Linda's Back!

My heart held hope when I read a recent Herald sports article written by none other than Linda Robertson, who has been on leave for a year on a fellowship at the University of Michigan. Today, however, my heart leaped for joy when I saw a front-page column with her familiar smiling face on it. She's back!

OK, so I'm being sarcastic.

Being a long-time Herald reader (go ahead and laugh, I'm used to it), I've always considered Linda Robertson to be pretty much at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to their sports reporters/columnists. That's saying a lot, trust me. She has this terribly annoying condescending attitude in most of her articles and columns that's hard to pin down with specifics, but when you read enough of her work, it comes through loud and clear.

It only took her first column - the opening paragraph - to remind me of this:

I came back home last week after a year away. I was a journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a beguiling city that is the opposite of Miami. Winters are cold and gray; people are smart and friendly; and the area's teams -- with the exception of the Detroit Lions and the Wolverines' debacle against Appalachian State -- are stellar and beloved.

Sorry you had to leave Eden to come back to Hell. Or perhaps you're here on a mission to either prove to us how smart you are or to show the rest of us uneducated, stupid and rude Miamians how civilized people behave. Besides, South Floridians as a whole have never been sports-intensive, but that's a topic of a future post.

(It's comments like Robertson's that sometimes makes me wish Miami's climate was more like Jacksonville's or Savannah's, cold enough to drive the wimps out of here but not cold enough to make it totally miserable like Ann Arbor.)

A little more:

The Marlins are fading fast, again, and still hunting for a stadium. After considering every site except Lolita's tank at Seaquarium, they are now discussing the Orange Bowl. And they're still panhandling for public money from the country's fifth-poorest city, even though attendance is still second-worst in Major League Baseball. The Detroit Shock, a women's basketball team, commands more loyalty than the Marlins.

Then there's UM, opening a new chapter with a new coach and quarterback. But as far as the rest of the nation is concerned, Miami is still Thug U., a team associated with brawls and guns.

Gator fans: Still obnoxious.

Linda Robertson after a year in Michigan: still obnoxious.

And I'm afraid we're stuck with her.