Tuesday, April 12, 2011

KNOW WHEN YOU'VE OUTGROW THE MISTAKEN ASSUMPTIONS: My name is John Steigerwald. As many of you know, I wrote an article that didn't go over that well. Some people thought it was insensitive of me to blame Brian Stow for being beaten by Dodgers fans because he wore a Giants jersey to Dodger Stadium, and then to suggest that people should insult him if he ever wakes up from his coma. In fact, I achieved the rare 0% on the commentariat's Tomatometer. Bad for me! Well, I am an intelligent human being, and I certainly did learn some things this week. The things I learned included the following:

  1. In my article, I relied repeatedly on the assumption that people "think that wearing the jersey makes them part of the team." They don't!

  2. On a related note, Halloween is now going to be much less terrifying.

  3. On another related note, my "why isn't sports merchandising punishable under the fraud laws?" article is going to get a heavy edit.

  4. I said repeatedly that wearing jerseys means that you are not dressed like a "regular human being." Professional sports are played by human beings? Get out of town. There is egg on my face.

  5. My editor has just now informed me that when I say "there is egg on my face," I do not literally have to put egg on my face. Kleenex, please. Also, please feel free to return to town.

  6. I also just now learned that paragraphs can be longer than two sentences. I thought that you were supposed to put a paragraph break where you take a breath. Many times in the past have I passed out and awakened face-down in the carpet after trying to cram three or more sentences into a paragraph. In fact, that rug burn explains why my face is so red in my head shot.

11 comments:

  1. But, of course, it's Philadelphia sports fans that are the problem.

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  2. isaac_spaceman9:23 PM

    Have you seen how many fight-seeking jersey-wearers there are in Philadelphia?

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  3. They show up, even at Eagles games.

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  4. I've often wondered why my own decades of dedicated work as an underinformed but opinionated asshole never landed me a sportswriting job at a second rate city paper.  Where's the justice?  Where?

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  5. The fight-seeking jersey wearing Eagle fans also show up at Redskins games and Giants games.

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  6. Bill Simmons has written, very eloquently in my opinion, about how our media-saturated landscape has driven sports commentators -- on TV, radio, internet, and in the so-called "news papers" -- to be more and more extreme in their commentary and manufacture controversies in order to draw attention to themselves and prove their relevance.  I don't absolve Steigerwald of responsbility here (and where the heck was his editor, by the way?) but I do think the culture of sports commentary and the need to find a fresh take on an incident hundreds of other people are writing about definitely contributes to garbage like this asinine column.   

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  7. As a native Pittsburgher who dealt with Steigerwald being insane through all of my formative years, it was kind of fun to see the rest of the internet realize how crazy he was yesterday.  

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  8. mikeski2:24 PM

    If Stegerwald was an ice cream, he'd be Pralines & Dick.

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  9. Original Ray4:04 PM

    Plus, that moustache!

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  10. ...and in Giants and Rangers bars on Manhattan.  It's a special breed.

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  11. isaac_spaceman5:38 PM

    Incidentally, today he responded.  The synopsis:  you've misinterpreted my article, and I was right. 

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