DAVE:
Yeah, I just want to say that player slumps are fairly common and that part of the beauty of watching sports is to see if these guys can bounce bac —
MADMAN:
(cuts him off) I’m sorry, Dave. I’m getting the signal from Timmy that we have to cut to break.
PRODUCER STATIONED BEHIND THE GLASS WHO SECRETLY HATES THE HOST:
I never said that.
MADMAN:
Well, it looked like it to me! Great, now we lost him. Besides, I don’t think Dave was really listening to my original point. If he had, he would have picked up on what I was saying. Gotta get better phone lines in here, Tim. Just terrible equipment. We’re operating in the eighteenth century here, people.
PRODUCER STATIONED BEHIND THE GLASS WHO SECRETLY HATES THE HOST:
I hate you.
I suggest keeping your radio off at all times. If you own one. Most rich people don’t bother.
More bottom-feeders: those fucking blog nerds.
Blogs are the newest menace to the professional athlete. There’s a new sports blogger created every .7 seconds, and these people don’t start a blog just to write you love sonnets.
We are at a terrible moment in history, when anyone can write anything they want and then share what they write with others. This was not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created freedom of the press. Back then, the press consisted of four people, all of them drunks, who could be easily controlled. There was one newspaper, and it was printed on birch bark. And since Ben Franklin hadn’t invented reading glasses yet, none of the six people who had subscriptions could read it. How could they have envisioned a day where any asshole — without a journalism degree! — could print anything? It’s a goddamn tragedy.
The worst thing about blogs is that people actually read them. You wouldn’t think there’s an audience out there for some lady chronicling the daily shitting habits of her cat, but you’d be wrong. That blog gets more than 4 million hits a week. Since everyone hates the mainstream media, blogs have become a popular reading alternative. Why? Because if you can’t trust a mainstream outlet for your news, why not go all the way in the other direction and get your news from people who have even less credibility? It makes for juicier reading, that’s for damn sure.
This is why blogs are so dangerous for you, the athlete. Sure, no one believes anything they read on a sports blog. But they want to believe it, and wanting to believe it is just as bad, if not worse. Now anyone can publish any story they want about you, without giving you a chance to refute the details. And people will associate that story with you forever, regardless of its veracity. What kind of Internet rumors about major sports personalities are out there? Get a load of some of these. Now, at the request of Little, Brown & Co.’s lawyers, I had to cross out all of the names listed below. Fucking lawyers. But you get the idea. Of course, none of these rumors are true. But man, you can really picture this shit once it’s in writing.
? One time, this kid went up to big leaguer _______ and asked for an autograph, and _______ just whipped out his dick and slapped the kid across the face with it. Then _______ laughed and said, “I just gave you a lifetime of memories, kid.”
? One of NFL great _______’s baby mommas went up to him one day demanding he pay child support. ________ laughed at her and said, “Girl, I gave you a child! Isn’t that enough of a gift? When you buy someone a car, they don’t expect you to pay for the gas!”
? Not only did _______ do steroids, he also used an aluminum bat wrapped in faux-wood linoleum.
? _______ will report to the FOX TV studio three hours in advance to practice smug glances.
? _______ cheats on his wife with an assortment of strippers and leather-clad biker chicks, and when he makes love he insists on wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
? Sports Illustrated writer _______ killed a man in 1936.
?Former all-pro QB _______ never formally attended school at any level, and only learned to read by looking at the backs of cereal boxes.
Are you feeling simultaneously disgusted and titillated right now? I am. Even worse, bloggers will sometimes post candid pictures of you. And not just any pictures, but pictures of you fucking hammered. And since we’re a nation that consumes more alcohol than any other, while simultaneously being complete tightasses about it, that could really hurt your image.