Idiots Write About Sports

Speaking of running things into the ground, what’s our old pal Jim Caple been up to? Why, it’s another one of his delightful Fake Quote stories, this one featuring Pedro Martinez.

Yes. It is true. It brings me great shame to admit it, but the Yankees are my Daddy. I never knew until recently because my father left my mother before I was born.

“The Dodgers, of course, are my mother, and I loved her as I love life itself. She was the most beautiful woman in the world; and when I close my eyes now, I can still see her dressed in the purest whites and deepest blues you have ever seen. She sacrificed everything to raise me and my older brother, Ramon. She worked in the fields until her hands were raw and her back ached, and yet she always found time in the early evening to teach Ramon and I how to throw a beanball.”

And it goes on from there — for another mind-numbing NINE paragraphs. If the young people considering careers in comedy writing are out there, I hope you take a good look at this and realize that the Fake Quote premise can only stretch so far. Fundamentals, young people!

We’ve been on the go a great deal and, per our vow, largely not reading Page 2. (Largely, I say — watch this space tomorrow.) Thankfully, several readers including the noble mtvcdm have dropped us friendly reminders to let us know when Jim Caple has been going to the used joke drawer, including his I Hate the Yankees schtick, a reference to David Wells vis-a-vis his being an out-of-shape fellow with a taste for beer, and did Jim mention he hates the Yankees. Because he does, you know.

Oh, and apparently, the A’s occasionally forget to touch home plate. I had no idea.

Near as I can figure, that brings the Mighty Jim Caple Hack-O-Meter to:

David Wells is Fat! — 6
“I Hate the Yankees” references — 4
Steve Bartman references — 3
Fake Quote columns — 2
Grady Little references — 2
References to the Oakland Athletics’ poor fundamentals — 2
Derisive references to Alex Rodriguez as “Cap’n” — 1
Derisive references to Tom Hicks — 1

So David Wells is Fat! remains your leader, with Caple’s hatred for the Yankees closing fast. Of course, it’s playoff time, so I got a feeling Bartman and Grady Little will be finishing strong.

And if all this appears a bit unseemly — the constant mocking of Jim Caple and his familiar bag of tricks — we invite you to journey back in time to the comments section of the first Hack-O-Meter installement where reader MuM weighs in with an assessment of the Hack Man (and we don’t mean Jeffrey Leonard):

The hackneyed toteboard is a great idea, but you may need to employ Deep Blue to calculate the density of crap he produces on a daily basis. I think instead you should just simply multiply all of his articles by their wordcount. Divide it by the amount of times he has made a good argument (0) and you have an index of CapleCrap.

Folks, compared to that slam, our humble little Hack-O-Meter is a mere love tap.

And speaking of running Fake Quote Columns into the ground, Hack Alert. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/040930
Not ONLY is Caple running his argument against the Expos move out of Youppi!'s mouth today, he had already run the same argument out of his OWN mouth just yesterday:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=caple_jim&page=caple_jim

Nice work getting paid twice for writing the same thing twice, Jim. Don't people get fired for this?

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