Summer of the Non-story
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by user Barkingclam
If 1967 was the summer of love and 1978 was the summer of Sam (Remember the movie?) then 2006 is surely the summer of the non-story.
Don't believe me? So far we've had Barbaro and his day-in, day-out struggle to avoid the glue factory; we've had Floyd Landis' fight to win the Tour de France; Ozzie Guillen and his vocabulary; Shea Hillenbrand's temper-tantrum in the Jays clubhouse; Barry Bonds hasn't left the spotlight since maybe June - and now it's the Seattle Supersonics being bought by some guys from Oklahoma - even though the City already has a team (in the "visiting" New Orleans Hornets).
It's not as if there's a shortage of stories to go around - there's the AL Central/AL East mega-race, for example, where the Detroit Tigers have made the turnaround of the decade, going from laughingstock to leading the 2004 and 2005 World Series champs in the standings.
But for every story that I see on Sportscenter or hear on the radio like that, there's seemingly a dozen more - stories about soccer headbutts, stories about GM's lashing out at players, stories about, well - nothing really at all.
It's turning a guy like me - somebody who listens to ESPN's AllNight on a regular basis - away from Sports Journalism as a whole. As good a feat as Floyd Landis winning the Tour de France is, I frankly don't care. I never watched the Tour when Lance was in it - and Lance almost died before he rattled off seven victories in a row. Lance's story was inspirational - Landis' is interesting stuff, but it's not as compelling... And it's bicycling, to boot. Try as you may, I've never been interested in the tour - or in the entire bike racing spectrum, for that matter.
Normally - I'm a summer guy. I love baseball, campfires and swimming. But this year... Well, I can't wait for fall - when the NFL, NBA and NHL will start up and knock all this nonsense off the front page.
Date
Sun 07/23/06, 6:32 pm EST
