Jack Flynn

Posted Tuesday, August 5, 2008

I love sports, but I hate athletes. All it took was one night in the Metrostars’ locker room after a 4-0 loss to the New England Revolution in 1997 to confirm that I never, ever wanted to write about sports professionally, even though I spend many of my waking hours obsessing about the New York Mets.

That’s why I’ve never pursued sports writing as a vocation – not after four years with the Torch (the official student newspaper of St. John’s University) or after six years of writing professionally for several New York-based weekly newspapers. Other than a three-month stint as the New York hurling and Gaelic football reporter for the Irish Echo, I have always shied away from sports writing, mainly because I couldn’t standing the thought of asking athletes questions for the rest of my life.

This was before the Internet, of course, where one can now write intelligently about sports without resorting to staking out a locker room to stick a tape recorder in the face of a completely naked man in the hopes of getting yet another insipid quote to complete your generic 800-word game recap before the clock strikes midnight. No offense, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Now, I contribute a weekly column to this fine website and regularly ramble about baseball on my blog, Productive Outs and Crackerjack. Sports writing is beginning to evolve into something that I think more accurately reflects what sports fans really want – less of a focus on game recaps and athlete quotes in favor of sharper analysis and alternative ways of thinking about the games we love. It’s nothing less than a revolution and I enjoy playing a small role in it.

 

The Staff