Granted: We don't read the sports pages of newspapers to be informed about consequential happenings; we read them to be entertained. They're part of the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine of "hard news" go down.
Do we read them, though, to see how adorably headline writers can distort athletes' names to make them appear to have something to do with whatever sport is being covered?
Maybe we do. And then, if we study hard, we move on to our junior year of high school.
When Stewart Cink won the British Open golf tournament Sunday by defeating 59-year-old Tom Watson, though, we knew what was coming. Across the front of the local sports section: "Cink-ing feeling."
Groan.
This is in a state where the chief financial officer's last name is Sink, but you don't see "Sinking feeling" in any headlines on the news pages about the state's fiscal misfortunes. I wonder why.
While we're on golf: How does an activity in which a near-sexagenarian comes in second in a top event (a then-53-year-old, Greg Norman, came in third last year) qualify as a sport?
Doesn't "sport" imply exertion, perspiration, perhaps?
Maybe "game" is the word we're looking for -- like checkers or old maid.
Don’t Be a Meeting Wanderer
4 years ago
Sports journalism is an oxymoron to begin with.
ReplyDeleteHowever, to suggest that golf is not sport is heresy. You wouldn't want them to stop reporting on darts, billiards or all the other games played in sports bars, would you?
Sport is anything that contributes to beer sales.