Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Funny how easy it is to regard losing in a championship game as a let-down. A team puts together the best season in the history of the program, reaches uncharted waters in the College World Series, and loses in a close deciding game. Great season, nothing to be ashamed of, right? Not if you're the local sports media. The News and Observer chose the asshat headline of the year for their article on game 3 of the College World Series, which we all need to remember was played by young men between the ages of 18 and 22; college kids.

For sure, that was a stomach punch loss for the Tar Heels last night. Absolutely agonizing. Bryan Steed should not be the scapegoat, though. A terrible baserunning error killed a potential rally earlier in the game, UNC hitters chased a lot of bad breaking balls, and most crucially, Oregon State played much better defense than a college team can be expected to play for these two games. Let's not forget that Carolina was up 5-0 in game 2, with Mike "Are you kidding me?" Patrick proclaiming the game to be all but over (this in the 4th inning; Mike is an idiot), when some atrocious defense gave OSU a chance to mount a rally. OSU made the plays, and they won. Jonah Nickerson did a hell of a job getting outs when he needed to, even without his good stuff. Hell of a run, Heels.

N&O Headline writers, meet me here.

1 comment:

BC said...

Don't forget that it was after 13 straight retired batters that Mike Fox visited the mound to talk to his pitcher who then proceeded to walk the next batter. Um, your guy retires 13 straight and you go for a mound visit? No way. You leave dude the f*ck alone and let him continue being lights out.
I like Caulton Tudor. The column is right on, but I do believe that many copy editors who do this headline writing are indeed dipshits.