CROWN POINT
(1-2-2005)
- It'll be a happy New Year
without Jay Mariotti on ESPN-1000 (AM). The Chicago Sun-Times attack writer
was ashcanned from his daily radio "slander show" because of his allegedly
"over-the-top" criticism of Jerry Reinsdorf. Reinsdorf owns the Sox
and Bulls whose games are aired on AM 1000. Mariotti is an example of
everything that is wrong with pro sports media. Everything is an attack. Reinsdorf
can't just have failed to buy a winning team, he's a "bad human being
who's desire is to cheat the fans."
Guys like Mariotti
found out years ago that there is a segment of the sports fan population that
hates and he plays to it. Many fans use hatred of sports teams and figures as
motivation to get through their everyday lives. They don't
care who wins, they only care who loses. Mariotti also cynically
plays both sides of an issue. He called the Cubs cheap for not resigning Sammy
Sosa a few years ago, claiming that Sosa was all that's good with the Cubs.
Now, he's blasting Sosa and blaming the Cubs for still having him. He hopes
you don't remember.
Mariotti has alternately ridiculed Sox GM Kenny Williams for not knowing
enough to do his job. Now, he praises him for making moves. Mariotti ridicules
Cub fans for showing up in droves to watch a losing team
and ridicules Sox fans for NOT showing up to watch a losing team. He hopes you
don't remember.
He blamed Notre
Dame for putting up with incompetent coaching and now blames them for firing a
coach due to lack of wins. He denies the inconsistencies and attacks any
critic as being in the pocket of a team, the ultimate journalistic insult. But
Mariotti is the ultimate butt-kisser. He claims to support fans but what he
supports is himself by appealing to the lowest
common denominator. The memory-free, logic-dim, beef-eating Saturday Night
Live stereotype of Chicago area fans as paranoia-laden alcoholics
who feel that every athlete or owner who figuratively or literally drops a
ball is doing it just to them. In other words, he cynically
'plays' the fans, claiming he's on their side when he's simply been given
endless space to get his journalistic jollies off by insulting everything that
has anything to do with sports. Hopefully, he can be replaced on AM-1000 by
someone who
tells us what he really thinks without the knee-jerk, patronizing exaggeration's.
Many
here have asked why I don't like to have a Player-of-the-Week or Player of
the Year. Many wait for all-star teams or all-area teams as if that's some
type of validation of the time they've spent playing kids games.
But for every person or team you include, you leave one out. All-star teams
invariably cause more trouble than their worth and hurt the credibility of a
media outlet that was simply trying to honor a lot of kids.
With that said, how could the Times newspaper list the Top-10 events of 2004
and not mention Hanover Central's first state championship in school
history, the 2A state softball success of last June? How could they leave
out Amanda Wendlinger's perfect game, 1-0 win over Clarksville?
On that same field later in the same day, Lake Central won the state title
on a 12th inning home run by Alyssa Duncan off a pitcher (Darcy Wood) who
had never allowed a home run. Two epic local prep events in an
eight-hour span. Not worthy of the Top-10?
What was worthy? Valparaiso center Cassie Kerns signing with the University
of Connecticut, something that has no meaning in 2004. Valparaiso's cross
country team repeating as state champs, something they'd done the previous
year. Griffith's Alex Tsirtis completing a four-year undefeated run in high
school wrestling, something that had been done before.
But never on the same day, had two neighbor schools won the state title in
the same sport on two of the ultimate baseball/softball moments, a perfect
game and an excuse the ESPN-expression, walk-off home run.
Everything that was cited in the Times Top-10 can occur again while the
combination of HC winning with a rare perfect game and next door neighbor LC
winning on an even more rare (for softball) last-inning homer, will probably
not occur again in our lifetime.
While I usually rail against a very genuine bias that local media has for
players, teams and events that occur in the north Lake County area (largely
due to readership and subscription realities) where they all are based,
I suspect there was no anti-Hanover or anti-South Lake County or anti-girls
sports bias here. I believe that whatever 'league of distinguished
gentlemen' came up with the top-10, simply forgot about the 2004 girls
softball finals. Local media forgets Hanover a lot. They just screwed
up. I would like to see them own up to it but I don't
know how a newspaper can do that. Radio stations and newspapers NEVER admit
they are wrong about anything. It's in the manual. Such an admission would
REALLY be one of the Top-10 stories of the year.
Along those lines, the Post-Tribune ran what they called the All-Time
Northwest Indiana football all-star team in their Sunday edition on December
26th.
They bragged in print that their extensive "research" enabled them
to judge players before 1960 that even an old-timer like John Mutka could
not possibly have seen in person extensively. It doesn't matter how great
you think your memory is, if you judge players you have not seen in person
or on film, you are guessing. If you go by what others remember, it's not
your opinion, it's theirs.
Newspaper people have a wonderfully condescending view of their own exaggerated
self-importance (see Jay Mariotti). They're all "telling you something
you didn't know" or "making you think!"
Here's the truth. During the holidays, daily newspapers are required to make
something up to fill space. There's no games on Christmas Eve and very few
on Christmas Day. That's why you have "Greatest of all Time" teams
and Top-10 events of the year features. Bottom line.
That's cool. It was an inspired effort by the PT and you should appreciate
the amount of time they put in on something like that. Also appreciate that
much of it is still a figment of someone's fertile or sometimes feeble
memory and imagination, not some kind of Ivy League scientific study.
AIR NOTES:
Congrats to WJOB's right-wing morning howler Steve Fowler for this week's
"Foot in Mouth Award." The quote, referring to the apocalypse-
caliber tsunamis that killed thousands in Asia this month, was "I've
got the solution! Just move away from the
shore."
Thanks Steve. And
I'm sure that if Laci Peterson had just given Scott some of that quick and
easy lovin' he got from Amber Frey, he wouldn't have beheaded her and killed
their baby.
I've been on morning radio and sometimes you say asinine things to get a
response. It's a show... Fowler went on to do his Archie Bunker turned Bill
O'Reilly impersonation, criticizing the United Nations and excusing the
incompetent (see: Donald Rumsfeld) Bush administration for not
immediately siphoning the billions they're using to occupy Iraq, to the
victims of an
unprecedented natural disaster.
Fowler is a decent guy and talented talk show warrior. But sometimes it's a
good thing he's on at 5 a.m. in the morning.
Give credit to
WHLP (89.9) FM for airing last week's South County basketball tournament. Give
credit to WJOB (1230) AM for airing this week's Gary Holiday Tournament. Local
radio covers the same teams too much. It was good to hear the Porter County
Conference and Gary teams get some play.
I was very
disappointed in the fact that WJOB cut away from the top-10 battle of Gary
West Side and South Bend Washington for an on-site preview of the meaningless
Chesterton-Valparaiso game.
They didn't
seem to realize they had an epic battle right in front of them. Many of WJOB's
sports announcers don't seem to know what they're
seeing.
Too often, the
comment is, “I don't know much about this
team." If you're calling the game, you MUST know.
Also, I wish local
announcers would not substitute volume for energy. There is a way to speak
with energy without yelling. There is also no need for energy when the game
does not justify it.
Many who produce
basketball games want a screaming announcer to convince the parents watching
that they should support that media outlet. That's good for sales or for the
play-by-play man's ego but that's not reporting on the game. What harm does it
do?
It convinces
parents that players and teams are better than they are, causing everybody
problems later on. It blows up egos to massive proportions making good
athletes into bad kids.
The announcer's responsibility
is to the listener who is not at the game, not to the sponsor who bought
time. Don't tell me Highland's great because
Highland parents and businesses have bout 50% of the commercials.
Another thing is the word 'great.' There is far too much overstatement in
sports radio. Somebody has a 'great' game every week. Above average
performances are 'amazing' and 'unbelievable' and 'fantastic.'
That's insulting
to the fans who know what 'great' is. Very few players and games are great. I appreciate
that to 'say' something is great sounds good and
helps you sell commercial time.
Some announcers'
egos are so large, they insist every game THEY attend is a great game in some
way. It's a joke and the joke's on the listener or viewer who isn't
there.
It isn't a local phenomenon. The genesis of the Cubs-Cub announcers
feud had to do with low-grade announcer
Chip Caray saying that Roy Oswalt had a 'great' game on a day when he gave up
six runs. Caray, arguably the worst play-by-play announcer in Chicago in the
last 50 years, was famous for overstatement. He would say a ball was 'belted'
when it was popped up. He would say a ball was 'off the wall' when it bounced
to the wall. He would weave obviously practiced, limp-wristed, 'Dawson's
Creek' style pablum into live play-by-play.
He constantly referred to how intelligent he was while he was mis-calling one
of three plays. He also believed in the volume over value theory of calling a
game. I fear that local announcers have mimicked Chip Caray and it is
sickening.
His departure will
not only make Cubs TV more listenable (Steve Stone's voice was always
incredibly condescending and miserably nasal) it
will help area prep announcers because they'll hear a good example instead of
somebody who failed on-the-job training after getting hired because of
his last name.
The year 2004 in Northwest Indiana will go down as a year when sports radio
returned in force. With The Region Sports Newtork (now on AM-1270), the
new WJOB (1230-AM) and the Regional Radio Sports Network all competing to do
games, very few teams get ignored. In 2005, I'd like to see small schools get
playoff games on the air. Six years ago, Hanover Central's girls went to the
semistate for the first time and they never appeared on radio or TV. One year
later, Lowell did the same thing, with only one radio appearance. In 2001,
Hebron went to the state finals and never once appeared on the radio or on TV
while Highland was on TV every week.
With Boone Grove
having one of their best years, I would plead with local radio to let go of
the Munsters, Highlands, Andreans and Valparaisos for just a little while and
put Boone Grove on the air.
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2005 USA-365.com and Meyer
Multimedia Services, a division of Meyer Broadcasting Corp. All rights
reserved.
Revised: January 02, 2005
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