SteveSilver.net

A New Low For Vescey

As pointed out by my co-worker Mike, Pete included this in Sunday's column, which is a candidate for Worst Paragraph in Journalism History:

Seattle, on the other hand, invades Fun City this evening schlepping a season-high three-game slide, lowlighted by yet another disturbance by Danny Pigtails, expelled from a recent practice for being himself, an out-of-control wangsta; he verbally fought the law and Nate McMillan won.

Let's count the things wrong with that paragraph:

- It' s run-on sentence.

- Vecsey lapses into hip-hop lingo, even though he’s white*.

- He both misuses and misspells "wanksta."

- He neglects to disclose that he was sued, last year, by "Danny Pigtails" himself (Danny Fortson) for, that's right, calling the player a "wanksta." (Though, to be fair, in the original column Vecsey spelled "wanksta" correctly.)

- He uses Yiddish ("schlepping"), even though he's not Jewish, and uses it incorrectly, since the first-place Sonics aren't schlepping at all. In fact, they won that game in "Fun City" by 10 points.

- And worst of all, he quotes a Clash song when he clearly has no punk rock cred.

*This “ironic ebonics” trend among aging white sportswriters is reaching epidemic proportions, with Vecsey, Kornheiser, and Rick Reilly all busting it out in the last couple weeks. Anyone else support the idea of a constitutional amendment banning use of the word “bling” among over-40 white male sportswriters?

UPDATE: Here’s a report of a feud between Pete and my other favorite NBA writer, Stephen A. Smith. I agree with the commenter: “Stephen A. vs. Peter [Vecsey]. Kinda like choosing between syphillis and gonorhhea."

Posted by Stephen Silver at March 15, 2005 10:46 PM