Category Archives: Media Morons

Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: The Terrible Waste of Aaron Hernandez

Scratchbomb hands over the reins to nationally syndicated sports columnist Skitch Hanson, as we’ve done many times before. You may know Skitch as the author of the highly popular syndicated column “Up The Middle.” You may have read his best-selling books Roar No More: Tiger Woods’ Epic Fall From Grace and Roar Once More: Tiger Woods’ Epic Return to the Top. He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show Mouth-Talkers! 

Aaron_HernandezAs a sportswriter, I find myself shaking my head quite often. I’m pretty good at it, if I do say myself. In fact, I teach an intensive course at the community college on the practice, with some extra pointers on finger wagging and one-sentence paragraphs.

But even an experienced head shaker such as myself could scarcely figure out how best to shake my head at the news that former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez had been arrested for murder. Should I go for the stern paternal head shake? Or the sympathetic but disappointed head shake? This was a conundrum that I wouldn’t wish on any of my fellow sportswriters, one that no class could truly prepare you for. Although I will speak to the dean about adding such a class to next semester’s docket, assuming he’s not still mad at me for destroying three rows of bleachers in the gym. (Long story short: I accidentally spilled an entire thermos of my special blend of Diet Mr. Pibb and puréed Suzy Q’s, which apparently does a real number on lacquer.)

In the end, I determined that Hernandez deserved some completely new sort of head shake, one that has yet to be invented. (Note to self: Attempt to invent it, then feel out dean for third class?) Because what he did goes beyond inexcusable. Aaron Hernandez destroyed something that no person has the right to take away from from anyone: an NFL season.

Each of us is given a fragile, wonderful gift in this world, and that is 17 weeks of regular season football, plus three more of playoffs and two glorious weeks for the Super Bowl. No matter what “beef” Aaron Hernandez had with this other person whose name escapes me, he can not take it upon himself to play god and say “I will determine whether the Patriots’ season lives or dies.”

Now, New England is bereft of a tight end. Two, maybe, if Rob Gronkowski can’t be ready for the start of the season. Even if Belichick pulls things together and crafts a winning season out of this wreckage, he and his staff will have to answer constant questions about murder and other things that have nothing to do with football. If Hernandez had taken a moment to consider this, he might have thought twice about killing a man in cold blood.

It’s not up to mere mortals like Aaron Hernandez to take away something so precious as a tight end from the NFL. Determinations like these must come from something more ethereal and unknowable, something beyond ourselves. Call it God, or fate, appearing the form of a 350-pound linebacker out of his mind on painkillers.

We’ve all been in situations like these, where we were so filled with rage we contemplated doing something rash. I remember when I heard Twinkies were discontinued, the thought of a world without Twinkies filled me with such a burning nihilism that I hurled a brick through one of the front windows of my local Publix. But as my lawyer explained to me, sometimes things have a way of working out for the best, even if we can’t see how this could be possible at the time.

As it turned out, my lawyer was right! Now Twinkies are back and only several thousand people lost their jobs. My lawyer also advised me that Publix had nothing to do with Hostess’s bankruptcy, and I would probably be better off not driving around with loose bricks in my car. (I would if I could, but I need that ballast to deal with the wonky rear differential in my Kia.)

So to Aaron Hernandez, I can say I’ve been there. I too took the law into my own hands, and as a result I almost deprived the world of my column and my weekly guest spots on Dish Nation. I was able to keep my freedom thanks to many hours of community service and a carefully crafted apology letter. In the end, I learned that it’s not up to us to make our own justice, whether that involves hurling bricks through plate glass windows or an execution-style shooting in an open field.

It’s possible that Hernandez may have to endure harsher punishment than I did. But in truth, his crime is the kind that punishes us all, because it deprives each and every one of us of seeing an NFL team perform at its best. And it reminds us of the true fragility of a football season, of how easily it can be taken away from us. I hope everyone one of you hugs your pocket schedule a little tighter tonight. I know I will.

Some may say a transgression like this can never be forgiven. They are entitled to that opinion. I’m not quite willing to go that far, but I will say that forgiveness can only follow a true act of penance, like beating the rap on a technicality and coming back to the NFL to perform at peak levels again. This crime can not be redeemed by the halfway contrition of a man like Michael Vick, who returned to the game but has only occasionally played well since coming back.

This season is beyond saving, but perhaps his example will prevent other players from making the same, tragic waste in the future, and remind them that every season is equally precious.

Interweb, Media Morons, The Funny

How to Wind Up in Twitter Jail, Starring @TimesPublicEdit

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I am @TimesPublicEdit.

I didn’t work all that hard to keep this quiet, but I never formally announced it, mostly because I didn’t think anyone was waiting with baited breath trying to puzzle out the secret. The reason I’m “revealing” this now is because, well, it’s already revealed via a post by Kat Stoeffel at the New York Observer today. That post was written because of the odd events of the last week involving the account, which began with a tweet last Monday.

This tweet was RT’ed and faved to an extent far beyond my wildest imaginings. It was also assumed to be the work of the actual New York Times‘ public editor by some news outlets that failed to perform a few extra seconds of due diligence. A formal complaint against the account (from whom, I don’t know) led to a suspension for being an “imposter” account.

After a week on the shelf, the account is back in action. I’m pretty fortunate in this regard; suspended accounts tend to stay that way indefinitely, or so Google tells me. However, I thought recounting what happened to @TimesPublicEdit might serve as a cautionary tale to other Twitter parodists, or just anybody who wants to build any kind of body of work on Twitter. Because you have to remember that anything you do there can be wiped out without warning, and that this is the risk you take when you scribble on someone else’s real estate.

Continue reading How to Wind Up in Twitter Jail, Starring @TimesPublicEdit →

Media Morons, Sports

One Shining Moment With Mike Francesa and Marie

I grew up listening to WFAN. Since that was (and continues to be) the Mets’ flagship station, my mom had pretty much every radio in the house tuned to it. Mike and the Mad Dog could be heard in my house post-school on any given weekday, with that duo just beginning to rail against their Target of the Day as we got off the bus.

Mike and the Mad Dog basically invented sports talk radio as we know it; i.e., two loud guys screaming at callers and each other for several hours. Growing up in a non-cable household, and thus cut off from ESPN and most televised games (particularly baseball), this was my family’s only pipeline to the world of sports and the discussion thereof in the heady First Bush/Early Clinton years, a time of tumultuous change.

With the advent of the internet, however, it seems like sports radio is an idea whose time has passed. When you can comment on a story on almost any major news site, or even start a sports-related blog of your own, waiting on hold for an hour to possibly talk to some imperious host for 8 seconds has a lot less appeal than it once did.

It has even less appeal when it comes to Mike Francesa. I don’t know if he became unlistenable after his break-up with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, or if he simply suffers from comparison to the modern internet-powered array of alternatives. In either case, I’ve come to find his brand of pomposity and shit-stirring intolerable. It doesn’t help that he is a first-degree troll when it comes to the Mets, an expert at tapping into the Self-Loathing Troglodyte segment of the team’s fanbase. I certainly don’t look at the team through rose-colored glasses, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear its every move sneered at by default, either.

I once listened to Francesa every day, whether I liked what he had to say or not, because, well, that’s what you did, right? These days, I feel no need to tune into something that pushes my buttons so much, especially when there’s so many other places I can go to that fulfill the same function as his show and then some.

On the rare occasions when I have listened in the last few years, the show seems to skew painfully old. I hear a large proportion of callers who are firmly in the Early Bird Special set, asking Francesa questions they could easily have answered via Google. (“Hey Mikey, what time does that Knicks game start tonight?”) More and more, his audience sounds like it’s made up exclusively of people who the Internet Age has left by the wayside. It’s fine and good that this crowd still has a place to commune, but it sounds like something that will age itself out of existence, and soon.

However, this demographic means you get glorious moments such as this one, which I heard in the car on my way to pick up my daughter from school yesterday. In it, Marie from Long Branch takes a hilariously long time to figure out that you can’t listen to a radio show and talk on the phone at the same time. Then, she repeats everything Francesa says for the benefit of her husband Louie before cutting to the chase: she wants in on a promotion the station is doing with McDonalds. Francesa grants her wish and finds out exactly what she likes to get in excruciating detail. Quarter pounder…fries…iced tea….entire geological age passes…

Then Francesa asks about her favorite teams and promises to send her something during the baseball season. At this point, three-plus minutes into the phone call, we discover that Marie thought she was talking to a WFAN underling, not Francesa, the whole time.

Later, we learn a bit about Marie and Louie’s met-cute backstory, and even hear from Louie himself, all of which is actually kind of endearing. (I’m a softy; sue me.) Still, the first three minutes of this call are some of most unintentionally hilarious radio I’ve heard in years. It made me laugh so hard, I literally punched my steering wheel (because laughter makes me angry).

Whatever else you want to say about Francesa, this is something you could not hear anywhere else. Take that however you will.

For a better audio clip of the tail end of this call, click here. Thanks to @CoreyNYC and @WFANAudio for sending the audio and video my way.