Philosophy: Sports Reporters as Critics

Occasionally I will post something that outlines some guiding philosophy for the blog, so that readers know where I'm coming from. Why should you care where I'm coming from? Why should I even answer that?!! If you don't care, then you wouldn't read it anyway!

One of my biggest pet peeves with sports reporters is their constant use of omniscient hindsight to criticize coaches, managers, and players for making certain decisions which turned out to be not-so-good. I believe that this dishonest practice has worsened in the Internet and talk radio age of hyper-analysis. Now, of course we all reserve the right to criticize, analyze, and rehash after the fact. But I submit there are two important tenets that we must keep in mind as we do so:

1. The critic must maintain at least a pose of humility, knowing that it is easy to say things after the fact, but the coach or athlete who made the decision did not have the benefit of our current knowledge.

2. The critic must subject himself to the same scrutiny for his decisions (or predictions) as that which he imposes on the coaches and athletes.

#1 should be fairly obvious, but I feel it is being forgotten today. Reporters do not have a proper appreciation for the position of the coach who has to make a decision right here and right now. They think to themselves, "Oh yeah, I totally thought that he should have put in John Doe at that time," and they think that their vague recollection amounts to a decision. Even, "I told my friend Joe that they should have done that at the time!" does not cut it with me. To me, the only way you can truly argue that you would have made a certain decision at a certain time is if you write it down and publish it right then. That is the touchstone.

Now, I have no problem with reporters saying, even after the fact, "It would seem that Coach Smith in situation X would do Y, but he evidently decided not to because of Z" or something along those lines. But to say, after the fact, "Coach Smith is a moron because clearly you have to do X in this situation" shows the reporter (or commentator, even) to be a blowhard who doesn't have the bergertis to make the decision himself or the intellectual honesty to acknowledge the opposing viewpoint.

#2 is also important because it establishes the reporter's bona-fides. If a reporter really can show himself to be a gifted prognosticator, then maybe he really is in a position to criticize. However, we don't know if any of these guys really are gifted or not, because no one ever follows up on their predictions and preseason forecasts. They criticize all day long, but expect not to be held accountable. No more! This blog will try to keep track of reporters' predictions, and will take take delight proving them to be wrong time after time.