AFL Bashing, New York Times Style
Tim Ball
Saturday July 3, 2004
Just when you thought the Arena Football League might be allowed to enjoy just one day of peace, at the ArenaBowl no less, the New York Times has to try to snatch away the happiness like taking a Tootsie Roll from a toddler.
The ArenaFan message boards are buzzing about a bash piece on the ArenaBowl, and should be.
“An Overdone Serving of Arena Bowl (sic) Coverage” by Richard Sandomir. You can still find it here on ArenaFan or follow this link.
Sandomir, sinking into position like the Grinch before pouncing on that youngster, wrote a piece with all of the grace of a sprint to a Tijuana bathroom moments after mistakenly drinking the tap water.
His piece included the same wasted results as the contents of that toilet bowl.
Sorry for not being respectful to the prestigious New York Times and the obviously pouty Sandomir (a widdul upset for having to cover a second-tier sport?), but why not just go away or stay away. Mad or not, just go away.
Or, here’s a suggestion for Sandomir’s boss. Why not have him research the subject? He could have saved himself work on the majority of paragraphs. A real timesaver when writing a piece you don’t want to write and a heck of a deal to edit.
Pat Haden knew that he was going to be speaking to predominantly, if not completely, Arena Football fans and reveled along with us. This game was not for “novice viewers.” If they needed to know why “Hunkie and Wags” are legends this was not the day for a history lesson.
I know that happiness is an outdated idea at the Times, but seriously, it still exists. My cup was always half empty, too. All I have to do now is watch my children at an Arena Football game and my cup runneth over.
There is almost no way anyone can help a person regain the lost perspective of feeling good about sports. I assume the New York Times is based in New York so I will not waste the effort on a further redundant analogy.
Find out why New York Dragons quarterback Aaron Garcia is a “league-legend,” and also why fans do not care about him not playing in the NFL. It won’t hurt a bit.
Sticky sweet superfluity
Sandomir’s piece is a complete waste of time. Couldn’t he have written about the Red Sox-Yankees “rivalry?” You know, the rivalry between two teams that battle for trip after trip to the World Series. I mean they are tied in overall record aren’t they? No? Silly me.
Of course, writing about a championship not bought and paid for is totally foreign to a New York writer I’m sure.
Sandomir appears puzzled with not being told what is going on during the game.
He writes: “Haden and Hammond approached the game as if viewers did not need an explanation of the rules and nomenclature indigenous to the AFL.”
Well, after nineteen weeks of a season, and with a game that more than likely is going to be watched by a vast majority of AFL faithful, there is no need to tell people about the names and terms, already well established in a game with characteristics and structured guidelines they’ve experienced all year long.
This from a writer who uses the word “treacly,” as if most people reading a sports article are going to take the time to look it up.
Why stretch the bounds lexically and then not take the time to fill us all in on what them ten dollar words a-mean anyhow?
Can’t get diabetes from overly sweet words ya know.
Boiling over
Why a bash piece on the AFL? Can’t the New York Times find room for one more Op/Ed on Abu Graib?
Guess what? (No, not Sandomir. We’d be here all day) “Arena Football . . .” players, fans, AFL bigwigs, NBC, ESPN, and everyone else, knows that Arena Football is a “second-tier sport.” NBC’s approach, though criticized by many others and myself from time to time, IS indicative of a regular season broadcast. And during the regular season they explain the rules and nomenclature indigenous to the AFL.
The only mystery left to the imagination is why newspapers are still doing bash pieces on the AFL. There is no need to guess why Sandomir was sent. Depakote would lose a patient if Arena Football can work its magic on the poor little scribe from the Times. The only depression that can be found in Arena Football is the imprint of the player in the turf.
The blue-collar ethic thing, and many other qualities of Arena Football, will remain invisible to crony-ized columnists of the major news media, because they have lost that one thing about sport that makes it so fun.
Fun!
The only doubtful thing about Arena Football going from “second-tier” status to inclusion with the In-Crowd is when, not how or why. All of the pinhead pundits making a living out of the spite in finding happiness by insulting others can no longer even dream about a sport where every game really does matter.
In Sandomir’s case, the proverbial snake just bit him. If he had done his homework and not just trudged off to an assignment about some dumb wannabe football league, he could have easily learned that this year “any” game and not just every game mattered most assuredly.
And the day will come when the “news media” who cover sports realize that a better product can happen. A sport that people enjoy and enjoy each other enjoying; that sport has come. But sadly, all too many in the “news media” search to inflict discomfort and suffering in their scribal offerings to alleviate their own seared and scarred happiness. Their goal is to impress each other, who they mainly don’t even like, with pithy acerbic wit as if what they write is not going to end up collecting bird feces at the bottom of a “guilded” cage.
Imagine all of your powerful egotism ending up in a recycling bin and then you may know what a “professional” writer feels like and why they have to rage at anyone they can.
Articles like Sandomir’s are a result of a slow news day, a pissed off editor’s spiteful assignment or practical joke on the oh so important columnist guy. Or, they’re the product of a sad little spirit.
Sandomir’s piece is the same old dribble falling on deaf ears. Of course, this comes from an employee of a paper that makes millions Bush-bashing to Bush-bashers. So there is a creepy logic at play.
Re-read the article. It is sadly amazing and something we’ve all read before, but it will remind us that the AFL is far from being out of the woods. You can feel the speed at which it was created because there is nothing new but turning over the hash and warming it up.
It is clear that nothing was ventured and nothing was gained from Sandomir’s myopic-editorial attempt at a half witted bashing of a league that doesn’t deserve the treatment.
Wait ‘til next year.
Tim Ball is a writer in the Chicagoland area. Married and father of three, his opinions on Arena Football reflects the positive aspect of the game as a family event second to none in pro sports.
