John Steigerwald, the grumpy old man that questioned the fashion sense of a father of two in a coma (whose name he misspelled) in a recent column, apologized for any perceived insensitivity on his part. And then he went on to suggest that we just don’t get him.

The audience I had in mind when I wrote my Sunday column apparently wasn’t surprised or shocked when I went on a rant about adults wearing replica team jerseys to games. They apparently didn’t consider it insensitive for me to talk about something so trivial in a column that also included the story about Bryan Stow because they had heard or read my rant before. They knew I was pointing to the tragedy as evidence of what I had been saying for years about over-the-top behavior.

How do I know that there was very little negative reaction? Because through Tuesday morning, not one of the three newspapers that carry this column received one negative e-mail. Not one.

Deadspin vet David Matthews suggested that guys like Steigerwald–old, grumpy farts that don’t realize the power of social media–are clogging up jobs for new wave of folks that are making better sense of it all. You’ll have to read the whole piece, but here’s the slam on Steigerwald:

Steigerwald’s column is not as egregiously stupid as far as egregiously stupid conceits go—Whicker’s is still the worst—but it is another example of that “Everything Is a Freighted, Symbolic Event to the Grumpy Old Man Who Imposes His Dumb Worldview on Anything That Moves” school of writing. That’s the sort of out-of-touchness we associate more with a parody of a sports column one would expect to find on The Onion.

–Matthews/Good Men Project.

So, it looks like Steigerwald will keep his job after all. I’m not necessarily opposed to that, but it does illustrate how rare it can be for a lot of writing jobs in the mainstream to open up. So does someone really have to be thoughtful or creative to have a job in traditional media? Or just be around for a really long time?

And yes, that Whicker column was the worst.

Now that the world has come to appreciate the bitter ways of western Pennsylvania sportswriter John Steigerwald, enjoy this bit of irony. The same guy who denounced adults wearing team jerseys can be found in this 1981 promo wearing the team of every Pittsburgh sports team, and a few other getups that aren’t.

That’s from back in the day before Steigerwald got his own radio show in the mid-1990s in Pittsburgh and realized he could make more money being abrasive than articulate. And I’m not opposed to that. But the hypocrisy here is palpable. I might be ready for a couple of Browns fans to follow this guy into a dark parking lot.

Via SB Nation.

We’ve been dodging this story of Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who was attacked in LA almost two weeks ago, because there’s nothing to express other than absolute sadness. Stow currently sits in a coma after part of his skull was removed when his brain began to swell, and his family says that he now has brain damage. Although I thought this incident was above sardonic comment, fellow KSKer Kogod found someone who did not.

John Steigerwald of the Washington Observer-Reporter asks what might have been a fair question, but does it in such an incredibly poor way that’s sure to spark outrage. In his latest column, “Know When You’ve Outgrow [SIC] The Uniform,” Steigerwald asks a few questions of “Bryan Snow,” [sic] the 42-year-old paramedic who wore a San Francisco Giants jersey to the LA Dodgers’ home opener and was jumped by two unidentified fans wearing Dodger blue.

And here come the quotes that will be following Steigerwald around for the rest of his professional life:

Maybe someone can ask Snow, if he ever comes out of his coma, why he thought it was a good idea to wear Giants’ gear to a Dodgers’ home opener when there was a history of out-of-control drunkenness and arrests at that event going back several years.

Remember when it was the kids who were wearing the team jerseys to games? It was a common sight to see an adult male coming through the turnstile dressed as a regular human being with a kid dressed in a “real” jersey holding his hand.

Cute.

More Steigerwald after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »