Idiots Write About Sports

So Dave Albee of ANG newspapers just wrote a piece attacking Cal bloggers and likening them to the jerks who dropped F-bombs on Joe Ayoob as he left the field after the Oregon State game.

Now, I’ve got lots of issues with his piece, but the biggest is his suggestion that written criticism of a player’s performance is the moral equivalent of the “sickening, cowardly act directed at an amateur athlete” that the ugly incident in Berkeley truly was.

Albee’s proof?

Exhibit A: A lawyer in New York who’s a Cal alum said Ayoob was the “worst quarterback I have seen play for Cal in 15 years.” Albee skewers this one by name-checking Justin Vedder. (Update: except that Albee didn’t even read the whole piece, because the author even mentions Vedder:

Hard to believe, but if the much-maligned Justin Vedder were the quarterback, this team would likely be undefeated right now. Vedder’s primary flaw was that he physically couldn’t throw the ball more than 20-25 yards. He was actually quite accurate for 10-15 yard throws and made much better decisions. Ayoob, on the other hand, lacks the accuracy to consistently hit receivers 20 yards down the field. And, while Vedder was a physically short individual, it seems to me that Ayoob is a mental midget.

So, not so good with the reading comprehension there, Mr. Albee. You may not agree with that blogger’s opinion, but it’s hardly uninformed. The “mental midget” comment was a bit mean, I’ll admit. 0.25 for 1.)

Exhibit B: Another blogger says that Ayoob “folded like a bad hand of poker.” (Hey, that’s Kenny!) Um, okay, that’s not a personal attack — and let’s face it, Ayoob’s passes at the end of the OSU game were all off target. Even Ayoob admits it. Can we not criticize a player’s poor performance, or is that off limits, Dave? If it’s off limits, is it off limits to you print journalists who write about the game in the local papers? 0.25 for 2.

Exhibit C: “‘Stinkbomb,’ wrote yet another.”

Ah, Stinkbomb. That would be me. Except that what I wrote was, “There’s more than enough blame to go around for this stinkbomb.” So… let’s see, I get quoted (a single word — how much more out of context can you get?) for something I said that was specifically meant to go beyond Ayoob and spread the blame for the awful OSU loss around. But heck, Dave, if you want to paint us all with a broad brush, go right ahead. 0.25 for 3.

An aside: Roger Ebert just reviewed “Doom.” Curious what he thought of it? “Great!” Oh, should I mention that he gave it one star and said that it’s one of the worst movies of the year? But he did use the word. He did not, however, use the word “stinkbomb.”

Now I’ll grant you, Albee’s piece is not necessarily the most focused. After lumping bloggers in with “Mr. And Mrs. Leatherlungs,” he goes on to explain:

What needs to be understood and remembered is Ayoob is learning on the fly. Tedford recruited him as a gun-slinging quarterback out of City College of San Francisco, which runs an Urban Meyer Utah-style offense with four and five wide-receiver sets. Ayoob had the freedom to make plays with his arm and legs at CCSF.

Now it appears Tedford, for the time being, is trying to turn Ayoob into a modern-day Trent Dilfer. You know: Here’s the ball. Don’t make any mistakes. Don’t blow it.

Ayoob is quarterbacking a Cal offense that usually runs out of the I-formation and lately has been running on spare tires.

So Tedford tried playing conservatively on offense, calling short, quick, high-percentage, confidence-building pass plays for Ayoob, waiting for the right moment to take a chance with him.

Hmm. Sounds reasonable. In fact, it sounds like what I wrote, just one paragraph before I used the word “stinkbomb!”

Tedford’s not a miracle worker; he may be able to take this guy and, Baltimore Ravens-like, make him useful by drastically reducing the chances he’s got to make mistakes. You know, high-percentage passes and handoffs.

So Dave, this is what I have to say to you: I don’t appreciate being used. I don’t like being quoted laughably out of context in order for you to prove your vague thesis that mean people said mean things about Joe Ayoob, but he proved ‘em all wrong by making completions in the fourth quarter against WSU.

Now, am I surprised when a sports reporter for a newspaper attacks someone who’s writing about sports on the Internet? Of course I’m not. In the old days, only print journalists had the bully pulpit. They could opine whenever they liked, and nobody else got a turn. Now the rest of us get a turn, too. We even get to bite back when someone lifts a single word from an 805-word posting.

In a related story, on Saturday, Eric Gilmore of the Contra Costa Times writes an article titled, “Lunatic Fringe sighting at Cal.” He, too, brings up the mean people who said nasty things to Ayoob. He also brings up someone we think we know:

To that whack job with a computer, waging an Internet campaign to pressure coach Jeff Tedford into benching Ayoob: Get a life. Better yet, get some perspective.

Yes, Seth, he’s talking about you. And — here’s me being honest again — your posts certainly do give people the impression that you might be a bit overly crazed and lacking in perspective about Cal football.

Now, I don’t appreciate Gilmore bringing up Brian Sabean’s “Lunatic Fringe” statement — don’t get me started on how wrong Sabean was to say that. (I do, however, own the shirt.) But I do agree with him about something:

Maybe these F-bomb-dropping fans have been on Cal’s football bandwagon only a few years. Maybe they didn’t experience the Tom Holmoe era and his 1-10 finale in 2001. Maybe they didn’t suffer through Keith Gilbertson’s reign in Berkeley, which ended with a 3-8 mark in 1995. Maybe they just spent too much time before last week’s game discussing zone blitzes with Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan and couldn’t control their emotions.

There is certainly a section of Cal fans who are bandwagon-jumpers — just look at the attendance at Cal games the past few years. The Tedford era has brought new fans, and many of them are not happy about losing football games. Some of those people — students, alumni, hangers-on, blog-comment-posters — are probably among the complainers.

So let me put this down here again, just to get on the record: I criticize Cal when they play poorly. Not only did I see Holmoe coach, but I saw Mariucci’s 6-6 season, Gilby’s long slide into irrelevance, the dawning of Bruce Snyder’s era, and, yes, the horror days of Joe Kapp.

By the way, since when do sports reporters lay into people who write critical things about sports? Hello, pot, this is kettle.

(Update: I wrote Dave Albee an e-mail. He wrote me back. I won’t paste in his entire message, but to excerpt:

I appreciate your passion and honesty. It wasn’t a personal attack on you. In hindsight, I should have been more careful on deadline using that word… Basically everyone was piling on Ayoob and I was committed on deadline to unpiling it… I’m not an expert on the inner workings of blogging, but it’s my impression that people who do criticize coaches and players do not have accountability. Though I commend them for their passion and writing skills and some analysis, I also question their expertise and intentions. I believe your expertise to be good as well as your intentions…. I’m sorry my column impacted you the way it did, but the blogging references were made for emphasis, as an example of the lunatic fringe, not as a personal indictment.

Let me say publicly that I appreciate Dave’s prompt and heartfelt response. However, I do strongly disagree with his appropriation of a single word from my 820-word piece in order to buttress his case that frothing-at-the-mouth Internet freaks are out to get Joe Ayoob.

More odd is that someone else in the press box pulled my blog item up on his laptop during the game, and showed it to Dave. Wow, there’s the power of Google right there. Hey guys up in the press box — I’m 20 rows back in section FF. Look down and to the left and you can see the back of my head. Don’t throw any spitballs!

In terms of accountability, one more thing: no, I do not have to see the players and coaches of Cal on a regular basis. In one way that’s freeing, because I can write what I want without feeling pressured to be nice in order to curry favor with my sources. On the other hand, I do have a very 21st century sort of accountability. Anyone can post in this blog’s comment area. Anyone can write me an e-mail. Resourceful types can find me at home or at work — a certain TV host who shall not be named called me at work just the other week to complain about something we wrote about her two years ago on TeeVee. If people want to complain about what I write, there are plenty of avenues for it. More open avenues, I might add, than the letters column in the local newspaper. If Joe Ayoob’s parents want to call me up and harangue me for saying that I think their son might not be good enough to hold the QB job in 2006, I will be kind and courteous to them. I can’t speak for every other blogger in the world, but here at Idiots Write About Sports — get the self-deprecating title? — we are a responsible, upstanding sort.)

Referenced by The Seventh Inning Stretch, in the entry Proud Bloggerback:
I'm in the sports section today! The strong criticism of Ayoob didn't stop there, however. Bears faultfinders had a field day on the Internet. Call them Monday Morning Bloggerbacks. "Worst quarterback I have seen play for Cal in 15 years," wrote one......

"Band hand of poker!"

That's me!

Yes indeed it is Kenny. I forgot to link to you. I'll do that now. And congratulations on being singled out by Dave Albee!

Posted by Jason at October 25, 2005 04:13 PM

I basically skated for an hour at work today, Seth... fortunately it came after a gigantic load of work the past two weeks so it was more like therapy than playing hooky. thanks!

Posted by Jason at October 25, 2005 07:57 PM

Hmm... while it is flattering to think that more than five people read my blog, I'm assuming that there was more than one blogger out there who said that Ayoob is the worst quarterback he's seen in 15 years.

The mental midget comment *was* a little mean though...

I dunno, War... I did a Google search and yours was the only one that turned up. And since that's how I assume the guys in the press box found our blogs, I'm gonna give you the sash and bouquet for this one.

Google reads all our blogs. And then shares them with the press box, apparently.

Posted by Jason at October 26, 2005 08:30 AM

Very well written. The appropriate balance of charitable and honest for a "defensive piece".

I wish my blog showed up higher on the Google list...

Ah well, I will take responsibility for being mean to Mr. Ayoob, then. I wonder how Mr. Writer found my blog anyway? Perhaps a Google search of "Worst Cal Bear Quarterback Ever?"

Great article, Jason! You make snippy sound nice. I wish I could do that.

1. Notice the over-generalizing of the accountable (sic) mainstream journalists of bloggers as bandwagon fans. I, too, have written something negative about Cal football this year... and I, too, have been around since the Bruce Snyder era (we hardly knew ya). Challenge: name ONE blogger (not commenter) that is a bandwagon fan. Did the article have any, or just a libelous accusation? (Some irony there, wouldn't be libel if bloggers mattered enough to qualify as public figures like real journalists, eh?) Just curious, where do I send something to hold them accountable on this issue? And not in a way that lets them send me a half-baked apology email, in a real CORRECT-the-text way. The kind a blogger offers.

2. "Mental midget" - to me, this remark is textually distasteful because "midget" is waning as an acceptable word... don't confuse this coarseness with meanness towards Ayoob. His mental stature is a legitimate attribute for all of us sports journalists to comment on. If pretty boy Tom Brady can parlay Trent Green numbers into a Hall of Fame berth for his "mental stature" we can also look to the deficit in Ayoob. Using height as the metaphor worked in that sentence, given the comparison motif the author was using. Lose "midget" and it is ok. "Height challenged" is just fine. Whatever the current PC word is. So I vote 0.00 for 3.00.

3. If you search a well-written piece that is thoughtful and analytic about a Cal game and find the VERY most hyperbolic word and present it as the only evidence on whether that the piece is hyperbolic, then you fail journalism 101. Bzzt, sorry, thanks for playing. That is not reporting, not even close. That is sensationalism (at best). When the word is mis-contexted to be about only Ayoob... time to contact the ombudsperson. Adding insult to idiocy, he still seems to be characterizing it as a proper example as originally reported!

Final comment:
In this war of journalist v. blogger that they seem so unshakably determined to start up, why don't they have better moves dreamed up to play? Something dazzling to draw attention AWAY from us, make us seem useless or inane. "Bloggers suck." That's it? Ow. Some times I have to look up the article to make sure some blogger is not inventing a strawperson.

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