Letters

Last week's show, splendidly hosted by "Only A Game" producer Karen Given, featured Karen's story about greyhounds running for the fun of it, rather than to break the hearts of the betting public. According to his facebook post, Robert Rudolph loved it. "Great story!" he wrote. "You can hear the joy in the dogs!"

Denise Gray also enjoyed that story, though she was a little irked that Karen said "Irish Deerhounds," when referring to some Deerhounds that were, in fact, Scottish. Karen apparently failed to discern the accents when the dogs barked, but she wanted me to assure all our listeners that she has no trouble telling one accent from the other when it's people who are involved.

Only A Game producer Doug Tribou's story in last week's program also provoked lots of comments. He examined what the Thunder left behind when they stopped being the Seattle Supersonics and moved to Oklahoma. More than one listener saw that story as an opportunity to characterize Clay Bennett, the former owner of the team that was the Sonics, in exceedingly derogatory terms. In the scrum that developed on our website and our facebook page after the story aired, one Thunder fan wrote, "No one in Oklahoma cares about the Sonics' garbage history. If you all miss the team so much, maybe you should have went to the games and filled the seats and give them a reason to stay instead of feeling sorry for yourself and crying about it."

In response to a beard and mustache competition mentioned a while back on the program, Dave Pierson e-mailed us about a fellow who'd won a recent facial hair contest in Norway by styling his beard and mustache to resemble a moose and the Norwegian flag." Mr. Pierson began that e-mail by writing, "I'm never quite sure where the edge of 'sporting' competition comes, for your purposes."

Neither am I, and part of the fun of coming to work is exploring that matter.

Our story several weeks ago about the attempt to ban some of the songs fans sing at soccer matches in Scotland encouraged Christopher Brown, who hears the program on WXXI in Rochester, New York, to mention what he terms "the infamous 'Hello, Hello' song of the Glasgow Rangers." He writes, "We did our version at the Computer Science Graduation Ceremony at the University of Rochester. The audience was singing its heart out. It turns out to be three quarters 'Marching Through Georgia,' with a better tune in the second half of the verse."

You can comment on the competitions we discuss or anything else by visiting our website, Only A Game dot org. You can leave a comment on the listener line by calling 617-353-1860. You can also follow us on facebook and find us on twitter at Only A Game radio.