A brief word of advice when engaging someone at a party in conversation: If what you’re about to say is prefaced by the phrase, “Now I know this might sound a bit racist, but…” Guess what? It’s going to sound more than a little bit racist. It’s going to sound really fucking racist. (e.g., “Now I know this might sound a bit racist, but I wish black people had a stronger work ethic.”)
If I’m a friend of yours and I’m standing next to you when you utter this non-disclaimer disclaimer, I no longer know who you are, and I’m abandoning you in search of wherever they’re packing the bong.
I’m a strong advocate of free speech (one of those wacko “libertarians” you may have been warned about), but that doesn’t excuse the speaker from any well-deserved chastisement by his audience over the inherent stupidity of his comments. When Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues drafted the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment did not include the emphasized addendum:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Unless, of course, those people happen to be blithering assholes.
Jefferson took it on good faith that people would rarely, if ever, abuse their right to free speech in order to say or write something so utterly contemptible that it would make him think twice about the matter. Of course, Tommy Boy never got to read the Comments section over at Philly.com.
For those of you unfamiliar with the web site’s new look, the conglomeration of Philly’s top two papers (at least in circulation) allows readers to post comments on just about everything they publish. And comment they do, with vicious attacks on the subject, author, various ethnic groups, and each other. Mercifully, the obituary section is spared. Pretty much everything else is fair game, and nowhere is this more evident than in Philly.com’s Sports section, where the real yahoos come out to play.
If you’re familiar with Deadspin’s recurring item, “ESPN’s Featured Comment Of The Week,” then you know where we’re coming from with this. We don’t know how ESPN decides which comment gets selected to be displayed prominently on their web site’s main page — thus becoming a target for brutal mockery by the Deadspin commentariat –, but we do know how we’re going to choose our selection: Dumbest. Comment. Wins.
(Who knows, maybe that’s how the folks at ESPN choose theirs, too; if so, it would explain quite a bit.)
We likely won’t restrict ourselves to one comment per week. If a comment left on a particular day stands out as highly stunodic, it’ll be posted here, ASAP, for it’s well-deserved pistol whipping. And lest you think you don’t have a say in this matter, you do.
Leave a comment under this (possibly) recurring feature to submit any Philly-dot-Comment that rankled your sense of logic and/or propriety, sports-related or otherwise. (You can also submit nominations to FightinsTips@gmail.com.) Or feel free just to dog-pile on our featured comment and have fun trashing said writer’s grammatical and social deficiencies. Hell, you can even defend this person if you want, provided your argument is a rational one.
To begin our series, I plucked this delicate rose from the Phillies Forum after last night’s loss to L.A.
Your Commenter: 32pitch
The Topic: “kendrick stinks”
The Stupid Comment:
He really needs to go back to AA…the wins and loss are a joke…maybe he should try underhanded tonight he may have better luck…this guy is in trouble every inning he pitches in every game
good thing we didnt get manny, that may of made sense..
oh and hopefully cholly will pitch lidge tonight now that we are losing
Mercy. Where to begin?
22 Comments on “Stupid Comments (First in a series)”
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General
August 12th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I’ve seen WAY worse. The comments about Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins in those comments sections should be published in to a book titled: “If you feel this way please don’t reproduce”. Truly disgusting.
One more complaint: I understand that Brett Myers is hated, I understand that he’s a DOUCHE-FACE TIMES INFINITY, but seriously, those people who comment “Brett will just go home and take it out on his wife” or some variation of the same are really annoying. There are more current shitty aspects to Brett Myers. Like his awesome chinbeard.
Also love the “Management didn’t even try to get Kyle Lohse and now he’s going to win 87 games this year for St. Louis and also I am impotent” comments.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I’m a strong advocate of free speech (one of those wacko “libertarians” you may have been warned about)
So you’re the reason why 9/11 happened.
//Falwell’d
//HDYSR is a preachy, athiest libertarian
August 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
[performs wacky, secret libertarian handshake with HDYSR]
August 12th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
you guys can be more original than this. I didn’t like the idea over at Deadspin and I don’t like it here even more, simply because there are so many Phillies fans ready to jump off the Ben Franklin at the first sign of failure.
August 12th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Yeah, shit, who needs a 20-10 pitcher when we have Adam Eaton wasting away in the minors? Call up the Eat-Dog!
August 12th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I am going to try to defend this guy’s comment. His bottom line was that Kendrick is a whole lot worse than his W/L record suggests. I think this is 100% true.
The other 2 statements were blatant sarcasm, ripping management, and manuel’s usage of the closer. I think there is nothing wrong or inaccurate with this either.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
If only the commenter had said something like “He really needs to go back to double AA.”
You know, AAAA.
/snark
August 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
You know Phunyun…I heard something like that somewhere…Can’t remember though exactly…
August 12th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
ooo, I should have thought of this for the rounds … seeing those comments is the worst part of my morning
August 12th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
He needs to go back to AA.
You sure this wasn’t from the Cardinals messageboard?
//seriously, LaRussa is a fuck who was unjustly not criticized one iota after one of his players died from driving high/drunk a month after Mr. Baseball was found passed out in front of a traffic light
//hates Tony LaRussa
August 13th, 2008 at 11:20 am
try dealing with pittsburg fans posting over on the700level.
whole new level of idiocy.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am
…and i spelled pittsburgh wrong.
//seething
August 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Just to respond to a few of the comments above…
ill,
I completely understand where you’re coming from. I thought it might be more interesting to run with this premise from a local perspective, also keeping in mind the fact that ESPN chooses mostly non-offensive statements to display on its front page.
The Phillies forum has comments far, FAR more offensive examples than the one I posted (ali can attest to that), and those are the ones which we hope to tear apart in future installments of this theme. Still, you do make a good point, and we’ll try not to run this beast into the ground.
Mike,
Thank you for stepping up to defend 32pitch’s comment. I still disagree with both of you about Kendrick, whose .667 winning percentage since the beginning of last season seems to repudiate the author’s assessment that Double-K needs Double-A. He’s not great, and he does indeed struggle from time to time, but Kendrick also leads the team with 10 victories in 16 decisions.
jd,
I hear you. And that why I encourage our readers to submit their own examples of inaccurate/obnoxious/inaccurate and obnoxious comments. As for your spelling of “Pittsburg,” you clearly chose to use the late 19th-century spelling, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
August 13th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
CD –
Although I attempted to defend the guy, I do not agree that he should be in AA, just simply that he is much worse than his record suggests, and at this point, probably the worst of our starting 5. If Happ/Carrasco (wow, what an AAA start he’s having) or Benson are going to replace anyone in this rotation, it might as well be Kendrick. Now this is assuming that Myers is actually back to his old self, and that Blanton is more of the pitcher he’s been in the last 2 starts than the previous 2, which of course is not all that safe to assume. But time will tell. At least we know what we got with Kendrick (unlike Blanton and Myers).
August 13th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I read the title of this post and thought for sure it was going to be about J-Roll’s comments on The Best Damn Sports Show
August 13th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I was just posting about that over at another fan site as well. This is going to get out of control soon, how stupid can JRoll be??
August 13th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Tartan69 and Mike,
I’m talking about those very comments with Matt from The 700 Level. I’d tell you to click over there now to read his excellent take on the situation but… well, geez, I don’t want to look like a frontrunner or anything.
Ah, screw it. Click over there anyway.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
Chamomiles,
The Level is the first non-news site I check every day. You guys are like 3rd or 4th, sorry. =)
August 13th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
No need to apologize. They are the respected elders: the “OG’s”, if you’ll permit a thirtysomething Caucasian like myself to utter that term.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
alright-i’ll say it. im too stupid to be offended here-why is everyone up in arms for being called “front-runners”. please note i did not see the interview, so i don’t know how it was exactly presented.
sorry, just got done with hockey and took a stick to the face. i hope this explains it.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:19 am
Philly fans have always been extremely fickle, but I don’t think they have ever been called out by a leader of one of our teams. I think most fans have been watching too much Bull Durham and expect players to stick to the cliche responses. Maybe Rollin’s comments lights a fire under the fans asses, but I doubt it. Instead, they are going to boo him at his next at bat because he told us what we needed to hear. Right now, I am sure there are fans getting ready for Eagles season because the Phils are hitting a bump in the road. No one said winning the East again was going to be a LA Angels cakewalk, we knew our team was lacking in certain areas and Rollins has been through this enough to know that fans are going to jump ship right about now. The Phillies are still the bridesmaid to the Eagles in Philly, and Rollins knows that. But this season isn’t over.
/optimistic
August 14th, 2008 at 9:25 am
If Philly fans were frontrunners, Jimmy, you wouldn’t hear the boos because nobody would be at the games when you’re losing.