FIRE JOE MORGAN: Seeking New Angle, Reporter Turns to Google

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

 

Seeking New Angle, Reporter Turns to Google

Allan Ryan of the Toronto Star boldly goes where every single other reporter in history has gone before:

Partner new Blue Jay shortstop David Eckstein and the word "scrappy" and a Google search will advise you of some 5,300 possibilities. In just 0.38 seconds, too.

1. I get 5940.

2. The tenth one down is a link to a post on this site, deriding reporters for using the word "scrappy" in articles about David Eckstein.

3. I love -- love -- that you cite the short time it took for Google to do the search. As if that is in some way indicative of just how fucking scrappy this guy is. "If you search for 'Carlos Guillen scrappy,' it takes Google .41 seconds to show results. 'Bill Doran scrappy?' .40 seconds. But type in 'David Eckstein scrappy' and you will have your results in .38 seconds. Even Google knows just how scrappy this guy is."

Then again, when you've hauled off a .289 average and .351 on-base percentage over seven major-league seasons that include a pair of World Series rings and a Series MVP award ... well, "scrappy" will turn up a bit.

Why? Why will it show up? Manny Ramirez has "hauled off" (and why that verb?) far far better numbers in the last seven years. He also won a WS MVP. No one calls him scrappy. Here. Let me rewrite your last sentence for you.

Then again, when you're small and you play baseball and are just kind of mediocre and lazy sportswriters don't want to bother coming up with anything new to say about you so they literally google your name and the word "scrappy" and then actually flaunt how lazy they are by writing into the article that the way they decided to write this article was to fucking google your name and the word "scrappy," in a move reminiscent of how we all used to begin Social Studies papers in junior high by writing like "Webster's Dictionary defines 'democracy' as..." or whatever... well, "scrappy" will turn up a bit.

There. I think that's clearer.

It's just in the mindset, Eckstein explained yesterday during a conference call from the Tampa airport. He'd just cleared his medical and was officially aboard for the 2008 season at $4.5 million (all figures U.S.).

After the doctors give Eckstein a medical examination, do they sometimes get confused and give him a lollypop? (I'm not sure that's a good joke, and I was just about to cut it, but now the image of Eckstein in like 1950's clothes licking an oversized swirly-colored lollypop is in my head and it makes me laugh. So: it stays in.)

"It's more an attitude of showing up every day, ready to give you 100 per cent," Eckstein said. "You'll never see me a take a pitch off, a day off ... that's what I bring. I think it's my best quality.

It certainly isn't "good hitter."

"It may be the reality – that when you're a smaller guy, you have to play better than the other guys – but I'm a little stubborn. When you're small, you don't think you're small."

Do you think you're "scrappy?" Because everyone else does.

If Allan Ryan is a high school student from a nearby school who has gotten an internship at the Star and this is his first published article: congratulations! I wish you the best in your career as a journalist. If this is any other situation: yikes.

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posted by Anonymous  # 12:00 PM
Comments:
Thanks to Alexander for the tip.
 
As many of you pointed out, this article was printed in the Toronto Star, not the Toronto Sun, as I originally wrote. The Toronto Sun is a goofy low-grade tabloid, which would never have printed something as frivolous and pointless as a google search for "David Eckstein scrappy."
 
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