As you probably saw, Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped by a pedophile/psychopath and kept in a tent for over a decade, where her abductor denied her a life and fathered two children with her.
What does this have to do with sports, you might be wondering?
Mark Whicker, a columnist for the Orange County Register, wrote a column called “Many odd things have happened in sports the past 18 years.” The premise of the column is that Jaycee missed a lot of sports news while she was living in captivity. What??
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.
Just when you think the article couldn’t get any more despicable, you get to the last two lines:
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.
Do you get it? Whicker compared a baseball player hitting a home run to a defenseless girl being freed from a rapist’s captivity. See what he did there? See how that word play worked?
Normally, “outrage of the day” stories lack context or both sides, but this is absurd. Feel free to let the guy know how you feel (mwhicker@ocregister.com).
My favorite response was from Totally Radical Sportz, which emailed Whicker to say:
Next, you should write one about what the German Jews missed during the 40’s.
Hilarious work as always, Mark.
What a schmuck.
