When sports metaphors go horribly awry...

September 9, 2009 8:38 PM

Most insensitive sports column ever? Mark Whicker of the Orange County Register muses about the kidnapping, rape, brainwashing and 18-year imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard, wondering what she missed in the sports world. "She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. ... Mike Tyson now makes fun of himself in movies."

He's already apologized.

Full disclosure: I worked directly with Whicker, nearly 20 years ago. Great writer, usually. Swing and a huge miss with this one, though.

posted by Cool Papa Bell (50 comments total)

Sometimes idiots mean well.
posted by Xoebe at 8:41 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

I propose a moratorium on Metafilter posts concerning people from Orange County who make exceedingly offensive remarks and then apologize for them.
posted by Creosote at 8:51 PM on September 9, 2009 [4 favorites]

I propose a moratorium on Metafilter posts concerning people from Orange County who make exceedingly offensive remarks and then apologize for them.

Well, I guess that's it for Orange County.
posted by maxwelton at 9:03 PM on September 9, 2009 [23 favorites]

She also missed the premiere of Tom Hanks in The Da Vinci Code, getting her first Mafia Wars invitation, and the upsurge in rappers who beat the shit out of their girlfriends and then write songs about how sorry they are. So, every cloud.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:08 PM on September 9, 2009 [6 favorites]

OMG how long do you think it will take her to catch up on all that TV? You can't just go around pretending that entire seasons of Ally McBeal never even fucking happened.
posted by hermitosis at 9:12 PM on September 9, 2009 [9 favorites]

Well she also got to miss the three Star Wars prequels.


Too soon?
posted by cazoo at 9:15 PM on September 9, 2009

Orange County.
posted by Brosef K at 9:21 PM on September 9, 2009

The President and CEO, as well as most of the editorial and management staff of this publication can be found here.

I'm writing a letter to the CEO, taking the editors to task. No editor should have approved this.
posted by dejah420 at 9:24 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Where was the editor? How did this story get past that person as well?
posted by Jinx of the 2nd Law at 9:29 PM on September 9, 2009

He has written an apology now.
posted by gemmy at 9:30 PM on September 9, 2009

"More than that, who's going to explain the fact that there's a President Obama?"

I'm with Xoebe. Seems like a moron struggling for poignancy and empathy for a tragedy not at all related to sports.
You know who else missed Barry Bonds breaking the single-season Major League record for home runs? Six million Jews.
Yeah, just cataclysmically stupid. 'Now, that's deprivation.' Wow. Not even tasteless really, or offensive...just like watching an idiot continually electrocute himself the same way over and over because he doesn't get it.
I mean, it is a shame she didn't get to go to school, have a normal life, watch sports. But she was, y'know, being horribly abused, so...
And the 'Congratulations' 'You left the yard.' ... just reading as charitably as I possibly can looking for some sort of meaning and...man it's like trying to sell grapes to a dog. Just no clue what's going on there, what he had in mind... maybe he was drunk when he wrote it or on pils or something but... the piece is a tragedy in and of itself really.
Can you apologize for stupid? Stupid all around.
I mean, it got published, no?
Y'know, thank God really our society has advanced to the point where folks like this don't starve to death anymore or aren't dressed in colorful clothes to be pelted with horseapples and dead cats for sport, 'cos yeah, I don't think anything was meant there.
But on the other hand time was best you could do was scream from a high wall in the middle of the night thinking the moon was going to crush you to piss everyone in the village off.
posted by Smedleyman at 9:45 PM on September 9, 2009 [9 favorites]

Although, to be fair, I missed the recent Brisbane mefi meetup for similar reasons.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:52 PM on September 9, 2009

Understood that anyone who writes about 150 columns for more than 20 years is gonna blow it at least once, but it's still amazing that he'd think it was a good idea and, as people have noted, that an editor/editors would approve this.

Bad enough in concept, but flabbergasting that he would think it's any way appropriate to close with •And ballplayers, who always invent the slang no matter what ESPN would have you believe, came up with an expression for a home run that you might appreciate.

Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.

Unreal.
posted by ambient2 at 9:56 PM on September 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

You also missed the development of an animated gif that perfectly summarizes this story.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:02 PM on September 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

So on a scale of one to ten Easterbrooks, how does this rate?
posted by rokusan at 10:43 PM on September 9, 2009 [4 favorites]

I haven't payed too much attention to this story after it broke, but I do recall she worked in her kidnapper's copy shop, and even sent email to people. I don't think there's any reason to suspect that if she had been a sports fan she wouldn't have been able to follow what was going on.
posted by delmoi at 11:50 PM on September 9, 2009

I mentioned this at Sportsfilter, but Whicker basically invented a new literary genre: light hearted shock humor.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:07 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

It might be . . . it could be . . . it IS! A stinker! Holy cowpatty!
posted by lukemeister at 1:38 AM on September 10, 2009

He has written an apology now.

That's not an apology. That's the typical "I'm sorry you were offended".
posted by hydropsyche at 4:05 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Wow. The article and his apology remind me of the time my stepmother-in-law, unbeknownst to me, took my children with her on a liquor store run to replenish the stocks she'd just spent the evening depleting, and later apologized to me for "having caused you to be upset." Obtuse individuals rarely have enough self-awareness to suffer genuine regret.
posted by cowpattybingo at 4:17 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Pure Alan Partridge.
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 4:50 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

"That's not an apology"

I disagree. When you have to write "I'm hopeful that I can be forgiven for this lapse of professionalism" and promising to "earn back trust" you're apologising. You're not blaming your readers for not getting it.
posted by MuffinMan at 4:52 AM on September 10, 2009 [3 favorites]

Well she also got to miss the three Star Wars prequels.


Too soon?

It's never too soon to miss the Star Wars prequels.
posted by tommasz at 5:17 AM on September 10, 2009 [5 favorites]

This:

This column appears to have disconnected that bond with at least part of our readers. For that I apologize.

is "I'm sorry you were offended."

But then the next three paragraphs seem to be a genuine apology:

It's impossible to unring a bell or to bring back a column that has already been transmitted. In many ways the damage is done. I'm hopeful that I can be forgiven for this lapse of professionalism by those who were affected most profoundly.

I'll try to earn back the trust of those customers in my future endeavors.

Again, I regret this incident and apologize to all concerned.

I actually thought that was one of the classiest apologies I'd read in awhile. There was no 'I was tired and on a deadline and blah blah' just that he made a mistake.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:38 AM on September 10, 2009

I'm hopeful that I can be forgiven for this lapse of professionalism by those who were affected most profoundly.

The guy still doesn't have an editor, it appears. How about: "I hope those who were offended will forgive me"?
posted by stargell at 5:50 AM on September 10, 2009

Tone-deaf. I wonder if he cribbed from the Beloit Mindset List.
posted by box at 6:11 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

Reason #4597 to avoid being kidnapped, raped, imprisoned and forced to bear a psychopath's children: Would miss lots of televised sports.
posted by electroboy at 7:37 AM on September 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

I saw this earlier off of Deadspin, and I'm sorry, but the apology rings false. No bell ringing analogy can make up for this. That's, to me, the point. By making analogies, the author of this crap fails. He wrote something that is utterly and totally without merit, about a situation of abject horror that fell nowhere within his purview, yet he felt the need to try to encompass it. I'm sorry doesn't begin to cover it. I should never have ever though this was a good idea starts to get at it. Dear god, what was I thinking, I resign, and choose to spend the rest of my life counseling rape victims, that sounds about right.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:38 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

"lapse of professionalism" indeed. What an asshole. He and his editor should be strung up. How the fuck you even remotely connect anything sports related with the horror this young woman and her family went/are going through, I have no idea. Another fine example of how journalism is in the toilet.
posted by phogirl at 7:45 AM on September 10, 2009

I didn't see an apology to the real victims: All the Olympic athletes he left out of his recap. What, he didn't think Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps were worth mentioning? For shame. And how is Major League Soccer supposed to grow in America when people rescued 18 years after they've been kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery aren't even told who David Beckham is and why we should care that he plays for the LA Galaxy?
posted by klangklangston at 7:54 AM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

klang, let's be fair: who Beckham is, and why, occasionally, when he really feels like it, he plays for the Galaxy (whoever they are) as an audition for some team that really matters.

After all, we have to stick to what really matters.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:32 AM on September 10, 2009

I think the reason the apology rings so false to me is that he never seems to understand why people are upset or why what he did was really not good. He acknowledges that he bothered people and lost their trust, and that's bad, but he still doesn't seem to get why using a woman's 18 years of imprisonment and sexual slavery as a framework for his Sports Greatest Hits story is wrong.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:24 AM on September 10, 2009

Interview

I think it's pretty clear the apology was not so sincere.
posted by kmz at 9:41 AM on September 10, 2009

Yeah, okay, given that interview, he's a twit, who doesn't get why the flippant tone of that column was really not okay.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:48 AM on September 10, 2009

This was pretty funny, though.
posted by klangklangston at 9:56 AM on September 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

The "left the yard" line is classic.--truly offensive jokes writ large. I can't believe the newspaper still has it online. I would expect to see it disappear soon. I hope not, but I expect it.

I honestly don't think Jaycee or her family would care very much about this column at all. There are tons of vultures out there exploiting her story already. Just one more jackass.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:59 AM on September 10, 2009

This was pretty funny, though.

I dunno. I found them both about as offensive. The first one is more funny in a laugh at the schmuck writer. The second one likes to keep making the rape joke over and over.

Actually, I think I find the second one more offensive.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:10 AM on September 10, 2009

I think you're mistaking "offensive" for the opposite of "funny."
posted by klangklangston at 10:46 AM on September 10, 2009

I just emailed the guy......and he wrote BACK!!!!

{Way to go. Hopefully they put your picture next to Assclown in the dictionary!

Assclown:
One whose stupidity and/or ineptitude exceeds the descriptive potential of both the terms ass and clown in isolation, and in so doing demands to be referred to as the conjugate of the two.

Didn't read the whole column but did you mention the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004?}


Reply: Yes, I did -

Wow, the balls on this guy?!! - Next stop TMZ!!!
posted by ktrain at 12:01 PM on September 10, 2009

Operation Get More Page Views is a smashing success!
Another newspaper staves off bankruptcy for a few months.
posted by scrowdid at 12:04 PM on September 10, 2009

Does this guy not have an editor????
posted by Spaizy at 12:36 PM on September 10, 2009

Maybe the editor is also an idiot.
posted by joni. at 1:56 PM on September 10, 2009

You know, complaining to the guy about his awful column while simultaneously mentioning that you didn't read it isn't the greatest way to raise the level of discourse.
posted by rokusan at 4:38 PM on September 10, 2009 [1 favorite]

No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus taste.
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:17 PM on September 10, 2009

Does this guy not have an editor????

Are you ready?

Some readers criticized the editors who approved the column as much as they did Whicker. He said, however, that he didn't get any calls from the newsroom after he submitted his column over Labor Day weekend.

Assistant Sports Editor Todd Harmonson said in a phone interview Wednesday that someone else filled in for him in editing the column because he was off, though he declined to say who. The column went through both a content and copy edit.

I.e., "the intern did it."
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:35 PM on September 10, 2009

Whoa. She missed the entire "Duke Nukem Forever" saga.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:54 PM on September 10, 2009

@Marissa - that would certainly explain things... I would think the writer deserves a stern talking-to and the dude who left the intern at the wheel should get shit-canned.
posted by Spaizy at 6:40 AM on September 11, 2009

It's still live ... and a lot of the newspaper commentators are supporting Whicker.
posted by mrgrimm at 7:03 AM on September 11, 2009

To answer the original question: Yes.
posted by Matthias Rascher at 9:37 AM on September 11, 2009

Editor's apology
posted by mrgrimm at 3:32 PM on September 11, 2009