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I generally only read the MLB threads in here, which frequently have examples of terrible sports journalism--writers clearly failing to do research, writers claiming something despite all evidence to the contrary, writers getting mad at the nebulous "blogosphere" for perceived Slights Against the Profession, etc. Baseball's not the only sport that's plagued with shameful coverage, however. It's merely one of the most notable. Whether it's Stuart Scott doing a poetry slam about the Boston Celtics (ignore the stupid last 10 seconds; I couldn't find a copy of the original), Norman Chad calling bloggers "a threat to our free land", or some writer blithely accepting that Torii Hunter has the ability to travel through time to an era where he overlapped with Kirby Puckett, we're constantly exposed to absolutely terrible coverage of sports (which is, after all, a Very Serious Topic worth getting upset over). Fire Joe Morgan used to be a wonderful repository of "dumb poo poo that sportswriters and announcers said," but it's largely defunct. I've heard that maybe it'll come back on Deadspin; one can only hope. Since I like to get upset about people who are not me getting paid to do a bad job of covering sports, I don't want to miss any other examples of egregious sports journalism. There's probably a whole library of shame that the NFL, NHL, NBA offer if only I knew where to look. I'd like to make this a repository for such things. To get things started: MLB SABRmetrics vs. "Traditional Statistics": In the last several years, there has been a greater focus on "advanced" baseball statistics since many of these metrics are better indicators of player performance and value than the standard statistics that appear on the back of a baseball card. This helps to explain why players like Pedro Feliz can drive in 80+ runs a season for years, yet every time he comes to the plate you think "goddammit Pedro Feliz is up and he sucks." Enter Murray Chass, a former sportswriter for the New York Times. Chass, who has the ability to cast votes for entrance into the MLB Hall of Fame, hates the poo poo out of anything that isn't wins or RBIs, and he especially hates bloggers and their blogs. In spite of this, he has a blog. Murray Chass posted:This is a site for baseball columns, not for baseball blogs. The proprietor of the site is not a fan of blogs. He made that abundantly clear on a radio show with Charley Steiner when Steiner asked him what he thought of blogs and he replied, “I hate blogs.” He later heartily applauded Buzz Bissinger when the best-selling author denounced bloggers on a Bob Costas HBO show. ...he's actually not completely horrible, and when he doesn't fall into his frothing hatred of statistics and instead writes about the ins-and-outs of a 162-game season (which is something he has direct experience with, unlike a blogger who isn't afforded that level of access), he can be a pretty good writer. Still, he's kind of held up as a strawman by the SABR crowd since on any given day they can point at him and say "Look! He is literally saying he would rather have Livan Hernandez than Zack Greinke because of WINS!" I'd prefer this thread not to fall into the trap of debating SABR vs. Traditional Stats since it seems tangential to the purposes of ridiculing crappy journalists. That said, it's probably what irks me most in baseball journalism, and I'm probably not alone in that. Here, for example, is an article unironically titled, "Maybe Schumaker Isn't So Horrible After All" about a baseball player who is objectively horrible. He did A Good Thing yesterday, though, so this undoes the previous 100 games' worth of work in which he literally was interchangeable with any schmuck from the minor leagues. Please post other examples of terrible journalism so we can all laugh and then get moderately embittered that the people producing this work are being paid for it while we're not.
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Aug 10, 2010 20:12
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I guess it is easier to list out good stuff than bad. To that end, there was actually a really good piece about the dude who hit the ball that killed Mike Coolbaugh. I want to say it was on ESPN.com but I cannot find it. If anyone manages to locate it, I'd hold it up as an example of good journalism.
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Aug 11, 2010 17:39
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Joe Thurston was that way for me. I read about him in spring training 2009 and was like "Hrm...a top prospect in the BOSTON organization, plays a LOT OF POSITIONS with SPEED and HUSTLE but never really cracked the bigs? SPRINTS TO FIRST BASE ON A WALK?
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Aug 11, 2010 19:19
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Here is a column where the author isn't even trying and just mailed in a tired "lol; the Cubs" trope. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/article_17d8f0cc-cbd7-5898-b559-220358def63d.html I should have mentioned Morgan Ensberg (former MLB 3b, most notably for the Houston Astros in the early to mid 2000s) has a blog that's actually really good and insightful. http://morganensberg.wordpress.com/
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Aug 12, 2010 00:25
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zakharov posted:The comments on an article about gay couples wanting to be on the Cardinals' kiss cam are truly stunning. I can't wait until Joe Strauss asks TLR what he thinks about this. Joe Strauss is the worst Cardinals journalist. Not only does he suck, but he's still incredibly bitter about being scooped by Viva El Birdos (a blog!  ) last year on the Chris Duncan deal.
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Sep 16, 2010 17:13
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Captain Charisma posted:Solution: Get rid of all the retarded between innings jumbotron horseshit That's really part of a larger issue of ballparks being less about baseball and more about "entertainment and oh by the way there's a baseball game." Furthermore, retarded between innings jumbotron horseshit is frequently very entertaining. Without it, we wouldn't have the Astros foul ball couple. Or the Presidents/Pierogies/Sausage race. Or the rally monkey
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Sep 16, 2010 17:42
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This is older (1991) than a bunch of people in this thread, but I just learned of its existence today. 1991 doesn't seem like that long ago, but goddamn is it kind of creepy. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/14/sports/sports-of-the-times-sorry-but-magic-isn-t-a-hero.html Gotta love those undertones of "who does deserve to get AIDS". On a lighter note, here is an awesome quote from TLR which I 100% agree with! TLR, on Adam Wainwright winning his 20th game posted:"This is a real achievement. The level of wins for a starter is like RBIs for a position player."
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Sep 27, 2010 20:47
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In the grand scheme of things, the Cardinals trading Brendan Ryan is irrelevant. Doesn't stop columnists like Jeff Gordon from writing dumb things, though!Jeff Gordon posted:Last year’s Cards lacked grit, focus, perserverance and a variety of other attributes hard to quantify with a calculator. The team played fine against elite opponents, but struggled against lesser foes. I can quantify the missing attributes! Hint: 1.) A 3rd baseman that wasn't Pedro Feliz 2.) A 2nd baseman that wasn't Skip Schumaker 3.) A SS that OPSed above .600 4.) Colby Rasmus on the bench in favor of Jay-CF/Stavinoha or Winn-RF 5.) A suddenly porous bullpen 6.) With Rasmus on the bench, only 2 full-time players who had a SLG above the league median. This might've not been so bad if not for 7.) the fact the team was really loving slow and full of Thurstonesque baserunners Brendan Ryan being kind of silly had nothing to do with ANY of the above problems. Brendan Ryan being kind of bad only had to do with ONE of the above problems. Oh, but that's just a convenient excuse for statheads. poo poo, man; you don't need to be a stathead to see all the horrible flaws in the team last year.
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Dec 14, 2010 20:02
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stuart scott irl posted:Here are some writer opinions on Brett Favre's punishment from the new ESPNw -- ESPN for women!!!! but you see since women are saying this then clearly Brett Favre's texting pictures of his hog was both warranted and victimless. CASE CLOSED.
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Jan 12, 2011 07:13
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gardenald posted:This picture almost makes the whole stupid thing worth it That's not even the best ARod centaur picture   Also, haven't there been numerous stories posted about how ARod has man-boobs or something and how his nickname in the Rangers' clubhouse was something to that effect? In light of that I do not think any of these centaur pictures are realistic.
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Feb 15, 2011 06:08
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If they cast Brad Garrett as a foil to Cowherd I could see it working.
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Feb 15, 2011 20:15
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In which Murray Chass uses gossip to paint Stan Musial as a racist: Go gently caress yourself, Murray Chass. (better discussion here (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/murray_chass_on_baseball_musial_no_man_of_honor_mr._president/P100/); apparently this is old news and was already addressed. Chass is either late to the party or is cherry picking accounts in order to be a dick.) edit: credit to vivaelbirdos; not like I read Murray Chass' blog on a regular basis FairGame fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Mar 25, 2011 |
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Mar 25, 2011 14:20
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My god. Not only is he the worst journalist, he's also a terrible loving human being. Goddamn.
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Apr 13, 2011 00:42
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a stupid shitmagician posted:Especially in the cheaper seats, where I believed Stow had been sitting. Also if he wasn't in the cheap seats where the loving unwashed low class poors sit he wouldn't have been beaten! Oh wait, he wasn't in the poor section? What a goddamned tragedy! This guy is clueless and a terrible human being.
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Apr 13, 2011 14:50
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Well, that was certainly an article. Tampopo did the crowded theater better anyway (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6E7CKEM1ys)
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Apr 30, 2011 05:10
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leokitty posted:I think that piece is supposed to be some kind of dark comedy bit but it's just really bad. Hmm...how should we rebuild? Let's try not being poor this time and see fi that works!  The theater thing was just dumb. The Haiti thing is offensive as hell. gently caress that guy forever.
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May 1, 2011 03:43
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Which is more sinister: an athlete with clicking sound names, or the way Marcus Thames pronounces his last name? (I don't think the "clicking sound" thing is racist, though it's certainly stupid as hell. It seems most like people bitching about hockey drafts in the 90s because their team had a quota on people whose last name ended in "-ov".)
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Jun 30, 2011 15:23
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Grittybeard posted:How does he pronounce it since I'm an idiot and can't remember hearing it? My first reaction would be like the river, second would be like it's spelled. What's the right way? As Pickle said, it's like the river. Some crap writer (I think Leokitty posted it earlier in this thread) wrote a whole article bashing Thames, "if that is his real name"
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Jun 30, 2011 16:23
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I hope Juan Pierre reaches 3000 hits just so everyone can pine for the days of DJ3K
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Jul 8, 2011 19:20
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All of my opinions are correct and if you try to refute any of them with tangible evidence you are a nerd who should STFU. The guy who wrote that fucks dogs. I can tell by the patterns in his sentence structure. I know what I saw.
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Sep 22, 2011 20:37
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Does Twitter count as journalism? Because if so, insufferable douchebag Jeff Passan frustrates the hell out of me because he's really quite intelligent, but he so frequently takes the lazy route and just churns out bullshit. FairGame fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Sep 26, 2011 |
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Sep 26, 2011 17:44
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:did you mean jeff suppan, terrible pitcher, or jeff passan, smarmy bullshit artist? gently caress. I used both. I meant Passan, the SU graduate that does his best to make all Newhouse kids look like a bunch of smarmy fucks (which isn't far from the truth, but still!)
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Sep 26, 2011 17:56
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The best part: "Darius Rucker is a black man. YOU know that, Bomani."
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Oct 7, 2011 15:37
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Whoever the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports section is needs to get kicked in the junk repeatedly. In Game 4 of the NLDS, a squirrel ran across home plate after a pitch was delivered. Now "BUSCH SQUIRREL" is some sort of loving celebrity, someone created a Twitter account for it, and there is literally an article in today's P-D (a week after the incident, mind you) with "Busch Squirrel's Best Tweets" Ugh.
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Oct 12, 2011 17:21
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LARGE THE HEAD posted:Okay, you all need to read Spencer Hall's recent editorial on Tim Tebow likerightnowyouguyscomeon Is it bad that I really enjoyed this? Because I did 
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Oct 16, 2011 15:22
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morestuff posted:If anyone here is a journalism student interested in sports, this seems like an interesting opportunity. I did something very similar to that at mizzou a decade ago and found it pretty worthless. Not to mention columbia is a loving wasteland in the summer (possibly during the school year too). On the other hand it was a decade ago and maybe it is actually useful beyond allowing you a bunch of networking opportunities.
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Nov 16, 2011 20:27
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Oh good, something more current than year-old Heyman tweets with an obvious racial subtext that I can use for tie-ins with Scorekeeping. Also goddamn that article is terrible.
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Jun 18, 2012 20:25
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured sports columnist Bernie Miklasz:A Dumb Person posted:These mistakes happen way too often. I know Matheny is inexperienced, and I try to always keep that in mind. It's not as if we're expecting him to be Bobby Cox in his first season of managing at any level. But there's no excuse for having signals missed, or misinterpreted. There's no excuse for failing to concentrate. It's just sloppy baseball that reflects poorly on Matheny, his coaches, and veteran players. Small ball? More like smell ball ... because these mistakes stink. PEE PEE DOO DOO
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Jun 22, 2012 14:57
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Here is a surprisingly good article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the Cardinals not having any black players on their roster. Slate did a similar piece a while back (about MLB at large, not the Cardinals specifically) but I like this one better.
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Aug 5, 2012 15:24
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Jeff Gordon, St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted:Give Matt Carpenter 300 to 400 at-bats. In an admittedly small sample this season, Carpenter has hit well with runners on base (.293), runners in scoring position (.378) and RISP with two out (.444). Clutch hitting is a precious commodity and Carpenter seems to possess it. Or, if you prefer, paraphrased: Hurrrrrrrr I don't understand statistics, that there's no such thing as clutch, or anything else, but I know that saying "small sample size" will give me instant cred with other dumb people that like to feel as if they have any idea what the gently caress they're talking about e: lmao I didn't even finish the article because the preceding paragraph was so dumb, but it also unironically features the line "Where is Nick Stavinoha when you need him?"
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Aug 22, 2012 21:14
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hcreight posted:Here's a transcript of TJ Simers picking up where the Boston sports media left off with Josh Beckett. God that's terrible. It's like he was trying to get a Brett Myers "Boom; outta here" exchange only the interviewer is clearly baiting the poo poo out of the athlete and just being a real prick.
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Aug 28, 2012 20:57
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"I have literally never heard of a body of water with the same spelling and pronunciation as this petulant non-star of a dilettante."
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Aug 28, 2012 22:02
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Toffile posted:I kind of wonder if it violates the no porn crowdsourcing restriction that indiegogo has. Want to see a Very Serious Post arguing that Lochtedongs are art and so they should keep the money
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Aug 29, 2012 17:43
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Groucho Marxist posted:Viva El Birdos is a million times better than stupid Lookout Landing In fairness, you're cherry picking. These are literally the two best veb posts of the 2012 season.
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Sep 8, 2012 15:17
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Mahoning posted:I don't have a specific example of this at the moment but someone needs to teach journalists and other talking heads that correlation is not causation. For example: Tons, and not just in sports. Or sometimes combining sports and politics. Like this stupid poo poo here.
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Oct 24, 2012 16:15
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I swear I'm not trolling for clicks. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/10/finally-an-effective-way-to-rank-nfl-quarterbacks/264154/ I don't know enough about football to be sure, but this really strikes me as the NFL version of "Look at these sabermetric nerds in their mom's basement with their WAR and their BLORP and their BUTT-9s  The best metric is ribbies and that's why Hunter Pence is a great player."I'm also biased against Barra because of garbage like this: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/06/how-baseball-jargon-became-nonsense/257940/
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Oct 26, 2012 19:02
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purkey posted:Is that a joke article or does he really think that the word offense is confusing? It is a real article. He is A Very Serious Writer.
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Oct 27, 2012 02:56
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Spoeank posted:Here's a nice a bloo bloo QBs need to be good ol' boys piece about Kaepernick because he has... tattoos!!! Hahaha I came to this thread to post this.
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Nov 30, 2012 17:59
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"Harmless" poo poo like that is still awful and detrimental no matter how timeless it may be. I don't want people to feel bad for eating food that is good. I also don't want people to feel bad for not being a manly man and playing through a concussion and other poo poo like that. I agree with you that the writer probably wasn't trying to write some kind of awful screed, but buying into the stupid manly man rub-some-dirt-on-it thing is what ends careers and ruins post-career lives.
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Dec 28, 2012 18:37
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That's the creepiest loving thing; goddamn
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Jan 16, 2013 22:52
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