Worlds Collide

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is having a good year in the Sprint Cup stock car racing circuit, standing third in the championship points, and winning “most popular” in fan voting for the past several years. Sandra MacWatters of The Bleacher Report, gives us ten reasons, supposedly, why he’s having such a good season in 2011 after horrible seasons in 2009 and 2010.

1. Winning atmosphere. Well, I’ll partially buy this one. Being on the same team with Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and their crew chiefs is definitely an asset. Why this was not such an asset for him the past two tears, the writer does not explain.

2. Staying out of trouble. This is at least a reasonably valid point. He has had a few minor issues, but has kept his car intact and finished all races except Daytona.

3. Fan support. Give me a break. He has been voted fan's “most popular” for several years, and fan support didn’t do much for him in 2009 or 2010.

4. Qualifying. This one is nonsense. Junior has qualified horribly, and would undoubtedly be doing significantly better if he were not qualifying so poorly.

5. Rick Hendrick. Absolutely, this is one of the best team owners in the business, but Junior has been with Hendrick for several years now and this is his first successful year.

6. Steve Letarte. Absolutely, this reason is valid. The second best crew chief there is, and this is Junior’s first year with him.

7. Confidence. Blah, blah, blah. Junior has had fifty pounds of confidence in a five pound bag ever since he entered the Cup series. He is doing better now that he has developed a little bit of humility.

8. Upcoming tracks. What? The future schedule is why he has been doing well in the schedule so far? What are you smoking, girlfriend?

9. Contract extension. He has one year after this one on his present contract, and they are negotiating an extension. They have not signed an extension. Having signed an extension might give him confidence which would probably not materially affect his performance. Negotiating a contract is uncertainty, which might or might not affect his performance, but if it did it would be a negative.

10. Statistics. In which the writer says, “The statistics are proof Dale Earnhardt Jr. is having a terrific season.” In this universe there is a difference between a “reason” and a “proof.” A “reason” pulls the wagon, a “proof” is evidence that the wagon has been there. This writer cannot tell the difference between a horse and a pile of horse poop.

So, out of ten reasons, two are valid, two are semi-valid, one is proof rather than reason, and the other five are utter nonsense. I would say this means that our sports writers have reached the same level as our political writers, in which words merely have to come from the correct chapter of the thesaurus, they do not have to be strung into actual, coherent sentences.