A great many thanks to Stu for passing along this link from the excellent blog Lawyers, Guns and Money. It seems Monday marked a very special anniversary: 33 years ago that day, a game between Texas and Cleveland was enhanced completely marred by a little promotion called “10-cent beer night.” Now, you can read the retrospective at the above link for the details. What we’re more interested in is a bigger-picture question. Joesportsfan.com had an interesting piece recently titled, “Five Things I’m Glad Happened Before the Modern ESPN Era.” We’d like to take things a step further and wonder how past events like 10-cent beer night would have been covered had sports blogs been around for the past 50-100 years. Because any discussion of the “modern” era of sports that doesn’t include the immediacy and the one-upsmanship of sports blogs is a little bit of pot-and-kettle treatment. From 10-cent beer night, there would have been pictures of fights in the stands (With Leather definitely would have had pictures of the topless streaker). There likely would have been some sort of live blog. There would have been immediate A-Rod jokes about the father-son duo who dropped their pants in the outfield. Deadspin’s headline would have read something like, “But officer, I only spent $3 on beer.” The Big Lead would have tried to post, only to have its server crash. In essence, everything straight-laced about the account (i.e. beer “played a great role” in the affair) would have been played for either a laugh or a deeper search for understanding. The point (or something resembling one) is this: we remember things differently based on the way they’re covered. And it will be interesting to see how blogs (and, yes, the ESPN modern era) shape our recollections of the events of this generation.

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