So, the boss sidled up to my desk, coughed and asked if I could write a column summing up the year in Baltimore sports.
I looked at him. He smiled. I asked if he realized it couldn't be done, at least not honestly.
You're supposed to put a happy face on a year-end look-back piece, because otherwise you're just a grouch who shoos kids away, opposed to the idea of holiday cheer. But, of course, we're at the end of a year that was as rotten as last month's milk, and everyone knows it.
The Ravens? They plummeted to the bottom like a bowling ball in a swimming pool.
The Orioles? Words can't do justice to the extent of their nightmare.
The Terps? A double disappointment: no bowl, no Big Dance (the latter for the first time since 1993).
Great, the boss said, can you turn it in as early as possible? (This is a management technique known as "calculated obliviousness.")
Editors love things turned in early. But, I warned, if I turn this in too early, I might miss the weekly Orioles catastrophe. What if the Oriole Bird demands to be traded to the Blue Jays for foam padding? I can't comment if I've already turned in the column.
No problem, the boss said. He explained that they were putting together a "package," which is newspaper talk for lots of pictures and charts and a few sentences of copy, and said it would hold up regardless of what happened.
I tried another escape tactic, pointing out that I had already played the "things could be worse" card in my saccharine Thanksgiving Day column about being grateful that we at least had pro teams (OK, next time you write it), so I would have to play it straight and admit the truth: We stink.
The boss said he would run that past some readership focus groups but it was probably fine.
Obviously, I couldn't get out of the assignment. But sitting down to write, I couldn't bring myself to trudge through the sludge of raffyponsonbollerbillick one more time. I remembered how grateful I was that the director of The Exorcist took us into Linda Blair's room only so often.
But what could I say about a year straight out of Dickens? (It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times.) Not only did the local teams faithfully disappoint, but there was also genuine sadness when Chuck Thompson and Elrod Hendricks died.
I decided, this being the season of giving, that I should do what I could to make everyone feel better.
