Idiots Write About Sports

Let us pause a moment to thank reader mtvcdm whose alerts about Jim Caple’s latest columns serve two purposes — 1) Feeding the rapacious beast that is the Jim Caple Hack-O-Meter and 2) sparing us from actually having to read Mr. Caple’s articles. We laud mtvcdm for his selfless efforts, and while we worry that his exposure to dangerous levels of hackery may have lasting long-term health effects, we figure that the fact he’s reading this blog has inured him to terrible writing.

Now, about those hacks…

Mtvcdm wonders if this column on Mike Krzyzewski turning down the Laker job qualifies as the dreaded “fake quote” column. “This one may require a judge’s ruling,” mtvcdm writes, “but it’s close enough for me.”

Well, the judges have finished their deliberations, and they’ve ruled that a column with fake e-mails to Mike Krzyzewski is not a fake quote column. (Justice Scalia, of course, dissented.) They did conclude, however, that it was a crummy column.

You want a fake quote column? This is a fake quote column.

Now, mtvcdm’s other find — this article on the Eric Gagne’s save streak, in which Jim Caple also reminds us for the 496,783rd tim this season that David Wells is a fat, fat fatty who likes to drink a bit — deserves some special attention. Because it gets to the heart of why we do this Hack-O-Meter thing. (And no, it’s not because we’re cruel bastards. Well, not entirely…)

The Hack-O-Meter tracks tired, over-used gimmicks and turns of phrase because it is our considered opinion that they detract from an column’s quality and impact. The Eric Gagne column is a perfect example, because it is actually a well-written and engaging column. It takes a story in the news — Gagne’s 84-consecutive-saves streak is snapped — and uses that to advance an interesting premise — the save rule, as currently constituted, is really, really dumb. Such an article should trigger a number of thought-provoking questions for baseball fans — is the save rule flawed? can it be fixed? how exactly does one measure the effectiveness of a relief pitcher, anyhow? — and after reading it, we should rush to our assorted blogs to compose thoughtful responses on what we think about the save rule.

Instead, what are we doing? Noting that Jim Caple called David Wells a fat drunk. Again.

We’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s the most effective way for a writer to use his or her platform. The vote here is for “ineffective,” but I guess for some people, page views are page views.

Let’s update that tote board…

David Wells is Fat! — 5
Steve Bartman references — 2
Grady Little references — 2
References to the Oakland Athletics’ poor fundamentals — 1
“I Hate the Yankees” references — 1
Derisive references to Alex Rodriguez as “Cap’n” — 1
Derisive references to Tom Hicks — 1
Fake Quote columns — 1