Remember when winning was the story?

I never cared much for spelling bees when we did them in class during grade school. In fact, I would usually try to botch a word early so I could go sit down and not deal with such foolishness. That's why I am completely indifferent to the National Spelling Bee and was rather shocked that they would put it on network television. I guess in some way I should admire these kids for their obsession with learning, but frankly I can't get too excited about someone spending most of their waking time memorizing words that they'll never use in regular life or probably ever hear again. Still, whatever floats your boat. Normally, I wouldn't follow any of it, but ESPN carried it for years before it moved to sister network ABC. In typical ESPN fashion, they pimp the Hell out of the show on their website and news programs, so I'm forced to.

So how did ESPN report who won this year? They felt the need to focus on the fact that the winner was the first girl to win sin 1999. How am I supposed to feel about this? Outraged that female spellers had been oppressed for the past five years? Delight that one girl was able to overcome the male dominated world of competitive spelling to pull out the win? Nope. To begin with, the male/female ratio is usually pretty evenly split, and girls have won the contest throughout history so five wins in a row by males is probably coincidental. Secondly, why would it matter anyway? The number of kids actively engaged in these things has to be incredibly small. Since only a male or female can win in any year, a short run of one gender is an anomaly signifying nothing. Yet, ESPN felt it was the most important fact to report.

Frankly, I'm just getting tired of this PC bull that permeates sports reporting. The biggest at this time of year is Danica Patrick in the Indy Racing League. She's a female in a male dominated sport, and she's cute. She's willing to pose for the men's semi-skin magazines (although I don't think she's hot enough that FHM would give her a second glance if she was Jane Nobody off the street). She's different which gives her novelty status and a much higher profile than her success (or lack of) would suggest. She's a pretty good driver and with a good team, but so far she hasn't shown me anything to indicate she'll ever be more than middle of the pack on the elite level. Still, IRL is smart to make her the face of their league over better, more accomplished drivers, because the IRL is a distant second to NASCAR in this country. In fact, without the tradition of the Indy 500, it would barely be on the auto racing map.

While I understand the IRL pushing her, I don't understand why the sports press does. Regardless about the fact that she's never won a race and only has two top five finishes (both 4th), she's always written up as a major contender. It doesn't matter where she finishes or how she runs. Every article is going to make a special note about where Patrick ended up. When I went to ESPN.com after this year's Indy 500, there was more mention of her (and her eighth place finish) than things like the fact that this was one of the most exciting finishes (which she had nothing to do with) in my memory of the race. Or that a father/son combination from the American royal family of open wheel racing (the Andrettis) almost finished first and second. Patrick was really a non-factor in the race, but you wouldn't know it by the coverage.

You can say that maybe the coverage is just giving people what they want, but there's a high level of dishonesty in the coverage when dealing with her. How many times did sports writers make the point of saying Patrick "almost" won the Indy 500 last year? A lot. The only problem with it is that it really isn't true. She was running about ninth late fairly late in the race when all the cars in front of her pitted, because they knew they probably wouldn't have enough fuel to finish the race. Patrick stayed on the track even though she was in the same shape. Her crew figured their only chance to win was to leave her out and hope for enough cautions that she wouldn't run out of fuel. She also needed them because she would have to run slower to conserve what fuel she had. She did get cautions, but it was obvious when she was in the lead that she was going to get caught. In fact, she was a lot closer to not finishing the race than she really was to winning it. If it wasn't for a caution at the end, she wouldn't have held on for fourth, and probably wouldn't have had enough fuel to finish. Yet, the intellectual dishonesty was so bad that more than one sportswriter said her pit crew told her to slow down as if to say she could have won if her crew had let her. If she hadn't slowed down, she doesn't finish. These sportswriters simply did not want to admit that her leading laps and finishing high was the product of a desperation move.

So, did it get any better this year. Not really. They couldn't hype her as almost winning because I don't think she never ran higher than fifth place. Instead, this year's refrain was that Patrick ran a better race this year (based on finishing eighth after starting tenth) and was a big factor throughout. She may have run a better race, but as I pointed out above that isn't saying a whole lot. Moving up two spots after 500 miles of racing doesn't set my world on fire unless you started third. As for being a factor, she probably wouldn't have been mentioned if she wasn't a she. She has to be considered a non-factor because she never threatened the lead or had an effect on it. In fact, Sam Hornish and Scott Dixon were both black flagged (made to pass through the pits at 60 mph rather than on the track at 200+ mph) late in the race, but still finished ahead of Patrick. Basically, she ran a nice safe race that meant she didn't wreck, but also didn't matter.

But she's a pioneer, right? Not really. Women drove in early NASCAR races of the late 40s which has to be tougher (think no power steering) than driving the high tech Indy cars of today. Other women have raced in the Indy 500 and that goes back to the 70s. So, contrary to popular belief, Patrick's only new contribution so far is that she's had pictures taken in skimpy outfits to promote herself. If she finally gets a win, okay. If she wins the IRL championship, good. If she jumps to NASCAR and wins its title, great. However, until that point, sports reporters need to honestly and objectively report on her career rather than acting as cheerleaders. When they are borderline (at best) lying about what she's done, they go beyond reporting and begin pushing an agenda.