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Swampy Meadows
04-16-2009, 07:54 AM
BEVERLY HILLS (MI) –- Ahhh, the offseason, where real hoops news is hard to find. Take this column for example:

-- I came down kinda hard on the 3 UD bloggers in my last “FTS” and in the interest of fair play, the following is a response from Ray Stineman at “Flyers Fieldhouse”:

Swampy:

This is Ray, the on-again off-again (mostly off) editor of Flyers Fieldhouse. I'm somewhat confused by your comments about my blog, and the Flyers blogosphere in general, in your most recent post on UD Pride.

First, I'm not sure if you have my blog confused with another blog or website, but anything regarding the transfer of Luke Fabrizius or my communication with his family is completely errant. If you'll notice, I haven't even posted since before the Kansas game. I've been far too busy to parse the same rumors that arise every offseason. I ran a story about Desmond Adedeji transferring before it was officially announced and was crucified two years ago and therein swore off the annoyances that come with trying to be first on the scene. Nothing of the sort ran on my blog, be it typed by my own fingers or written in the comments section. I really do not appreciate being thrown under the bus for something that I'm not responsible for.

Second, your distinguishment (?) of valid rumors and ridiculous rumors is laughable. Sure, UDPride user THirt may have been first in confirming the Stephen Thomas transfer. But the fact that you laugh off his assertion that Devin Searcy was transferring as "how it goes with rumors sometimes" while ridiculing those that suggested Luke's transfer is short-sighted at best, and unbelievably sanctimonious at worst.

The entire end of the column wreaked (sic) of a deep-seated anger and/or jealousy towards the blogosphere that I guess I just don't understand. Your insinuation that the comments on the UDPride message boards are inherently credible while the Flyers blogosphere is a wasteland is a hilariously outdated and hypocritical view of UD coverage. Take a look at your own boards and you'll find far more slanderous and hurtful messages than you've seen all season on my blog.

I realize there's a sect of society that is still bitter about the rise of the blogosphere and considers it an unregulated Wild West of the internet that can only spell doom to everything we know as pure and good in the written word. I long ago grew tired of that childish war. I guess from reading your posts, I expected you were also above it. I suggest taking a good, hard look at UDPride. You may realize it's not all that different from Flyers Fieldhouse.

Thanks,

Ray

I tend to get the three of them confused, so Ray may indeed have a point. Looks like it might have been “The Blackburn Review” that was all over Luke Fab.

My reply to Ray was that I know that I wouldn’t want Tom Archdeacon from the DDN quoting me as a source. For Arch to rely on a blog rumor, no matter where it originated, was not very thorough reporting on his part. Kinda like Doug Harris referring to the comments section on the DDN website as being truly reflective of what the Flyer Faithful thinks.

As I have stated in the past, I write for Flyer fans that tend to be in my demographic; Ray, “The Blackburn Review” and “Peanut Butter & a Blanket” address the younger side of the fan base. The intrawebs are plenty big enuf for all of us.

-- I’ve often wondered how Nintendo came up with the name for the Wii, their wildly popular interactive gaming system. I finally figured it out over the Easter weekend while Wii bowling vs. the Elder Swampette at her new place in the Uptown section of Chicago. I was in my stocking feet and followed thru a little too vigorously on her shiny hardwood floor and proceeded to fall flat on my ass. As I went down in a heap, I yelled “Wheeee!”

-- If you ask me, Twitter should actually be named “Tmitter”— short for “Too Much Information Texting.” The messages they send are, however, quite aptly named “Twits.” Do we really need to know every single possible thing about some celebrity?

How about no.

This has lead to the creation of “Twitter Widows”:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2009-04-14-twitter-relationships_N.htm

-- My wife and I like to watch the reaction when we tell our two daughters that we are both gonna jump on MySpace and Facebook (like several of their aunts and uncles have done) and start embarrassing the hell out of them on a worldwide basis. The look of horror on their faces alone is worth the effort, believe me. I’m active on LinkedIn (which is akin to Facebook for grownups) and that’s about as close as I’ll ever get to those other two communities.

-- Clearly these sites can be abused in the recruiting world, witness:

http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20090411/news/904119993&tc=yahoo

-- Speaking of useful social websites, how many of you who are still attending UD utilize www.ISleptThruClass.com ? It’s a big hit at over 900 schools and was developed by one of your fellow UD students:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/ud-students-web-site-a-hit-with-users-not-officials-77144.html

-- I am not about to lose any sleep over the fact that Joe Lunardi only has UD as a #11 seed in his latest SWAG Bracketology:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology

It’s April! It’s meaningless! I don’t care!

-- The greater Dayton area hit the “daily double” on goofy news stories the other day:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/lifestyle/ohio-woman-jailed-over-adult-mags-sent-to-neighbor-81257.html

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/daytoncrime/entries/2009/04/14/pregnant_woman_ruffles_feather.html

-- When we worked together at CBS Radio, my co-worker John Mulroy used to tell me that he was the guy who ultimately (and inadvertently) cost Don Donoher his job at UD back in the late 1980s. Mulroy took over from Don Sicko in December of 1987 as Interim Head Coach at the University of Detroit and the Titans did indeed beat the Flyers 83-79 in overtime in Motown that year. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I was one of the 3,864 in attendance because I remember John and his bow tie. John claimed it was that loss to his sad sack Titan team that got Mickey fired. But Donoher coached UD for another full season after that and actually beat Detroit 3 times in his last campaign, including in the 1st round of the MCC Tournament.

Nice try, Johnny.

-- Mark “The Bird” Fidrych gone at 54. That really, really sucks. Bird grew up in Northborough, MA about 30 miles from my hometown and he acted and sounded exactly like any one of my friends from back home...just a regular dude who liked to drink a few beers and just so happened to excel at throwing a baseball. He’ll be missed up here in Detroit. Arch does a nice job of summing up what the Bird was all about in this blog piece:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/throughthearch/entries/2009/04/14/mark_fidrych_beers_champagne_c.html

-- Finally, a nice end-of-season capper from “The Hometown Coach”:

http://www.adamshoops.com/Story.asp?ID=78

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com

FF Ray
04-16-2009, 08:43 AM
Quick search of dictionary.com shows distinguishment is, in fact, a word. So yeah.

Swampy Meadows
04-16-2009, 09:34 AM
Ray:

Tell that to spellchecker.