The hyped moment of this week’s Toronto Maple Leaf press conference was tabloid reporter Steve Simmons offering his vitriolic remarks on John Chayka’s hire as general manager. “You talk about due diligence…but many think this a sham. Words like ‘con artist’, ‘liar’, and ‘salesman’ have been said.”
While it’s possible that Mr. Chayka won’t do well as Toronto’s GM, the hiring isn’t the point here. It’s the bitter, self-centered nature of Mr. Simmons. I’ve previously blogged on the tendency of sports media towards flailing stupidity, focusing on reporters such as Dave Feshuck (Toronto Star) and Cathal Kelly (The Globe & Mail).
This has been on my mind for many years. Beginning in 1997, I worked as a sports reporter for a now-defunct Vancouver weekly and witnessed firsthand the behavior of these Neanderthals, many of whom only ask questions along the lines of “What’s it feel like to lose again?” I was once in a post-game scrum with Allen Iverson, an NBA rookie at the time, who fielded endless critical questions about his posse. When I asked him about his decision to change tactics in the fourth quarter, he looked at me in surprise. “Oh, a sports question.”
I eventually wrote a piece on the miserable state of sports journalism. I interviewed athletes such as Peter Zezel (Toronto Maple Leafs), Mark Messier (Vancouver Canucks) and Othello Harrington (Vancouver Grizzlies) as well as Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston and Neil Amdur, the sports editor for The New York Times, asking their opinions on the aggressive, often uneducated nature of sports reporting. There was a clear consensus on how challenging this could be, Mr. Gaston especially amused by line of inquiry, given the target the media had painted on his back in those days. I completed the piece, offering it to The Globe and Mail, and was told it couldn’t be published because I had named names.
Gary Mason, the sports editor of The Vancouver Sun at the time, was one of those names. Among other things, I cited his laughable decision to write about his personal hike up Grouse Mountain and not the Vancouver Canadians championship on their final day as a Triple-A Baseball Team. Instead of witnessing an historic day at Nat Bailey Stadium, Mr. Mason had wandered off. “The Grind is so popular, it has become a zoo.”
Astoundingly, Mason has since become a Globe and Mail national affairs columnist, giving us hope that Simmons too might drift off somewhere and allow someone else to take his place and actually report on the intricacies of decision-making in the sports world.
