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The “S” Word
March 25, 2008
Blog, Featured
27

I’m not talking about that “S” word. I learned early in life that every time you use profanity, God permits Keanu Reeves to star in another movie. So no profanity for me, thanks. No, I’m talking about the other “S” word. The word that, when used on my blog, sends readers running for the proverbial hills.

I’m talking, of course, about SPORTS.

Wait, don’t leave. Give this blog post a chance. They’ll be plenty of time for running away and gouging out your eyes when the post is over. Please sit back down.

Thank you.

You’ll be happy to know this post isn’t about the “S” word per se, but about why it’s such a loathed topic on my blog. I realize everyone doesn’t care for sports, but everyone doesn’t care for coffee or Daylight Savings Time either. And yet those topics are usually big hits.

Case in point: On my original blog, I had reached the point where every post I wrote received between 15 and 30 comments. One day, I wrote my first “fake news” article. It was my Atlanta Braves Sign Charlie Sheen post. It received two comments.

Two.

Let’s forget my own opinion that the post was at least mildly funny. Let’s forget the fact it was later published by Associated Content and featured on its humor page. Let’s forget the fact a less than family-friendly site found it appealing enough to steal and publish on their own site without my permission. Let’s forget all that. It received two freakin’ comments. To put that into perspective, a post I once wrote about ants in my car received 14 comments.

It doesn’t end there. My post explaining why baseball players spit, a question asked by most every fan, received only three comments. And one of those comments was from me!

My real-life story of the time I was a coach for a girl’s fast-pitch softball team and a brawl broke out on the field received one comment. How does a first-hand account of my having to break up a fight between two dozen teenage girls not warrant more comments?

My topical Helping the New York Mets Through the Five Stages of Grief article last fall received six comments, but only two had anything to do with the Mets and their incredible display of awfulness.

Arguably one of the best things I have ever written, Braves “Put Down” Pitcher, Tell Players He Went to Live on Farm, received three comments. Three. The Junk Drawer, Diesel and Frogster would get twice that number even if they wrote a post that simply said, “anyone who leaves a comment to this is an idiot.”

Only one sports-related post of mine has ever broken through. Team Names in Sports are Offensive… and Hilarious had 16 comments. Is poking fun at sports the secret to writing a popular sports-related post? My recent Most Sports Fans are Complete Idiots post that didn’t receive a single comment its first three days of existence would say the answer is “no.”

The question is why. Why is a humor piece about Paris Hilton praised while a humor piece about sports is bludgeoned with a bat? Why is a fake news story about the whereabouts of The Dell Dude praised, but a fake news story about the Braves putting an under performing pitcher to sleep loathed? Why is Keanu Reeves still starring in movies even though I haven’t cursed since 1996?

These are questions that haunt me.

Humor-blogs also haunts me.

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