Sports Broadcasting – enviable? Perhaps not so much
I'm a talk radio guy on my commute to and from work. I get sick of hearing the same 40 songs played over and over in different genres on different stations. I get even sicker of DJ's that find themselves extremely funny, when in reality, they are really one of two things - airhead or meathead, or a mix of both.
That being said, I'm going to cast out a blanket statement and guess that many readers of this blog have at one point in time thought that being a sportscaster, sports announcer or sports talker would be a great job. I mean, we've all got a million thoughts on our favorite teams, cards and otherwise. Getting paid to do this daily would be wonderful.
This morning, as I listened to one of the local Kansas City talk show hosts talk about how fired up he was about the "sticks in the Royals lineup," this season, I felt sorry for him. (Disclaimer, not originally from KC, not a KC sports fan, I just listen) The photo above represents what I believe those sticks to be and the Royals better be careful with them. Get those sticks near fire and up they'll go and by April 15th Dayton Moore will only have ashes to work with.
The point is this, unless you are a Kansas or Kansas State basketball fan, as a sports talker in Kansas City you have very little to work with these days, the same is true in other cities. It just has to be hard to wake up each day, go to work, feign excitement about the Chiefs, discuss the epic of GilgaMeche, or try and figure out what Mangino's been eating, I mean up to.
Now, that being said, we all have meetings, projects and other tasks we aren't excited about on a daily basis. Perhaps some more than others, they aren't pleasant but we get through them. However, from April to early October, broadcasters must eat, sleep, drink and I'd have to think puke Royals. That's not an enviable task. Every fifth day Grienke pitches, that's fun to talk about. Billy Butler, nice young bat. Jose Guillen, good for two to three soap operas per year. This years offseason signings - Jason Kendall (no comment) and Rick Ankiel - did you know he has a cannon for an arm in the outfield?
The phrase "ad nauseam" has never been so appropriate and for once in my life this morning, I felt sorry for someone who had to cover sports as a job.
9/23/09 – Whoops-a-Daisy Award
The Whoops-a-Daisy Award: Sometimes, you just plain messed up.
Today's award has an easy winner; Tyshawn Taylor, guard for the Kansas Jayhawks. Tyshawn made the news before basketball season started, rarely a good thing. Tyshawn was involved in a fight, late last night and wound up spending some time in Lawrence Memorial Hospital, certainly not the venue he was planning on spending his time in, when he went out that evening. Taylor will have his dislocated thumb in a splint for 10 days, to two weeks and likely miss midnight madness.
To add insult to injury, the fight was between the basketball and football teams! I mean seriously, on the Kansas-Missouri border you often hear about the Border War but in this case, the Jayhawkers were fighting among themselves!
As Matt Foley would say, "whoops-a-daisy, Tyshawn Taylor," "whoops-a-daisy."
It seems that there is a reason the Jayhawk has his right wing behind his back, his thumb is in a splint.
