Hey, Jaycee Dugard! Here's the sports news you missed while you were being raped!

Thursday, 10th September 2009

This is perhaps the single worst column I've read. Ever. Anywhere. I have absolutely no idea what Mark Whicker thought he was attempting when he wrote this. But that the editors at the Orange County Register would then actually see fit to publish it is utterly incomprehensible. Mr Whicker begins:

It doesn't sound as if Jaycee Dugard got to see a sports page.
Box scores were not available to her from June 10, 1991 until Aug. 31 of this year.

She never saw a highlight. Never got to the ballpark for Beach Towel Night. Probably hasn't high-fived in a while.

She was not allowed to spike a volleyball. Or pitch a softball. Or smack a forehand down the line. Or run in a 5-footer for double bogey.

Now, that's deprivation.

Can you imagine? Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped and stashed in Phillip Garrido's backyard. She was 29 when she escaped. Penitentiary inmates at least get an hour of TV a day. Dugard was cut off from everything but the elements.

[...]So, Jaycee, whenever you're ready, here's what you've missed...

Unbelievable. But wait, it gets worse! Here's how it ends:

And ballplayers, who always invent the slang no matter what ESPN would have you believe, came up with an expression for a home run that you might appreciate.
Congratulations, Jaycee. You left the yard.

That final line achieves something extraordinary: it makes the rest of this, er, remarkable column seem well-judged and in the best possible taste.

PS: Nice to see that the OC Register warns that comments that "joke about tragedies will be blocked."

UPDATE: Mr Whicker says he's "quite surprised" the reaction to this column has "really been quite extreme".

UPDATE 2: Fairness demands that we note that Mr Whicker has apologised. He made a terrible mistake, but his editors are equally culpable for not saving Whicker from himself. Something to remember next time you hear someone sounding off about how the blogosphere doesn't have the checks and safeguards that make newspapers so much better than anything produced by online scribblers.

[Hat-tip: Matt Welch]

Filed under: Newspapers (208 more articles)

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Chrissy

September 10th, 2009 1:10am Report this comment

What an IDIOT!!! Do you think she even cares about the sports she missed? She is alive and that is all that matters. She did everything right or she would not be alive today.

Farmer Joe

September 10th, 2009 2:23am Report this comment

That is just sick, has nobody even considered the huge political events that she may have missed in that time?

Pedro

September 10th, 2009 3:12am Report this comment

And now Oprah is determined to get the big interview. I-WANT-THAT-INTERVIEW she pointedly said on television. My God, the hapless Jaycee has been out of her physical and psychological prison for just two weeks since she was 11 and Winfrey wants her under the TV lights to grill her about her appalling experiences. As if she isn't already assailed by confused feelings for having "bonded" with her captors and rapists. I bet the first question Winfrey has lined up is "Jaycee why didn't you escape when you had the chance?" Just what this damaged child/woman needs for her healing process.
Couldn't you just scream. Just SCREEEEEEAM.
I'm hoping Jaycee's new family have a bit more sense than Oprah, and America's other celebrity media cretins, and ensure Jaycee is fully healed long before the media circus gets anywhere near her.

foxconnworker

September 10th, 2009 6:38am Report this comment

chrissy:

but what i thought is:
she has been deprived of so many years of normal life, her children, her wholelife is there. so she just walked away? with or without her children? after being abused so many years, if it were you, how would you get out to live a normal life? anyway, she should, but if i were her, i will wait to watch these 3 monsters to die, including grido's mother! they are totally lier! they are decent person? they are anything but decent!

i can not even imagine she had been insulted by that anticho community all these years. this is totally collective murdering afterr being kidnapped for so many years.

Wondering

September 10th, 2009 1:42pm Report this comment

Did you rip this off from MSNBC or did they rip it off from you? This is pretty much word-for-word was Keith Olbermann said lastnight on his show. I wonder who plagiarized whom?

dragnet

September 10th, 2009 2:01pm Report this comment

In my opinion, any 'worst sports column' award has to go to the ridiculous Jeff Passan. The man has a library full of boners, but for my money his worst effort is the "story" he wrote about Grady Little.

The man is simply unreadable.

Dean

September 10th, 2009 4:23pm Report this comment

Pretty bad. Makes me miss Fire Joe Morgan even more.

Kelly

September 10th, 2009 11:22pm Report this comment

The same paper that endorsed Republican State Rep. Mike Duvall. Duval stepped down Wednesday after a videotape surfaced in which he was overheard telling a lawmaker about having sex with a lobbyist and another woman.
pretty tame actually for the party of do as I say, not as I do.