Ten Foot Mailbag: How To Win Score Search
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Welcome to The Score Interrogation Ro… I mean, the Ten Foot Mailbag (I'm not welcome at The Score studios.)
Lebron haters were very quiet Thursday night. I argue his performance in the Heat's 98-79 Game 6 victory over the Celtics is the best of his career. Did he have more points in his famous 2007 Game 5 against the Pistons? Yes. And he scored 29 of his team's final 30 points in that '07 game, too.
But Thursday night was an elimination game. And it wasn't just any elimination game, but one where, had the Heat lost, the basketball world would have solidified its opinion that James cannot win when it's most important, that he's a choker and that just bringing in three stars doesn't win you a title (unless you're the Celtics a few years ago). He also shot 73 damn percent from the field!
Yes, a Heat loss in Game 7 will make everyone forget about James' Game 6, and he could drop 60 in the loss and the majority of hoops fans will point and laugh at him and continue to make him the unwilling, sad sack villain. But James showed Thursday that he doesn't automatically fold, that he badly wants to win, and that he can overcome immense pressure.
Sidenote: to the fan that threw the beer at James as he walked down the tunnel after the game—fall down a well filled with crocodiles with hepatitis. You and any fan who throws anything at a player are the worst kind of people. Subhuman and useless.
On to your questions. All emails and tweets are unedited.
So I registered for this years Score search. Even though the prize is different this year, got any advice for somebody trying out?—Thomas, South Side
Be self aware. Do people really want to hear your opinions? Of course they do. Your circle of bar buddies yelling at the TV has to be representative of the greater public. Plus, you have insight that absolutely nobody on The Score ever talks about.
Show up with a link to your Youtube profile that nobody subscribes to. Sending your sports thoughts from a webcam in your bedroom into the internet ether for free shows desire, tenacity, and readiness for a radio paycheck. Radio suits like such a lone wolf type who doesn't care about things like being pathetic or sunlight.
Also, Mitch Rosen loves flattery. In your 90 second audio sample you'll have to record at the tryout, subtly drop in a mention of Mitch's sexiness and how WXRT was way better when he was there. He also loves food. Now, he probably won't be there at your initial tryout, but should you make it to the top ten, bring a casserole to your interview with Mitch. Letting him know that you'll do ANYTHING for this job and adding a wink should separate you from the other nine. If you drove to the studio and had to pay for parking, demand a refund from CBS, too—that's gumption right there.
Be sure to take a better profile picture than I did while there for the interview.
If you're lucky enough to then be among the final four, curse at Dan Bernstein during the live questioning session. Nobody likes Bernstein, and the live crowd will then likely embrace you and put enough pressure on the judges to have to pick you. Obscene gestures and homophobic remarks into the mic would probably be a nice added touch.
In all stages of the process, dress to let people know you're smart but ready to party. This is radio, after all. A denim jacket, perhaps. A shirt that expresses your attitude toward a team or player—especially one with "sucks" or some other profanity—would speak volumes. The more pockets on your shorts means the more of a load you're willing to carry. That's the kind of stuff all job interviewers notice.
Also, you should be a woman of color or learn how to be one. The selection pattern for Score Search so far has gone "extremely white guy, sassy black lady, extremely white guy." It's just simple math, right?
Good luck to all contestants, and I look forward to you joining me in being ostracized by the rest of The Score talent for winning a contest instead of working hard to earn a job, and to also not being allowed at the company Christmas party.
I take offense you calling your customers "Idiot". No matter how creepy, stupid and lame, they still pay your check. #TFMB—@chiumbrella
Take offense all you want, but people like this that you're referencing are idiots. Also, I don't get a paycheck.
If you ask any waiter, waitress, busperson, restaurant bartender, barback, host, hostess, manager, cook, takeout counter employee, delivery driver, or any other person who works in the food/beverage service industry about their opinions of the customers, their honest answers would be that more than half of people they serve are morons.
But the weird thing is that most of these morons are only morons INSIDE the restaurant. After working in the service industry almost every year of my life since age eleven, I've learned but have yet to figure out why almost everyone loses 50 IQ points immediately upon entering a restaurant. Doctors, lawyers, CEO's, educators, all.
"What are your specials?" They're on a special insert in the menu you're holding or on the sign prominently advertising them right where you walked in. That's why they're the specials. Because management wants you to buy them. They don't get hidden in hopes you beat the system and discover the Holy Grail of the restaurant—the specials.
"Is your pizza good?" I love getting that question or ones similar to it. Me, the driver for a pizzeria. No, our pizza is absolutely awful. What we're doing is conducting a 50-year experiment in human psychology to see how many people will buy this awful product, and not only that, but also be repeat customers as the majority are. We feel we're almost at a big enough sample size to publish our ground-breaking study. Until then, keep our secret hush-hush and buy from a national pizza chain instead. Don't order from us, especially not delivery. I'm not in this for the money.
Customers become illiterate upon entering a restaurant. Everything has to be read for them even though the menu explicitly says EVERYTHING you need to know. "What sides comes with that?" The ones listed in front of you, stupid. "I want ground beef on my pizza." The list of pizza toppings you're staring at with your mouth open does not include ground beef, you waste of organs.
On Thursday, a dine-in customer where I work ordered a drink from her waitress with dry vermouth. The bartender, a guy who's been doing this for about 40 years and who I've never witnessed make a mistake, made the drink. The waitress brought it to the woman, who immediately sent it back saying it was not dry vermouth. The bartender, frustrated, told the waitress to watch him remake the drink and bring the bottle of dry vermouth over to the woman to show her what was in the cocktail. The woman insisted the remake was also wrong. And this woman eats here at least three times a week.
I could go on about this for hours. The customer is not always right. The customer is most likely stupid and crushing the soul of all service industry workers bit by "I asked for this well done—where's the pink?" bit. And we deal with it with smiles on our faces that hide the daggers we wish for you.
I saw a commercial that said lacrosse is growing fast. Lacrosse vs. Soccer, which is better? #TFMB—@soccernomicon
Ooooo, both are sports I'm not terribly interested in, but I have to go with lacrosse. It's basically hockey on grass, and at least lacrosse actually has, like, scoring.
I've tried to get into soccer. Really, I have. And try as I might, I walk away from every soccer match wondering what the hell I just watched. As I've mentioned before soccer is a very flawed game, with rules that make no sense, prevent the use of strategy, and impede scoring, thus almost making the game contradictory to itself. Also, soccer fans outside the U.S. are pretty much the worst fans of any sport—when violence and murder are a part of fan culture, something is wrong.
I wish I could enjoy soccer, especially since I have so many relatives involved in it, but I can't. By all means take in Euro '12 that starts this weekend if that's your thing. I will not be watching or caring, though.
Thanks for emailing, tweeting, and reading. If your question did not get answered this time, that does not necessarily mean I am ignoring it. It may be saved for the next mailbag. Hopefully you're a slightly better person now than you were ten minutes ago. If not, your loss.
Want your questions answered in a future Mailbag? Email them to tenfootmailbag@gmail.com or tweet them with the hashtag #TFMB. No question, sports or otherwise, is off limits (with certain logistical exceptions, e.g. lots of naughty words or you type in Portuguese or you solicit my death). If you email, please include a signature.
Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget, but please don't follow him in real life. E-mail him at tenfootmailbag@gmail.com. To read more of Tim's blogs click here.
