word or two for effect.

 

I'm not huge on Plaschke (think he stretches for the sappy more often than he nails a column), but I'd be interested in a list of those "better wordsmiths" you mention who also are on the unemployment line right now.

A LOT of very good, maybe great, journalists have been left behind by this economy. Not sure how many of those who remain unemployed are superior to Plaschke.

Anyway . . . after games like that, the columns usually say "What a terrible effort! Odom was lazy again, Bynum doesn't belong on the floor! Blech! Bellyache! Terrible!!!"

Simers did something along those lines, which I enjoyed reading, as it exposed Derek Fisher as a douche who used the "I'm getting DRESSED!!!!" excuse when he didn't want to admit how horribly the Lakers played.

Liked Plaschke's approach here. The final line really makes the column, and drives home his point. So many columnists would turn that game into an (interview-free) rant about how poor the Lakers' effort was, with plenty of cute analogies to current pop culture. Plaschke was more subtle, and yet clear from the first graph. Thought it was a clever approach.

Also props for the Times' main sports headline: "What was That?"

 

Ding ding ding.

Grizzard is a freakin' god, where I come from. And that column is probably his most celebrated.

 

The reason I don't like it is because it makes it seem as if Plaschke is somehow part of the team. Reminds me of a cliched halftime speech where the coach stomps out to something like "if you're not going to play, then I'm not going to coach!"

I know that in days gone by, writers and columnists lived and died with teams they covered and the work reflected it.

But if the Lakers punk out or put up 200 or clear the Staples Center with a bomb threat, the writer should not be so invested as to equate his performance at his job with the players' performance at theirs (and yes, I know it was a gimmick). If Kobe plays the greatest game of his life, that's no guarantee Plaschke will write the greatest column of his life about it. There's no correlation.

 

Put me on the "I thought it was clever and well done" side.

 

Not a gimmick at all, very genuine.

Genuine crap.

Where I'm from, Plaschke would have spiked that shit before it ever saw the light of day.

 

The Grizzard column is brilliant and daring.

Plaschke's column is cute. Didn't bug me but wouldn't win any awards if I was handing them out.