The Catcher in the Rye of Sportswriting
I just started working on a short story yesterday. Here’s chapter one, which probably features loads of errors, but here it is in its entirety with no grammar/spell checking yet:
[1]
Walking down the flashy corridors leading to the press box in Tiger Stadium made me awfully sick that day on October 11, 2003. Assigned by my editor, John Wojcichowksi, to cover the Florida Gators/LSU Tigers matchup, clearly to bring more clarity to the sports section in the paper I worked for, the National Enquirer.
For years, the sports section was defined as the child’s section in the newspaper business, noted to not be able to compete with bigger news, the kind of news related to politics, crime, or even celebrity news. It was the section that was said to have belonged in the two bit echelons of the paper, something that most ‘average’ people read. The columns being written by sportswriters, sports journalists; reporters and columnists known to be the low-rate journalists who weren’t as good as the political reporters.
Those adages were given to sportswriting 40 to 50 years prior to that day in 2003. As of that gloomy October day, sportswriting had taken on a whole new task. There were no longer professionals sitting in the press boxes. In lieu of the professionals who were once touted as low-rate journalists, there were the flimsy douchebags such as myself who happened to be covering sports often yet not being called dirty names by our peers, though called much worse than the golden day professionals by sports fans and readers.
What made me the most nauseous was my colleagues I worked with that day. They were, and probably still are, all fuckin’ phonies.
As I made my way towards the press box entrance, I was approched by Daniel Gomez of the Louisiana Times-Picayune.
“Will, where the hell have you been? I should have locked your ass out!”
“Dan, calm the fuck down, I got a press pass. Jesus. Don’t want you to blow a load in your panties.”
“Very funny, with your stupid ass dry remarks that are so obsolete”
“I try.”
“Okay. Whatever. Get in.”
I weaved through the crowded — but purpotedly spacious — room to get to my assigned area. The white table top of the area that I would sit my notebook down to write gave me a sense of organization. I looked around the room, observing everybody who was making small talk with each other. I could have joined in but I didn’t want to. I hated small talk. I thought it was fickle, perhaps phony conversations that were never developed into anything more. Every time somebody ever tried to make small talk with me, I ended almost every conversation by bringing up a futile question that was tough to answer, such as the United States’ forces getting ready to infiltrate Iraq — a subject that was too broad to give a whopping observation on.
Most of the people in the press box knew me, and knew me pretty well. I had the reputation of arriving to games supposedly drunk. Everybody knew I was drunk, they just didn’t bother to get me in trouble over it. I still done my job, I just wasn’t sober like everybody else. I didn’t want to converse with those douchebags. I wanted to complete my task and move on. I honestly didn’t care for journalism. People outside of the business make it out to be a dream job when, in reality, it’s most definitely not. It’s hell. The deadlines are excruciating, the people you work with — as obvious — are dickheads, and the money isn’t so great. Oh, and the athletes and coaches are grade-A prima donnas.
I am a sportswriter because writing about sports is the one talent I have that won’t derail when I’m drunk. I can do it in my sleep. I can do it while wearing a hat. I can do it while petting a cat. I can do it while eating green eggs and ham! A sportswriter I am! In short, it’s the one career I know I can succeed in no matter what.
I noticed that I was the one of the three journalists that were writing on a notebook instead of typing on a laptop. In my earlier drunken stupor, I left my laptop, that was filled with pre-game notes that would have been helpful in the upcoming recap of the game, out in my car. But I figured, hell, at least I had a pen and a full notebook to sketch in my thoughts as the game ensued.
My feelings for the Tigers and Gators were, and still are to this day, pretty neutral. I hate both of them, so it was easy writing a recap for the game (the outcome was 19-7 Gators, by the way). I expressed my thoughts freely, as the others in the room just shook their heads. The phony bastards glared at me, like they were above me, or something.
See, there was a rule put in place about 10 years ago that if you’re a journalist going into a press box, you should display no favortism whatsoever, or else you will be ejected. That makes me shake my head, however. Everybody has an opinion, I don’t care who you are. The people I’ve always worked with have had one about the two teams that were playing on that given day, but won’t express it in the box, which, to me, makes them phonier than ever for hiding it.
I’m the Catcher in the Rye of Sportswriting.
Tags: 2003, Announcers, Blogging, Books, Catcher in the Rye of Sportswriting, College Football, Florida Gators, LSU Tigers, NCAA Football, Reading, Reporters, Sports, Sports Fiction, Sports Writing, Sportswriting, Writing
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