Off-duty cop shows son proper way to tackle, Deadspin lives on

While Superstorm Sandy pounds at the Northeast the rest of the nation watches on in awe at the destruction, chaos and death wrought, while at the same time wishing those well that stayed to brave the storm.

For us sad sack journalist types that desire for everything to be doubleplusgood once the tempest has abated for our media brethren located there is almost palatable – because like firefighters and EMS crews their job too often is to face disaster on its terms, often without the training or protection afforded those brave men and women.

Sure, it can be funny to watch a newscaster try to keep his balance on a flooded and windswept street in hard-hit Atlantic City, New Jersey, while three stooges make light of the moment – but nobody wants either (even the rather foolish young men) to be part of the quickly amassing body count.

Then there are the others: the freelancers, the mini media moguls, the vloggers and bloggers. So, many of them make the East Coast their home – so many great websites (and unfortunately their servers) are based there including those of the Gawker Media family headquartered in New York City.

Known for instant reaction to the news, scintillating scoops, nerve attitude and snark, currently the whole family of sites: Gawker.com, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel are down thanks to flooded servers, along with other popular Internet destinations like The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed. It is the fellas over at Deadspin, though, that I’m dedicating this post to.

They, along with a staff of freelancers, are to sports what Gawker is to celebrity – a bitter sardonic reflection that softens around the edges and sometimes reverts on itself to reveal the joy and passion for sport and achievement from which it grew. Without Deadspin sports coverage wouldn’t be the same and I would miss them no matter what they might have thought I implied in a short Twitter conversation with a fellow member of the tribe of scribes this morning.

@jon_garrett @matthew1stewart When we’re all floating face-down in the Atlantic, you two will feel very guilty about this conversation.

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) October 29, 2012

So here’s to you Deadspin crew. Keep up the good fight, stay dry and I will keep pushing stories out like this in your honor when I can – until your servers are up or something really good comes on television.

An off-duty cop (link below in story) tackles a seemingly intoxicated man after trying to take the football during the second quarter of a high school game Friday night in California.

In Colfax, California, Friday night 26-year-old Patrick Hurley interrupted the action in a high school football game between the Colfax Falcons and Pacer Hillmen. Appearing to be intoxicated or otherwise under the influence, Hurley jumped a fence surrounding the field in the second quarter and ambled around before pouring out a water bottle, tossing it and then attempting to take the game ball. That’s when off-duty Placer County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Troy Minton-Sander exploded into action! Minton-Sander, whose son Stone plays for Placer, showed football skills run in the family – tackling the suspect from behind and acting as an anchor in a dog pile that took him down and eventually led him away from the field to spend a night in the pokey. Hurley was charged with disorderly conduct/drunk in public, despite not being tested and was released the following morning after signing a promise to appear in court. As for the elder Minton-Sander, he was praised for his heroics. Sgt. Ty Conners, commander of the sheriff’s station in Colfax, told the Colfax Record that the incident happened within “probably 10 seconds. A large male, acting irrational, who might have a weapon, is on a field with kids. … He had to do something in order to protect the kids.”