TV sports journalism a reflection of ourselves

We turn to spectator sports to escape reality, but with mischievous irony, it often ends up returning us to reality’s depths: As our team writhes or briefly soars, we learn things about life we might prefer not knowing. Like art, sports — reflected by the mass media — tends to mirror.

By the time of the Depression (which wasn’t called that for nothing), the mass media of newspapers and radio had created mass sports audiences. Those media were the key. Since then, the dominant ones have changed: now it’s mostly TV and the internet. So I’ve been watching lots of Sportsnet and TSN. Here are some reflections, ahem, on the state of the mirror. 1. Room for women. The issue’s no longer women in sports journalism, as it was 50 years ago. Writers like the Star’s Alison Gordon, who covered the early Blue Jays years, carried that battle. Long after retiring, she’d get mistyeyed over “those sounds” in the background during Jays’ radio broadcasts: the crack of the bat, voices hawking peanuts, the dying cheer as a ball goes foul.

The issue now is hosts. Women often host news reports but not the hallowed ground of analysis panels. TSN had the balls to name Andi Petrillo host of Leafs Lunch in 2016. The (always all) male panellists didn’t make it easy but she hung in, showing a touch of Jackie Robinson. It’s now clearly her show.

TSN’s Jay and Dan show used mostly women co-hosts when Jay took time off for mat leave(!) He got a call onair that his wife was in labour and walked off set, waving goodbye. It was historic, though the true revolution will arrive when men no longer get extra points for dealing with kids. Sportsnet, OTOH, has miles to go. 2. Age and dignity. Sports journalism has always been tricky since it involves adults hovering around youth, petitioning them for interviews or quotes. It’s undignified, and implies retarded development. Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption at least acknowledge the issue by saying “Welcome to PTI, boys and girls,” and “Seeya tomorrow, knuckleheads.”

Jay and Dan is really a show about trying to grow old gracefully while clinging to your childhood obsessions, achieved through a self-mocking tone. As if they should be beyond all this but, unfortunately, aren’t.

Yammering about the hockey cap is also a strategy for superannuated kids on hockey panels. Talking about money is assumed to make you sound like a grown-up.

In my twenties in New York, I had the luck to become friends with Roger Kahn. In his own twenties, he’d covered the Brooklyn Dodgers of the Robinson era. They were all the same age, he said, which made it work. As he entered middle age, he spent more time with older athletes. Then he had the brilliant idea of writing The Boys of Summer, about what youth looks like as he, along with the former Dodgers, aged.

3. What the mirror misses. What sports journalism never quite captures is the sophistication of fans themselves, frequently expressed in mordant humour. I suppose it’s not in their interest, qua experts, to reflect that.

When fan voices do appear on media, like radio phone-ins, it’s usually the louts. (“Why didn’t the Jays trade Tulo for Bryce Harper?”) Occasionally smart voices slip through, like an online comment about the car collision William Nylander of the Leafs was in last week: “At least Nylander finally hit someone.”

Mostly that world-wise and weary wisdom simply eludes the media mirrors. To capture it, you have to sit at the bar, eavesdropping on conversations while a game is on, or listen to the guys behind you at a Leafs game, who’ve had those seats forever.

When I was little, we visited distant relatives in Queen’s, New York, when the baseball Giants were still there and played at the Polo Grounds. One day, returning from an excursion to Coney Island, my cousin Harry turned on the radio saying, “Let’s get the post-mortem on the Giants.” My mother had to explain post-mortem to me. Death and baseball. The mirror always strikes back.