I applied for a press credential for Golden State at Los Angeles three nights from now. The application form was autocompleted with my publication’s name as Flack the Pac, from the days when there was a Pac to flack.
A new field asked for a description of the work the application would do. The example provided was: “I will write game preview”. I filled it with: “Post-game reevaluation of my life decisions”.
Which is true, because the WNBA isn’t an environment for reflective writing. The Valkyries use fireworks during their player introductions. People are generally dumber than they were 20 years ago when Sacramento was league champion.
People are dumber, and sports media obliges. Player comes off the floor, ESPN reporter says: “Your nth double-double! How does it feel!?”. Questions don’t get softer or bullshittier than that, but this is what sports entertainment consumers expect.
“Bull Durham” was made in 1988, and it knew how sports media works. On the Durham Bulls team bus, Crash Davis, the smart guy, teaches Ebby LaLoosh, the live-armed dumb guy, how to comport himself during interviews, and it’s still entirely valid.
I had a read on this in the mid-’70s. My older friends from across the street — Bob Boutelle and Bill Selfridge (two names I can’t forget, but good luck to those children I met in chess class yesterday) — were discussing Monday Night Football, and Bob said he hated Howard Cosell because Cosell could make impertinent remarks during the game. “They could be talking about receiving yards”, said Bob Boutelle, who then did a Cosell impression, ” ‘but did you know star receiver Joe Shlabotnik doesn’t like strawberry ice cream’ “.
Cosell actually grew famous in the ’70s because he was that kind of idiot. Cosell was one of the first shitheads calling himself a journalist, but imposing himself into the stories. The New York Times said: “[Cosell’s] style was unabashed adulation, [and] offered a brassy counterpoint that was first ridiculed, then copied until it became the dominant note of sports broadcasting”.
Bob Boutelle recognized it. I didn’t know I was a journalist yet, but I saw Cosell was an idiot, while WNBA broadcasters and ESPN reporters are the spiritual children of Howard Cosell.
I’m watching “Moneyball” because when I sat down for the media meal at Chase Center last Friday, I heard a fellow say he worked “the Hatteberg game”, immortalized in the movie. When I spend time with people who play games, they talk about games they played. When I spend time with sports media, they talk about the games other people played.
It’s the nature of the beasts, but I’d rather none of ’em talked at all. It’s another way to fill in the blank “The older I get ________”. The older I get, the less I want to hear other people talk.
Seattle 79, Dallas 71
When Nancy Lieberman was at Old Dominion, she and ODU teammate Inge Nissen were my favorite players. Lieberman was a pioneer in the WBL, WBA, USBL, and WNBA, sort of screwed up as a coach, and now wears a mountain of makeup as a broadcaster.
I’d want to hear what Lieberman has to say during a basketball game, but the Dallas “play-by-play” guy thinks “Shlabotnik is there with the answer!!” is useful material. I turn the sound down to 1 or 2, and “Shlabotnik is there with the answer!!” rose above it.
Dallas did not stop Seattle from doing whatever they wanted to do, and the Storm made 25 assists on 29 FGM. The only Wing who didn’t look like she belonged on a 9-31 team was Bueckers.
I have to go to San Francisco tomorrow night for a visit from the Mystics, but I’d rather be lecturing to chessplayers who don’t listen to me. Like I said, could be time to re-evaluate the life choices.