I’m not quite sure what day it is.
I do know that it isn’t press day. I do know that I’m not scheduled to drive to Milford. Or Georgetown. Or, thankfully, Laurel — though David Elliot, one of graphic artists at the Coastal Point, does tell me that the new Dollar Store there is rather nice.
All of this linear uncertainty began around March, when the spring sports season for Indian River High School got under way. There were nine sports to cover — baseball and softball usually at the exact same time, boys’ lacrosse and girls’ lacrosse, as well, no intern this year... And, oh, yeah, Chris Clark — the Coastal Point photographer — is going to Costa Rica for a week. (Don’t worry, though, it’s not like it’s during the busiest week of the season or anything. [It was.])
I guess I should have known what I was in for when I put up the “Tribe Tuesday Scoreboard” with all the scores from the first really busy day of spring sports. It went over great and everything... aside from the fact that it turned out that what I was calling “Tribe Tuesday” was actually a Monday. Oops.
But since we’re now nearing the end of another action-packed year of Indians’ sports and planning on taking a look at the top 10 plays of 2014-2015 season in next week’s issue, I figured why not take a look at the “Not-Top-10” blunders of sports coverage while I try to figure out what day it is, and who’s president right now for that matter. (It isn’t Hillary yet, is it?).
Trying to catch a line drive
on the sidelines while holding a camera
Attending my fair share of baseball and softball games this season, I’ve certainly had a few close calls with foul balls while staring into my camera lens - usually followed by a “Tripp — watch out!” just in time for me to spastically duck, in Jerry Lewis slapstick fashion, just before impact and an impending black eye.
But at Saturday’s softball game, I had the sun at my back and wasn’t shooting when an Appoquinimink batter lined one right toward where I was standing, along the fence behind third base. While Mrs. Collins, who was also shooting photos from that spot, was smart enough to move out of the way, I, on the other hand, decided to reach out for a bare-handed snag.
Big mistake. This thing was moving, and slightly out of reach. What I envisioned being a sure-fire Top 10 play ended up starting off our Not-Top-10 instead, as I reached out to feel instant, sharp-shooting pain when the ball smashed into my now bruised and battered fingertips and ricocheted away.
I’m just lucky it wasn’t one of the Indians’ sluggers, like Eliza Bombhardt or Ky Neal, at the plate because if it was, I’d probably be writing this column from a hospital bed with a couple of broken phalanges.
What the woo woo, Chris Clark?
If you don’t remember this game, you probably at least remember my relentless coverage of it (not quite to the point of Deflategate, but close) to go along with my countless Queen Bratton “What the Woo Woo?” references.
What you don’t remember, however, is the Chris Clark-caliber photos or the GoPro footage from the perspective of the backboard — because at halftime of the Indian River/Delmar basketball game this winter, Chris left.
“I got the shot,” he said before heading off for what I’m hoping was at least something important like an 8:30 dinner res at Chili’s with an expiring coupon, leaving me to take notes, update the score on Twitter and shoot photos by myself as the game went into triple-overtime (great column, by the way), thanks to not one, but two buzzer-beating three-pointers by Delmar forward Larry Ennis — one of them from nearly half-court.
If Chris had hooked up the GoPro before the game and stayed through its entirety, as he did for the previous week’s game against Seaford, we would have surely had some footage worthy of the actual Sportscenter Top 10, but instead, here we are in the Not-Top-10 of “Tripple Overtime” (great column, by the way), wondering what could have been.
Oh, sorry, Eddie... It, uh, wasn’t rolling
In today’s fast-paced world of journalism, technology is great... except when it isn’t. I’ve learned that the hard way, losing interviews that I recorded on my smartphone plenty of times, always conveniently finding out that they’re missing just a few hours before we go to press on Wednesday morning...
And after the game against Woodbridge a couple of weeks ago, where senior third-baseman Eddie Hogan had belted his first home run of the season and the Indians had gotten a critical division win, technology failed me yet again (which was not only embarrassing, but added to my already skeptical notion of the real life possibility of a “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”-type scenario).
After interviewing an amped up Eddie right after the game, and him knocking out every question I asked just like he had that homer, I looked down to see that even though I’m sure that I hit the red button… the app had recorded nothing.
For a minute, I even considered taking a page out of my pal Frank’s book and ditching my phone all together. (I mean, we’ve all seen the movie “One Missed Call” right? What if your mobile phone...killed you?)
But instead of rising up against the machines before they finally launch their inevitable takeover, we just did the interview again. Eddie was cool with it and knocked out the questions just like he had the first time. It’s kind of like he stated in the interview anyway: “All that matters is getting the ‘W.’”
Letting Chris Clark do interviews
If you haven’t picked up on the thesis of this column yet, spring sports was pretty crazy.
So when Hope Pearce was set to sing the national anthem before the soccer team’s Senior Night match against Woodbridge at the same time that the lacrosse team was taking on the Golden Knights at Sussex Central, I asked Chris if he wouldn’t mind getting some comments after the game.
Team player that he is, he, of course, agreed, but I couldn’t help but lol (Frank, that means “laugh out loud”) when I got around to listening to the interview, where, after just one question, he asked coach Jerry Sheridan if he had any further comment. After thinking about it for a second, the coach simply responded, “Nope.” Then, click — it was over. At least he remembered to hit record, I guess.
The near-death experience at Cripple Creek
“Make sure you get a golf cart,” Chris Clark told me when I set out to cover the Indians’ match against Dover on one of the first really warm days of the spring. You see, Chris had been out there before and even drew me a map as to where to get the best shots, etc.
But, unsurprisingly, I ignored his advice when I was running late and figured I’d be fine on foot (I also forgot to bring the map). And I was fine, for a while, for the first lap around the entire course, at least.
The heat started to get to me about 45 minutes in, as I started asking myself whether the course’s hills that I was climbing were real or if I was beginning to hallucinate — I was seeing golfers, gold carts and, for some reason, the Kool-Aid Guy (although, in retrospect, it could have just been a predominantly red vending machine).
After I found some golfers and got some good shots, I got lost for a while yet again, eventually stumbling upon a nice couple on the opposite end of the course who directed me back to the clubhouse. Whether I hallucinated them or not, their directions worked and I ended up not dying out there... but I think we can all agree that it was a close call.
There are plenty of other Not-Top-10 moments that I could have mentioned in this column, plenty of other blunders that I’ve made since the start of the school year and the Indian River sports calendar, but for the sake of embarrassment, we’ll just hold it to five.
Despite all of it, though, and despite what day it was or what day I thought it was, it really has been one heck of a year of IR sports. And, thankfully, it isn’t over yet. We’re still waiting to see if the softball team is going to make the playoff cut, there’ll be plenty of All-State and All-Conference honors to announce, and, of course, a girls’ soccer state championship run to cover this Thursday. Or was that on Wednesday...