OK, I admit it, I watch television on the job. One of the few minor perks about this job — besides the high salary and unrivaled fame; or shall I say infamy — sits on my desk and watches me while I type mindless drivel on my computer.
Of course it’s a cheap Sony knockoff TV, which has been here longer than the moldy couches that maliciously attach their individual stenches to the unwary who mistakenly view these couches as a place to sit.
Our budget, the meager change we make from selling ads — in case we haven’t told you enough, no, Tom Chapman, the A.S. Council doesn’t fund the Guardian — is basically nonexistent. As a result, my companion in the sports office doesn’t come with the numerous cable sports channels, but merely a few fuzzy channels courtesy of a pathetic, sagging antenna. On these channels, which in reality are mostly wars between black and white ants than actual pictures, are few opportunities to watch sporting events.
Occasionally the Spanish channel will show basketball games. All I can make out from the announcer’s excited shouts is, “”Buen trabajo, buen trabajo, buen trabajo!”” Nevertheless, it is generally the most exciting thing on.
Take today as an example: The only English option is watching the Master’s at Augusta, Ga.
Some people might wonder at this choice. After all, the Master’s is golf’s premiere event, where the superstars make it or break it. It’s the Super Bowl of golf.
But, dude, it’s boring.
And this isn’t anything against golf. I totally respect people who can consistently hit 300-yard drives, read different slopes on greens and chip from all sorts of different terrain. I’ve played golf once in my life, and I shot a 72. For nine holes.
However, actually sitting down and watching other people walk around in the grass and occasionally swing a club every 20 minutes isn’t exciting for me.
I want to see some effort, some excitement. I want to see someone get hurt, someone put so much into the competition that they bleed.
But no, instead I see golfers chat with their partners in between shots, see them joke around with their caddies, see them stroll from hole to hole as if they were on a walk in the park.
And then the announcers. Dear God. They describe the competition with bland, monotone voices, occasionally theatrically whispering into the microphone as if the golfers can hear them. They try to relate golf to something important — they pretty much do anything they can to try and make it exciting, yet they fail miserably.
After the Spanish broadcast of the Orlando-Philadelphia game ended and I was forced to immerse myself in the mindless world of men leisurely walking after balls, the most exciting thing I saw in the hour of my life that I wasted watching Augusta was when someone almost hit the crowd with an errant shot.
They need to take golf off television and show some real sports. Soccer, basketball, baseball, football — even WWF wrestling. Give me something, anything. Leave golf to cable channels for all those rich old white men who actually enjoy smacking balls in the rough. But for those of us poor saps who are relegated to broadcast television, put on something that the working-class people can relate to.
