Wacky Sports Trivia You Probably Didn't Hear About While Being Serially Raped as a Teenager!

This is quite possibly the worst sports column ever written.

Link via Baseball Primer.

Comments

[John]

I don't get it Matt. Why is it that bad? It seems pretty unremarkable. What makes it the worst ever?

[WWJGD]

I don't mean to be banal, but what the fuck?

[B]

WTF???

[creech]

What I find remarkable is that, according to social workers, her kids were remarkably well taught (homeschooled if you will) by someone who has been out of contact with the world since she was eleven. Is teaching kids really that easy or what??

[Nick]

I don't know, John, but I think it's because you can tell he was trying to be clever and witty and it just came off as really stupid and not funny.

[WWJGD]

Nothing instills educational discipline like the threat of rape, I guess. Maybe Arne Duncan should take that cue since just beating the kids in Chicago didn't work.

(Too much?)

[SugarFree]

I'm with B.

creech, what else did she have to do?

[Jeff P]

Is there anything more compelling than people talking about sports?

That is pretty cold. Like telling Nelson Mandela about all the cars you've owned while he was incarcerated.

[NEA cuntbucket]

Is teaching kids really that easy or what??

It's not at all easy but we work our asses off and if we had more money we'd be even more awesomer than we are now.

[John]

Oh. I sort of glazed over on the top part about the poor girl who was kidnapped. Yeah, that is pretty tasteless.

[FrBunny]

I think we've just seen the print equivalent of "boom goes the dynamite".

[ed]

worst sports column ever written

Or to invert the cliche: it's like being the world's smallest midget.

[SugarFree]

Quoth my friend: "I want to smack this person very hard with something."

[Art-P.O.G.]

How did the editor not cringe when the columnist turned that in? Oh, I get it: deadlines.

[Xeones]

Whicker commits two major sins:

1. He attempts to use the kidnapping and repeated rape of a young girl as a humorous framing device for a column that, being mere sports trivia, could have at best amounted to no more than filler, and then

B. he fails utterly at actually being funny.

[Xeones]

Also, lest i forget: yo, fuck Mark Whicker.

[SugarFree]

While we are on this... I've heard that they may not be able to charge him with kidnapping, due to the statute of limitations. Wasn't the kidnapping an ongoing crime until the police got her?

(Yes, there are plenty of other things to charge him with, I'm just confused.)

[Tim Cavanaugh]

Brilliant, brilliant, nothing short of brilliant. And as if the I-just-gave-birth-to-two-rape-children-and-boy-are-my-legs-tired gags aren't enough to bring on the laffs, he even manages a coy "Got AIDS?" quip:

"Magic Johnson is a billionaire businessman, and most of us have forgotten just why he had to retire."

The last of the true gentlemen!

[Xeones]

"Magic Johnson is a billionaire businessman, and most of us have forgotten just why he had to retire."

Man, i just skimmed, and missed that one. What a small, shitty man is Mark Whicker.

[Lamar]

What a jerk! He doesn't even mention the Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl.

[Lamar]

"Magic Johnson is a billionaire businessman, and most of us have forgotten just why he had to retire."

Didn't Magic come out of retirement and play as a power forward for half a season or so?

[Art-P.O.G.]

If only Whicker had thought up the title that Welch gave to this post...that would've been funny though completely wrong.

[Abdul]

The Manson family did a lot of evil things, but the biggest evil was denying Sharon Tate's unborn child the opportunity to see the United States Hockey Team whip the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

The bastards!

[Warren]

The real troubling thing here is, that even with unemployment pushing 10%, too many the most deserving of homelessness, are absent from their rolls.

[ClubMedSux]

If ever there were a reason for FireJoeMorgan to return, this would be it.

[mitch]

"Magic Johnson is a billionaire businessman, and most of us have forgotten just why he had to retire."

Hmmm... I think this may be a feeble stab at a new version of "I don't see color," a sort of, "I don't see HIV status."

[ChrisH]

Wow. Maximum tasteless times Maximum clueless.

I guess I can hope he has a daughter who can kick him in the nuts.

[Art-P.O.G.]

It would be funny as hell if Whicker reread his article and was overcome with a deep and abiding sense of shame that later developed into recurring mnemonic paroxysms.

Or, what ChrisH (and FrBunny) said.

[ev]

I was relieved that he refrained from using the Cubs' futility as the constant.

I was literally taken aghast when I read this piece of liquefied rhino excrement.

And this comes from someone who regularly visits /b/. It's tamer now, I think.

And yeah, what WAS the editor thinking?

Also: Where can I find a site where I can learn html tags? I'm not finding much. I wanted to bold that 'was' rather than capitalize it. I really should stop typing.

[Joe M]

Man, I wanted to hate on this fool, but you guys pretty much covered it. Luckily, he's getting reamed in his own comments section.

[ev]

When did my love affair with the Enter button turn into an obsession? Friends don't let friends type stoned.

[Joe M]

Seriously, though, are we really that surprised? Everybody knows that sports writers are the scum of the earth.

[Stretchy]

With top notch writing like this, I don't see how newspapers can ever go out of business!

[Pro Libertate]

Hey, yeah, what about the Bucs? What an ass.

I hate sportswriters who try to be cute. Especially when they fail in such Biblical proportions. Real wrath of God stuff--dogs and cats sleeping together. . . .

[brotherben]

I'm not generally in favor of assisted suicide but will make an exception if Mr. warm summer's eve needs some help.

[sean]

Fucking hilarious.

[Xeones]

You KNOW somebody's gone beyond the pale when they can't even find support among the Hit'n'Run crowd. We tolerate Warty, for chrissakes.

[Tacos mmm...]

I'm going to send him my collection of Madeleine McCann jokes so he'll have some to drop in his next high school wrap-up.

[brotherben]

Maybe we pass the hat to get this guy a free trip to Shreveport complete with lotsa free drinks across town from his hotel.

[FrBunny]

Xeones, if he'd brought the funny, I would laugh with him. Instead he put together something similar to an email forward c. 2002, then topped it with shame sprinkles.

[Citizen Nothing]

I agree with X. Of course kidnapping and child rape can be funny. This guy just fails to pull it off, cluelessly -- thereby making it hysterically funny in a meta kinda way.

[Old Mick]

"This is quite possibly the worst sports column ever written."

Well you outta know.

[Citizen Nothing]

ev: left pointy thing, b, right pointy thing, stuff you want bold, left pointy thing, leany line, b, right pointy thing.

[Old Mick]

"Man, i just skimmed, and missed that one. What a small, shitty man is Mark Whicker."

Naw. He's just gunning for Olbermann's gig.

[Xeones]

He's just gunning for Olbermann's gig.

He's got a little bit of digging to do, then.

[Citizen Nothing]

My theory is that Whicker really pissed off some editor, who then let this go through when Whicker drunk-filed.

(Good writers, especially those who might occasionally drunk-file, know the editor is their best friend.)

[Old Mick]

The sports guy I've always detested was Jerome Jerenovich (or something like that). Couldn't understand a word he said.

[highnumber]

<b>bolded word>/b>

A good reference is hier

[highnumber]

> should be <

[ev]

Sweet! Now I can use these little pointy things and make things in underline and Italian!

[Xeones]

Underline doesn't work on Hit'n'Run for some reason.

[Mister DNA]

Seriously, it's shit like this for which Riding the Rail was invented.

Best comment at the OC Register:

"The Onion" is beginning to look like the official paper of record in America.

[Episiarch]

That column is brilliant. Whicker is a satirist par excellence. You chumps just don't get it.

Then again, I am sick today and on lots of drugs, so my perception may be...altered.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Hey, Epi, during the first part of your 5:07 post, I couldn't help but picture you wearing a pith helmet and a monocle and smoking a cigarette in a long cigarette holder.

[Episiarch]

Art, are you implying that I'm in the Super Adventure Club?

[toddb]

Gotta give the man credit...despite the awfulness of the column, he still managed to save one last line for last to truly take it all the way to the bottom...

"Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard."

[hmm]

Sports writer. He's a barely a step above tinea cruris on the evolutionary chain.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Damn, I missed that season. So much South Park to catch up on...

[hmm]

There's a rogue "a" in there.

[hurlybuerhle]

Wow, a column so unspeakably horrible I can't believe Bill Simmons wasn't involved.

[Bob]

The piece de resistance is the fifth paragraph - speaking of every sporting thing Jaycee missed, Whicker says, "Now THAT's deprivation!"

There's the distastefulness, which a bunch of others have covered nicely. There's also the sheer stupidity. Look at Whicker's list. There's no immaculate reception in there. No Gibson homer. Just a bunch of forgettable minutiae, maybe exception of Ripken or Tiger in 1997. The rest is one giant yawn.

You wouldn't be missing much if you missed that list to attend an 18-year quilting tournament. Missing that list because of 18 years of serial rape and captivity? Not gonna be concerned about Barry Bonds' roiding, thanks.

[Dave K.]

At least there was no rape and murder.
Like the one Glenn Beck committed in 1990.

[Bob]

I mean seriously, if you're gonna write a column that is way out there offensive about all the great things in sports since 1991, is it too much to ask to mention:

-Luis Gonzalez' game winning hit over Rivera in 2001?

-Laettner's shot against Kentucky in 1992?

-Cabrera's NLCS-winning hit in 1992?

-Any of a dozen Leon Lett moments?

-Michael Phelps?

For crap sake, if you're going to write the most offensive damn column ever, can you not at least take care to fill it with stuff that was actually memorable and worthwhile?

Was this writer purposely trying to commit career suicide, and since this was suicide, he was like "what the hell, I'll just mail in the content"?

[Robert]

If this had appeared in some avant garde setting, you'd be thinking it was brilliant.

[Pro Libertate]

If it had been posted in the comments section of this thread before it had been published. . .that would've been friggin' awesome.

[bringthedoo]

I'm just shocked after all that he failed to mention the Pats winning three superbowls

[Mike G]

I heard Polymers & Chemicals Today is going to publish a similar piece catching her up on all the exciting developments in the plastics industry during her kidnapping.

[BeesInTheBrain]

Am I the only one who had the Burly Sports ad with the tag line "*ILLEGAL TOUCHING ALLOWED" show up on the page when they read this article? Great job of add placement Google.

[Tostitos]

This column is so bad I feel sorry for him. Also wasn't the Red Sox winning the series a big deal kind of thing to miss? I mean if you care, which most kidnapped rape victims probably don't.

[vince]

This has to be the most horrifyingly misguided article I've ever read, and I regularly check in with the conspiracy kooks to see what gibberish they have been spewing lately.
I guess in the estimate of a person who owes their livelihood to sports writing, sports is a big deal...but really? Did a professional writer and a professional editor... two separate human beings... REALLY think that this story was OK.
The only thing I can think of that would be tackier than this article, would be the FBI list of people she should be glad she didn't get kidnapped by. I am officially ashamed of my humanity and wish evolution was a quicker process!

PS, sorry for the hyperbole, but...damn...

[Andrew Lynch]

The writer just posted an apology. Nothing remarkable in it, but I did like that he posted contents of emails and comments from articulate people who didn't have to say STFU to get their points across.

[Hugh Askton]

but I did like that he posted contents of emails and comments from articulate long-winded people who didn't have to say couldn't just say STFU to get their points across.

[Hugh Akston]

Fixed.

[Andrew Lynch]

Ah, Hugh Akston, channeling the spirit of the empty new Hit & Run.

[alan]

The Manson family did a lot of evil things, but the biggest evil was denying Sharon Tate's unborn child the opportunity to see the United States Hockey Team whip the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

The bastards!

Or if the child was a he and truly his dad's son, Mary Lou's cute little ass at the '84 Olympics.

[alan]

-Laettner's shot against Kentucky in 1992?

You know it! I saw Laettner getting some motherfuckin' ice cream in down town Chapel Hill just a few days later.

[alan]

If you get the implication, THAT took ballz.

[Metal Messiah]

Jesus God, some people like sports a little too much...

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[mobile]

What? Too soon?

[MJ]

The apology still does not explain: what the hell was he thinking?

On the trivia side of this, remember that Whicker's writing for a local SoCal audience, the events mentioned are what he thinks his audience finds memorable or interesting, not the country as a whole.

[Michael Ejercito]

What I find remarkable is that, according to social workers, her kids were remarkably well taught (homeschooled if you will) by someone who has been out of contact with the world since she was eleven. Is teaching kids really that easy or what??

Yes, it is.

Of course, public schools in Los Angeles and Chicago can not find teachers who can manage even that .

Maybe Whicker should make jokes about 9/11, as David Dahlman did.

[BoscoH]

And when Oprah or Ellen have her on and do the same thing in a light-hearted 20 minute segment bookended by her horrible, detailed story, you'll all be laughing, crying, and wetting your adult diapers.

The offense taken above at the Magic line. Child, please. Back then, HIV was seen as a death sentence. He's getting the drugs and the treatments and managing it. He and his family have gotten on with their lives. Most of us have forgotten the circumstances, and it would be ridiculous if an athlete today felt he had to retire because he contracted HIV. That is nothing short of a miracle.

[Art-P.O.G.]

What? Who watches Oprah?

[jersey]

but what the fuck?