Letter-writer George S. Robinson of Heidelberg threatens to take the riding crop to the "lazy" Stars and Stripes sports staff for not giving him enough coverage of the Kentucky Derby, run last week. He says there's too much "boring" baseball coverage, and even the National Hockey League gets more space than the Derby -- "the greatest two minutes in sports." The paper didn't even run a list of entries, he complains.
Sports editor Sean Moores defends the coverage as "a fair representation of the current interest in the sport." Robinson surely is underestimating interest in baseball and hockey, and yet the sports guys may be underestimating the interest in horse racing. That interest seems now to be heightened for an unfortunate reason -- the euthanizing of a horse on the Derby track.
Then again after every Derby there's increased interest in a possible Triple Crown performance. That's legitimate, says Moores, who promises fuller coverage for the Preakness next week. If the Derby champ, Big Brown, wins that one everyone's eyes, including Robinson's and Moores', will surely be on the Belmont Stakes in June.
AFN sports coverage has stunk for a long time
I have made that known, to no avail, to AFN-Washington for years. I even have what I call an AFN file. The "Teflon Man" in their public affairs puzzle cubicle, Larry Sichter, knows who I am. He doesn't even answer me anymore, which is fine since I was tiring of his whining excuses why they can show every real sport on a multitude of their expanded channels and still put garbage like NASCAR, NHL, bass fishing highlights, arena football, curling, competitive speed nose-picking, etc. on AFN-Atlantic (which many viewers only receive), but cannot put The Masters, a decent baseball game, a decent golf tournament, an NBA playoff game or NFL conference championship game on .
Somebody needs to buggywhip those guys!