Tightwad Hill

A MODEST REQUEST

To: The Editors of the San Francisco Chronicle
Re: Your 1.29.07 Editorial on the Memorial Stadium Controversy

Your recent editorial, suggesting that the University fold its tent and hereafter play its home games at the Oakland Coliseum, is quite possibly the dumbest suggestion you've made in a long history of dumb suggestions. We're not even going to pick it apart - it's that stupid; the mother of all non-starters. The Mausoleum is not the Rose Bowl. It's a dilapidated, ugly facility sandwiched between an airport, a freeway, and...well, Oakland. As for building a new facility, well, we wouldn't collaborate with Al Davis and John York to order Chinese takeout, let alone build a football stadium.

But our point is larger than your silly editorial. We'd like to request that you stop covering California athletics. No, seriously - we don't need the aggravation. You see, athletic programs are now covered by lots of national specialty media - you may have heard of ESPN - which have become primary news sources for most people in your coverage area. All you do with your half-baked articles is blur the picture for those out-of-town bloggers and professional media who erroneously suppose that they can "get the local scoop" by linking to your material. You are thus a source of disinformation.

Yes, yes - Glenn Dickey got Cal, and we, unlike many of our brethren, occasionally liked what he wrote about Golden Bear athletics (the other stuff is drivel, of course). Of course, he's now over at the other paper (ed - fixed) Well, we can get Cyberbears to lob him the occasional guest column and voila, there's a Dickey fix for the ten or so of us who enjoy his insights.

You see the occasional good column over the years from GD is now far outweighed - and the pun is very much intended - by the nonsense that spurts forth from Ray Ratto's laptop. You demean those of us who love Cal football by asking this disinterested, cynical lout to write about a sport about which he knows nothing, and for which he could give a fig. His indifference is palpable; we're sure he'd rather be writing about latest Warriors-Blazers barnburner, or speculating about the Niners' draft, or eating Cheetos - anything rather than have to thumb through his grease-stained media guide to remember who starts for Cal at WLB. This is a man who ranked Virginia Tech #10 and Georgia Tech #24...the day after GT beat the Hokies 38-27...in Blacksburg. He is a menace.

You see, Bear fans can get our news about Cal athletics from any number of sources in the official and unofficial media. You have to wade through lots of garbage to get to it, but we guarantee that a handful of insiders on Cyberbears speak to the coaching staff more frequently than Ratso and his ilk. We really need exactly one professional media source on Cal athletics - Jay Heater, who is an actual insider and displays some knowledge and enthusiasm for his subject. We don't need you, or the Mercury News, for that matter. So save yourselves some money (we understand that's a bit of an issue now) and concentrate on what you're really good at - covering the depressingly ordinary professional franchises who populate the greater Bay Area.

Thanks for your time.

posted by Tightwad @ 9:00 AM