I Just Thought of a Really Good Idea For a Saturday Night Live Mock Commercial

Do you remember those old "Maytag Repairman" commercials, in which the Maytag repairman sat around with nothing to do, because his company's appliances were just so darn reliable? Well, I think it would be funny if SNL did a take off on those commercials, called "ESPN Copy Editor", in which you see the ESPN editor sitting there doing nothing. The twist is, of course, that he actually does have things to do, he just, for some reason, doesn't do them.

The good news: Peter Gammons' latest post has nothing to do with the Red Sox or Barry Bonds.

The bad news? Well, let's see. The title, Educational Year Awaits For Twins, sounds like a euphemism for "Twins Will Suck This Year". But let's not make that judgment just yet, especially because Gammons' attitude, especially during spring training, is one of never-ending, starry-eyed optimism. On to the opening sentence (actually, paragraph):

Delmon Young got excited talking about it.

Okay, well, I guess "it" refers to the only singular noun before it ("educational year"), which appears in the title. Right?

"This is incredible," he said, looking out across the Twins' spring training site (Lee County Stadium).

Oh. So "it" must refer to the Twins' spring training site. I've never been there. Must be glorious.

"Every day I get to work on hitting with Rod Carew and Tony Oliva, and Harmon Killebrew is watching. I get to work on baserunning with Paul Molitor. It's been great for me."

Aha! So "it" is actually learning from former great baseball players! The mystery is solved! I think! (Note to all the kids out there: Do not write like this man. If you really feel the urge to start your essay/paper/story with an unclear pronoun, please follow it with its antecedent. Don't wait two sentences before sort of hinting at the antecedent.)

First of all, the fact that Young not only appreciates working with Hall of Famers but knows who they are speaks volumes about Young as a baseball player. "I've said all along that the Twins got themselves a future star in Delmon," says one AL GM. "That's great that he understands what that means. We have a guy who had never heard of Brooks Robinson or Mike Schmidt."

Ugh. Where do I begin?

1. "The fact that Young...knows who [Carew, Oliva, Killebrew, and Molitor] are" says absolutely nothing about Young as a baseball player. NOTHING. I'm no neurologist, but I'm reasonably certain that the knowledge of past baseball greats and the ability to hit a baseball are located in different parts of the brain.

2. When one uses the "not only...but" construction, the part following the "but" should be more specific/impressive/surprising than the part following the "not only". I'm not the only one who believes this. From the American Heritage Book of English Usage:

Leaving out the also from [the not only...but also] construction tends to intensify the first part of the construction rather than supplement it: She is not only smart but brilliant. He not only wanted the diamond but wanted it desperately.

As you can see, Gammons' use of this construction is backwards. The prosecution rests.

3. Most baseball players are at least a tiny bit media-savvy. Thus, if Delmon Young goes to a new team and sees that there are certain coaches and consultants on the team are treated with a lot of respect, he might easily conclude that they're former baseball greats. Or, maybe he just knows their names but knows nothing about them. Either way, I'm pretty sure that Gammons is giving just a tiny bit too much credit to Mr. Young.

These are the Twins.

Somebody tell me what this sentence is doing here. I know he's writing about the Twins, dammit.

Oh, they've lost to free agency or traded away three-fifths of its starting rotation that was fourth in the league in ERA in 2007, and what's left is a rotation where Livan Hernandez may be their Opening Day starter and the four remaining starters were a combined 21-22 last season.

1. "Where" should be "in which", since a "rotation" is not a specific place. Again, this error is common among high-school students. But this writer is Peter Gammons, who is well out of high school! Why is he allowed to get away with this crap? (Probably because I'm one of ten people who noticed this error and one of three who actually cared. Nevertheless.)

2. I enjoy how Gammons uses ERA to prove how good the Twins' rotation was last year, and then W-L record to show how bad it is this year. Yes, three-fifths of it is gone, but the remaining two-fifths (Boof Bonser and Scott Baker) ain't half bad, and the shoddy W-L record can be attributed mostly to their ghastly offense.

Torii Hunter is now playing with the Angels, and they have some issues in their infield. Oh, by the way, they finished 17 games behind the Indians last season and were outscored by the opposition.

I hate when people say "Oh, by the way" for a completely gratuitous purpose. We get it, Peter. The Twins are in trouble. Maybe his title was, in fact, a euphemism for the Twins' upcoming suckiness.

"We've had to change directions," said manager Ron Gardenhire, who from 2002 through 2006 won four division titles and were 97 games over .500.

This error is considerably more glaring than the previous one I pointed out. Ron Gardenhire..."were" 97 games over .500? Really? WAKE UP, EDITORS!

There's plenty more crappy writing, but as usual, I've run out of steam after the first three paragraphs, because it's just too bad. Foist, care to take a shot at the rest of it?