Category Archives: Skitch Hanson

Football, Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: Jeters Always Prosper

Today, Scratchbomb hands over the reins to nationally syndicated sports columnist Skitch Hanson. You may know him as the author of the highly popular column “Up The Middle,” recipient of the 2006 Mitch Albom Award for Most Self-Righteous Moralizing in a Single Sports Column. You may have read his best-selling books “Numbers Prove Nothing Except When They Do” and “No One Will Ever Be Better than Willie Mays Because I Said So”. He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show Four Paunchy White Guys . Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

Many Yankees fans are calling for Joe Torre’s head, now that he’s failed to deliver yet another World Series title. But if you cut off Torre’s head, then the Yankees will literally lose their head as well.

No, make that figuratively. Figuratively lose their head. In any case, it would be bad.

But since there’s no way that Cleveland was simply a better team than the Yankees, someone must be to blame. If you want to know who’s really responsible for the Yankees’ postseason failure, there’s only one man you need to look to. And I know this won’t be a very popular opinion, but I have to say it anyway.

That’s right: Alex Rodriguez.

Continue reading Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: Jeters Always Prosper →

Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: Fall Back to Spring Forward

Today, Scratchbomb takes a break from YouTube-Phoria to welcome back sports columnist Skitch Hanson. You may know him as the author of the highly popular syndicated sports column “Up The Middle,” the six-time winner of the Mike Lupica Award for Most One-Sentence Paragraphs Written In A Year. You may have read his best-selling books “You Don’t Have To Understand Something To Hate It” and “Why Everything Good In The World Happened 30 Years Ago”. He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show YELLING. Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

Spring Fever is in the air. And it’s not the Spring Fever I caught at a Bennigan’s in Gainesville last March that actually turned out to be Hepatitis A.

No, this Spring Fever is Spring Training, a virulent pandemic causing inflammations of Excitement throughout the nation, bursting pustules of Anticipation, and scratchy red patches of Hope. This Spring is a highly contagious affliction for which there is no cure. And unlike my Spring Fever, this one won’t cause liver failure.

Baseball is more than America’s Pasttime. It’s a metaphor for the changing of the seasons, the ebb and flow of time. We suffer through a hard winter, with snow and sleet and seasonal effective disorder. Then suddenly baseball reemerges to give us a reason to live once again, right when we’re at the end of our collective rope–I mean, when we’re literally
ready to throw a noose over a beam in our collective basement.

Continue reading Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: Fall Back to Spring Forward →

Baseball, Skitch Hanson

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson

Lots of stuff has been going on in the sports world lately, and the one-man editor’s board of Scratchbomb can’t cover it all. So we’re delighted to welcome Skitch Hanson to our fold. You may know him as the author of the highly popular syndicated sports column “Up The Middle,” the six-time winner of the AP’s Fence Sitter Award for “Writing Least Likely To Offend Anyone”. You may have read his best-selling books “Your Eight Heavenly Visitors: The Afterlife Made Easy!” and “My Saintly Mentor”. You may have seen him on ESPN’s “SportsCranks,” where he’s often seen debating against his “urban”
counterpoint, b-ball pundit Hoops Washington. Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

It’s Super Bowl Week, and everyone who’s anyone is in Miami. Since I’m somebody, that’s where I find myself now. My employers at the syndicate have put me up at the Jupiter Best Western, a mere 2 hour drive from Dolphins Stadium. Perks abound for media types like myself. For instance, you know what the breakfast buffet in the hotel has? Those tiny little poppy seed and orange muffins. All you can eat.

I love tiny muffins.

But I am not in south Florida for muffins. I am here for Super Bowl XLI. The Colts versus the Bears. These two teams have never faced each other in a championship game. But there’s an even bigger first that will happen for the first time on February 4th.

A first so big it warrants a one-sentence paragraph.

Possibly even a sentence fragment.

This Sunday, for the first time in the history of the NFL, both Super Bowl teams will be coached by Afro-Americans. Those two coaches are Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears and Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts. And typing out their full names and team names has allowed me to fill precious column inches.

Precious, precious column inches.

Continue reading Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson →