Umpires Are People Too

Just finished reading an article in the July 7, 2014 issue of ESPN the Magazine and I had to share it.  The article is about Pastor Dean Esskew and his ministry serving umpires in Minor League and Major League Baseball.

It is a beautifully written article by Jon Mooallem that describes how Pastor Dean began serving the men responsible for bringing order to the chaos that may occur in professional baseball.  And it humbled me.  My father was a football official, so I've always been somewhat cognizant of the trials of the position.  One of my best friends is a police officer who also used to be an umpire and a wrestling official.  Talk about somebody with a thick skin!  But this article reminded me that officiating is a hard business, especially at the professional level where fastballs come in at 100 MPH and batters can cover the 90 feet, 9 inches from home to first in just over four seconds.  These men put themselves out there every night miles and hours away from their families.  They are regularly ridiculed for missed calls but rarely credited for making the right ones in difficult situations.

Thank you to Mooallem for reminding me that these men are all God's children who often are dealing with personal demons and tragedies, just like you and me.  The only difference:  They are performing on a national stage.  If you want to read the article and see  a video clip, I've provided the link to the ESPN site.

ESPN The Magazine: Lest Ye Be Judged

Is Football King, Or Has The Media Made It So?

Let me begin by saying I love football.  It is the greatest sport under the heavens, the ultimate team sport combining brute strength and intelligence in a battle of wills among combatants.  I began playing in fourth grade at the YMCA in North Little Rock, Ark. and didn’t stop until I graduated from Central Missouri State University.  I love broadcasting games, love writing about the sport, love teaching my sons about the game.  I wish the Arena Football League were on television more so I could watch in the spring.  But even I think ESPN and Sports Illustrated might be going a bit overboard in their coverage. 

It seems every time I turn on ESPN I’m getting reports about the Combine, which free agent is going where, whose coach has just signed an extension.  Yes, that is all newsworthy, but college basketball is heating up as we ready for March Madness! Baseball spring training has begun! Hockey is finally back on ice! The off-season football seems to be getting as much coverage as the IN-season football! 

Sports Illustrated is just as football crazy.  In the March 4 issue, of the 51 pages dedicated to content (meaning those without ads), 21 were dedicated to football.  That’s 41 percent of the magazine!  Baseball got less than half that much coverage in SI’s so called “Spring Training ‘13” issue!  The cover of the March 4 magazine shows South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney busting through a montage of basketball players and the header reads “Spring Football ’13 (Sorry, hoops, two more weeks to wait).

True, in America, football is king.  Of Forbes 50 Most Valuable Sports Franchises, 31 are professional football teams.  Acording to http://mostpopularsports.net/in-america, football in America is No. 1, followed by baseball, basketball, hockey and soccer.  The Richest, a website dedicated to pop culture and finance, had the same findings.  So did the online resource page “Buzzle”.  And wikianswers.com noted that, while NASCAR actually has the highest national ratings, football is king among team sports.

This, then, begs the question:  Do media outlets such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated bring us football because it is our favorite sport, or is football our favorite sport because that is what are presented with most often? As a professor of journalism, I am compelled to ask the question.  It’s the classic chicken or the egg argument, but with a pigskin.

In 1972, journalism professors Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw proposed Agenda-Setting Theory.  Their hypothesis, according to “A First Look at Communication Theory”:  The mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of issues on their news agenda to the public agenda.  In other words, to quote University of Wisconsin political scientist Bernard Cohen, “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”

It would seem, at least when it comes to football, McCombs and Shaw may be right!