Why Do I Continue to Read Peter King?

joe dokes

joe dokes

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
30,614
drleather2001 said:
Click to expand...
 
".....first it got like this and then my pants were wet (Look closely if you dare).  I didn't even know what reddit was!"
 
 
I'm a 58 year old male who is about 25 lbs. overweight and run 20-30 miles a week and if I posted that time in a 10K, I'd throw up in my mouth. I entered his time in an age graded calculator and it rates out at the 33% percentile which means he's in the bottom one third percentile. He's just so tone deaf and the fact that he has to post his time publically as some sort of badge of honor shows it. He's looking for an atta-a-boy, but anyone who runs would snicker and wonder what the fuss is about.
 
Click to expand...
 
I'm 53. Not overweight and not sure I could run a 10K. So 10 minute miles impress me well enough.  That said, this is Peter King we're talking about. If he related his running to his brother's death, or some higher purpose -- even his own health, which he doesn't even mention -- then it would seem a whole lot less like bragging (over something not especially brag-worthy) or begging for atta-boys from couch potatoes (since, as mentioned above, he's not going to get them from too many runners.)
 
JohntheBaptist

JohntheBaptist

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
11,410
Yoknapatawpha County
minischwab said:
 
The responses to the tweets, and King's response to those, are priceless.  Even Jon Heyman was making fun of him for the tweets, though King thought it was a serious question and answered it.  
Click to expand...
 
https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/status/514623356134760448
 
https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing/status/514623219161387008
 
mwonow

mwonow

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 4, 2005
7,158
Yo PK - you want us all to win? You want us all to be happy? RESIGN, YOU HACK!
 
Honestly, I like this NFL season less than any other I can remember (though I have selective memory of the really awful Pats teams), and King's odious stew of apologia, repetitive brownnosing and irrelevant asides have been part of the disenchantment. I guess that's giving The World's Most Oblivious Punchline too much credit, but that's where I'm at after Week 3
 
weeba

weeba

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
3,540
Lynn, MA
I dig this comment from Deadspin's post on this
 

 

...And then I said to the barista, "God, did you hear about journalism?"
"No."
"Dead. Killed itself on my twitter feed." Thought she would cry.

 
 
Click to expand...
 
 
Leather

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
Awwww.

:)

I think Magary did a good job.

(Even if we were saying it three years ago).
 
johnmd20

johnmd20

mad dog
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 30, 2003
62,087
New York City
drleather2001 said:
Awwww.

:)

I think Magary did a good job.

(Even if we were saying it three years ago).
Click to expand...
 
After all is said and done, you have done some phenomenal work in this thread over the years.
 
Leather

Leather

given himself a skunk spot
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
28,451
You guys always believed in me, even when nobody else would listen!
 
Now they're sorry!
 
John Marzano Olympic Hero

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
24,637
Actually Magary began his career at KSK with the weekly Peter King take-down column.
 
Leather does an awesome job too. But let's not praise him too much the next you know he'll regale us with stories about his citrusy beers and the time he ran four blocks in three minutes.
 
Corsi

Corsi

isn't shy about blowing his wad early
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 3, 2010
12,955
Boston, MA
I missed this "foul ball" story when it first ran back in 2009, but Chad Finn called attention to it in last Sunday's column.  The story itself has been wiped from the SI archive as far as I can tell, but I've reconstructed it below from an old KSK column:
 

Being the baseball nerd that I am, I decided to stop in at the Arizona-Oakland exhibition game in Phoenix for a few innings, in large part because Randy Johnson was hurling. And so here came Miguel Tejada to the dish. Cool moment.
 
Reigning NL Cy Young Award winner versus reigning AL Most Valuable Player.
 
Here’s the pitch. Long drive to right … twisting … curving foul … deep … and 10 feet foul, over the fence. I thought — and I have my reasons why — what a good thing it would be to have that ball.
 
There was a moderate crowd on this toasty Arizona afternoon. And, after the inning, I walked out to the bleachers down the right-field line and looked over the fence that stood between the main ballpark and the back fields where the A’s train. I asked a fan where the ball was that Tejada hit, and he pointed to the first main field, where a ball sat between home plate and the first-base bag. At the same time, a kid, maybe about 7, asked some other fans where the ball was; I heard him. And those fans pointed to four foul balls sitting in sort of no-man’s land between the backstop on the first field and the fence where I was. I knew this couldn’t be true, because the ball went over the fence barely foul, not 35 feet foul the way it would have had to if it was where the kid thought it was. And so I walked to the area outside the right-field stands where a guard and an A’s official were making sure no fans got down to the lower fields and the players’ parking lot. I asked if I might be able to get the Johnson-Tejada ball. The official said no problem, and I walked down, past the alerted guard, and onto the pristine field to get the ball.
 
Behind me, all of a sudden, I heard the running footsteps of the kid, who’d apparently snuck behind me and got past the guard, too, and he scrambled past the backstop to get the ball he was sure was the one Tejada hit.
 
I picked up the True Ball, and I told the kid: “I’m sure you’ve got the one Tejada hit,” just so he’d feel good about it.
 
And when the guard saw him walking back up the ramp toward the stadium, he tried to stop the kid, but he was too quick and slipped back into the stadium. (Just like I’m sure I would have done if I was a kid and had an MVP foul ball.)
 
I thanked Matt sincerely, told him the ball would be put to good use, and went back to watch a couple more innings before catching my plane.
 
And now you know why I have the best job on earth.
 
 
Click to expand...
 

So, if this wasn't bad enough, he gets rightly skewered in the following day's mailbag and here's his retort:

Quite a few of you were offended by the story in last week’s column about me throwing my weight around to get a foul ball at a spring training game.
 
Brian Howie of New York takes me to task for having “swindled some little kid into believing he had the True Ball, even though you have a job that will give you ample opportunities to get another one for yourself in the future. Karma, my friend, Karma.”
 
YOU’LL GET YOURS SOME DAY, KING. From Sean Griffin of Washington, D.C.: “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You, Peter King, fabulously wealthy sportswriter, used your prestige and fame to push your way into a closed-access area so you could get a foul ball. Then you lied to a 7-year-old kid so you could keep the foul ball. Then you brag in your web column about how you cheated this 7-year-old kid out of a foul ball, so all of your readers can share in the joy of your wonderful life. Gee, how heartwarming. It’s just too bad you couldn’t have published this piece closer to the holiday season — peace on earth, good will toward men, and screw you kid, I got my foul ball, so there.”
 
Wow. The anger. The rage.
 
I introduced myself to a guard and asked if I could get a foul ball. I walked to get the foul ball. A 7-year-old boy passed through the same gate, without permission, as the guard called after him to come back.
 
I picked up the ball I thought was hit by Miguel Tejada. The kid picked up the ball he thought was hit by Tejada. I’m supposed to convince this kid who snuck through the gate that he doesn’t have the right ball and give him mine?
 
I had permission to get the ball I got. The 7-year-old boy stole his.
 
And I “cheated” him out of the ball?
 
I told the kid: “I’m sure you’ve got the one Tejada hit,” just so he’d feel good about it.
 
I can see how you’d be offended that I tried to make the kid feel good by telling him he had the real ball, because I told what I believed to be a lie, even though it was not a malicious one. Maybe that’s wrong.
 
But is it right to be somewhere you shouldn’t be and, technically, to possess stolen property?
 
 
Click to expand...
 

 
Freddy Linn

Freddy Linn

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
9,151
Where it rains. No, seriously.
Surprise! More mail about the Miguel Tejada foul ball. I'm going to let it go this week, but I will give you a chance to bash the living tar out of me before I do. 
 
IT'S STILL INCREDIBLE THAT YOU DIDN'T GIVE THE KID THE FOUL BALL. From Carlos Sires of Coral Gables, Fla.: "First, the disclaimer. You are one of my favorite sportswriters and I read your online and magazine columns every week. It's ironic that I write you for the first time taking you to task on a non-football item -- your justification for having taken the ball and not giving it to a kid. There are a lot of questions I could ask, including why you were let into the restricted area, while the kid was not; and why you think the usher/guard had the authority to allow you to take team property. But the real question is not one of laws or regulations, but of doing the right thing. I read your initial column on this and, apparently like many of your readers, thought you did the wrong thing. The right thing would have been to give the kid the ball. You don't need it. You can get as many as you want, probably autographed to boot. The kid did nothing criminal, unless you are going to characterize as criminals the thousands of kids who through the decades have jumped fences to retrieve stolen property hit into restricted areas that only famous sportswriters can get into via the permission of a gate guard. I just wonder why, despite all the technicalities you can cite in your favor, you just did not have it in you to turn around and lob the kid the ball." 
 
There's more. 
 
YOU ARE A CLASSLESS, CLUELESS, SELFISH LOUT. From Chris Boyle of Los Angeles: "Despite your keen football insight, which we actually appreciate, you have never been more clueless than you are now. So let's see if we can get through to you this time. Seven-year-old boys who sneak through gates to get a foul ball at spring training aren't possessing stolen property. They're being 7-year-old boys at spring training. Middle-aged star football writers who make a point of telling everyone that they're star football writers are egotistical and self-indulgent. When a middle-aged star football writer, one who could quite easily call Miguel Tejada himself and get a signed ball, dupes a kid and then boasts about the greatness of it all, it plays rather poorly. The icing on the cake, though, is that not only do you feel the need to defend your actions (thus legitimizing our criticisms), but you do so by characterizing the kid as a delinquent. Utterly classless. When you cannot see how pushing your weight around at spring training might be a distasteful way to beat a 7-year-old, it's time for some self-assessment." 
 
And ... 
 
ONE MORE. From Greg of Dallas: "It's childish to justify your actions. You can almost be guaranteed that the classmates at this kid's school have taken the opportunity to inflict some type of juvenile abuse on him for not getting the right ball. You had no duty to give the kid the ball, but to act as if you had some legal right based on the guard's clearly discriminatory decision to permit a public figure rather than a kid onto the field shows, at the least, a lack of judgment. Of course, you could have originally told the story without including the kid and your supposedly correct determination of which was actually Tejada's ball. That would have been the best decision." 
 
To Carlos and Chris and Greg, and to my editor's doorman in Manhattan, and to the hundred or so others who have written similar letters whacking me upside the head until I am unconscious, I would like to say thank you for reading and thank you for taking the time to write and thank you for being passionate. I know how you feel. I suppose this will paint me as more of an ogre than before, but my opinion of the incident has not changed. And so I am going to, with all due respect to you and the others, move on.
 
Click to expand...
 
 
joe dokes

joe dokes

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
30,614
Corsi said:
 
I missed this "foul ball" story when it first ran back in 2009, but Chad Finn called attention to it in last Sunday's column.  The story itself has been wiped from the SI archive as far as I can tell, but I've reconstructed it below from an old KSK column:
 
 
Click to expand...
 
I read Finn's piece and didn;t think twice about it (plowing the well-furrowed King ground), but I dont think this is quite right:
 
Maybe I'm reading too much into a simple acknowledgement. But it doesn't take much imagination to read King's atta-boys to ESPN's Don Van Natta Jr. and Kevin Van Valkenburg -- the journalists who detailed how the dastardly Ravens have known precisely what happened with Ray Rice and his fiancee in that elevator all along -- as acknowledgments of something else entirely: Thanks for doing the job I could not.
 
Click to expand...
 
Actually, I dont think he read enough into it.  It reeks of "Hey, I'm Peter King, and these not-big-NFL-guys-like-me who aren't Peter King are going to be super-excited to get an atta-boy from Peter King."
 
Corsi

Corsi

isn't shy about blowing his wad early
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 3, 2010
12,955
Boston, MA
joe dokes said:
 It reeks of "Hey, I'm Peter King, and these not-big-NFL-guys-like-me who aren't Peter King are going to be super-excited to get an atta-boy from Peter King."
Click to expand...
 
Bingo.
 
JohntheBaptist

JohntheBaptist

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
11,410
Yoknapatawpha County
joe dokes said:
 
I read Finn's piece and didn;t think twice about it (plowing the well-furrowed King ground), but I dont think this is quite right:
 
 
Actually, I dont think he read enough into it.  It reeks of "Hey, I'm Peter King, and these not-big-NFL-guys-like-me who aren't Peter King are going to be super-excited to get an atta-boy from Peter King."
Click to expand...
You are 100% correct. All you have to do is look at the shape of his anecdotes--they're all centered around how amazing something is because it involves him, or he was there, or only understood from his perspective. There's no chance that was a subtle thanks for picking up a torch he won't carry. He doesn't know there is a torch.
 
Hendu for Kutch

Hendu for Kutch

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 7, 2006
6,924
Nashua, NH
You know, on top of everything else, I bet he didn't even get the right ball.  Even though the other fans all pointed to a different area, he KNEW they must be wrong, because the ball went barely foul.  Except, he described it as curling foul.  Which means when it lands it's going to keep going in that direction.  35 feet sounds like a pretty good guess, actually, on how far foul a ball hit that hard might roll to the left.
 
So, aside from the the extreme dickishness of everything he did/said there, he probably didn't even get the right ball.
 
dirtynine

dirtynine

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 17, 2002
8,434
Philly
It's that patented King two-fer: 1, that he behaves the way he does and generally is the way he is, and 2, that he feels like said behavior creates amazing content that must be shared with the world. 
 
leetinsley38

leetinsley38

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 24, 2005
767
SF Bay Area
Hendu for Kutch said:
 
So, aside from the the extreme dickishness of everything he did/said there, he probably didn't even get the right ball.
Click to expand...
Karma is a bitch, King!

"I thought and I have my reasons why what a good thing it would be to have that ball."

This seems weirdly cryptic to me.
 
JohntheBaptist

JohntheBaptist

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
11,410
Yoknapatawpha County
dirtynine said:
It's that patented King two-fer: 1, that he behaves the way he does and generally is the way he is, and 2, that he feels like said behavior creates amazing content that must be shared with the world. 
Click to expand...
When they asked him his name he responded "Andrew." Such a cool scene in the Pitt Starbucks.
 
 
John Marzano Olympic Hero

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
24,637
Honest question, do you think that King likes that glasses picture? Do you think that he thinks (Ho, ho! These things write themselves!) that he looks cool with that pose? Or do you think he was coerced into it by his publisher or the PR rep working on the book?
 
Because if I ever wrote a book and that's what they wanted on the book jacket, I wouldn't do it. I would feel like such a fool. I wonder if King is too self-absorbed to know just how dumb he looks?
 
I mean, it's a Karl Welzein tweet brought to life.
 
JohntheBaptist

JohntheBaptist

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
11,410
Yoknapatawpha County
John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
Honest question, do you think that King likes that glasses picture? Do you think that he thinks (Ho, ho! These things write themselves!) that he looks cool with that pose? Or do you think he was coerced into it by his publisher or the PR rep working on the book?
 
Because if I ever wrote a book and that's what they wanted on the book jacket, I wouldn't do it. I would feel like such a fool. I wonder if King is too self-absorbed to know just how dumb he looks?
 
I mean, it's a Karl Welzein tweet brought to life.
Click to expand...
It is totally a Karl Welzein tweet come to life.
 
I've probably posted that picture in this thread close to ten times, for exactly the reasons you touch on here. I am fascinated by that photograph.
 
My guess? I don't know where it originated or what purpose it originally served, but I bet the general "they" pitched it to him as "an edgy picture," he got excited about the thought of THE Peter King getting to be edgy for a day ("and hey, is it really that far off? I listen to Springsteen, I saw cocaine at a party once in college before leaving immediately..."), and the "they" in question were ultimately, at the end of the day, as edgy as he is and this is what they came up with. Sort of like the 1980s--lots of reasons to cater something to a certain audience, but no one in charge has any idea what that audience is or who they really are. Everyone fails, we get a timeless photo.
 
Reverend

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
64,577
JohntheBaptist said:
It is totally a Karl Welzein tweet come to life.
 
I've probably posted that picture in this thread close to ten times, for exactly the reasons you touch on here. I am fascinated by that photograph.
 
My guess? I don't know where it originated or what purpose it originally served, but I bet the general "they" pitched it to him as "an edgy picture," he got excited about the thought of THE Peter King getting to be edgy for a day ("and hey, is it really that far off? I listen to Springsteen, I saw cocaine at a party once in college before leaving immediately..."), and the "they" in question were ultimately, at the end of the day, as edgy as he is and this is what they came up with. Sort of like the 1980s--lots of reasons to cater something to a certain audience, but no one in charge has any idea what that audience is or who they really are. Everyone fails, we get a timeless photo.
Click to expand...
 
I don't think you really want to contemplate just how large and significant this audience actually is and how much of the country it incorporates.
 
JohntheBaptist

JohntheBaptist

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
11,410
Yoknapatawpha County
There is no Rev said:
 
I don't think you really want to contemplate just how large and significant this audience actually is and how much of the country it incorporates.
Click to expand...
Too late!
 
Just to be clear though, I meant more the idea that Peter King's readership would want/ need to see him edgy, and that that would qualify as edgy for any human drawing a breath.
 
Reverend

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
64,577
JohntheBaptist said:
Too late!
 
Just to be clear though, I meant more the idea that Peter King's readership would want/ need to see him edgy, and that that would qualify as edgy for any human drawing a breath.
Click to expand...
 
 
JohntheBaptist

JohntheBaptist

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 13, 2005
11,410
Yoknapatawpha County
Well sure, maybe it reads as hip to some. I think you can smell the tryhard desperation coming through loud and clear, but then it also fascinates me because, again, Peter King + edgy--why?
 
Also, do you have a still frame archive covering your given response to every human conversation topic imaginable? Do you respond to people by holding up giant placards with angry cats and sitcom images in every day life?
 
joyofsox

joyofsox

empty, bleak
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
7,552
Vancouver Island
NFL player accused of rape back on the field day after victim files police report: attorney
 
An NFL player accused of rape was suited up and playing one day after the victim filed a police report about the alleged attack, attorney Gloria Allred charged Friday.
 
The high-profile lawyer said her office delivered a letter to the office of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the alleged Sept. 20 rape and the team’s decision to let the accused athlete play last Sunday.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/nfl-player-accused-rape-back-field-day-victim-files-police-report-attorney-article-1.1954366
 
 
 
joyofsox

joyofsox

empty, bleak
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
7,552
Vancouver Island
It's tangential, I suppose. PK's been an apologist for Goddell and this appears to be yet another headache for him and the league.
 
Bunt4aTriple

Bunt4aTriple

Member (member)
Silver Supporter
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
4,397
North Yarmouth, ME
Is there a subset of people who doesn't immediately dismiss anything associated with Gloria Allred? 
 
I'm only half kidding, but she falls into that Jesse Jackson (who personally is less credible than Sharpton these days) category for me.  Even if there is some substance to her claims, the fact that she's involved means that the majority of folks are going to dismiss them out of hand.
 
I hope this doesn't appear to be me having a problem with women/minority representatives.  I agree with most of your arguments.  I just think you need different spokespersons.
 
Corsi

Corsi

isn't shy about blowing his wad early
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 3, 2010
12,955
Boston, MA
9. I think if Bill Simmons has proof that Roger Goodell lied, then I’ve got no problem with what he said that caused ESPN to suspend him for three weeks. If it’s his opinion that Goodell is lying, then I’ve got a problem with it. How do you publicly say someone is lying and is a liar—adding profanities for emphasis—without knowing for sure?
 
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom