But you still need to activate your account.
Tiger Bell is mad at us.
He’s so mad, in fact, his grandmother said the 12-year-old Tiger wants his grandfather to cancel their subscription to this newspaper and switch to the Portland Press Herald.
Tiger is not getting what he wants from his daily paper and, it appears, nearly half of our regular Islesboro subscribers agree with him.
Lucky for us, Grandma Jackie says Grandpa John Leach prefers the Bangor Daily News.
But Tiger wants to read more about his favorite minor league baseball team – The Portland Sea Dogs – and since he didn’t convince Grandpa to switch, he did the next best thing.
Tiger wrote a strong letter to the NEWS and enclosed a little surprise for us.
“Dear Editor: My name is Tiger Bell, and I’m very mad that you have stopped showing the Sea Dogs. But I was mad before that, because you never really did show the Sea Dogs anyway. You need more stuff on the Sea Dogs because readers like myself might like to know a lot on the Sea Dogs. Do stuff with the Sea Dogs games like you did with the big league games. Thanks for reading. Tiger Bell.”
And if that’s not clear enough, here’s the kicker: Tiger took a survey of Islesboro subscribers to see what they thought about our Sea Dogs coverage, and sent us a computerized printout of the results.
According to the NEWS circulation department, we have 100 daily subscribers on Islesboro. That number increases to around 170 on the weekends. Tiger contacted 50 of those readers, and reported a 100 percent response.
His work, titled “Survey from 50 people who read B.D. Sports,” indicates more people on Islesboro agree with him than disagree with him.
Specifically, Tiger’s computerized pie graph shows 62.5 percent of those surveyed “dislike sports Sea Dogs coverage” while just 37.5 percent “like sports Sea Dogs coverage.”
Tiger’s survey may well have merit. It includes a cross section of Islesboro residents. The young man who describes himself as his grandfather’s “highest paid worker” at Leach’s Express, first consulted with his friends.
When he discovered a lot of them agreed with him – that the NEWS needs more Sea Dogs coverage – he decided to increase the scope of his study by surveying “older people.”
In some locales, a 12-year-old conducting a survey of his own might receive a polite brush-off from the adults in the community. But not Tiger Bell.
“The people who know me weren’t surprised,” he said of going about the island asking subscribers to check off the box that indicated they liked or disliked the coverage the NEWS has given the Sea Dogs.
“I’m the weird kid in the school.” Tiger Bell spoke those words with pride. “I always like the teams that don’t do too good. I like the most underdog teams.”
One of his favorite professional basketball teams is the Sacramento Kings. “They’re almost always in last place,” he said. “I always like the team nobody else likes.”
He is also very handy with a computer, as we discovered.
“I do a lot of things on my computer,” he said. “I play solitaire and I write to tons of people.”
Yes, Tiger, we know you do. But we know something else, too.
People respond to a kid named Tiger who lives on a island off the coast of Maine.
We did. And so do representatives of such organizations as the Florida Panthers. The new National Hockey League franchise sent him all kinds of goodies in the mail, including inaugural-season stickers.
But, back to Tiger’s complaint.
For the record, Tiger, I checked our files and found 35 stories relating specifically to the Portland Sea Dogs which have appeared in our paper since March, 1993.
Considering that the Double A minor league baseball team is located in Portland – which does not exactly fall into our circulation area – I don’t think that’s too bad.
Maybe, if the major league professional baseball strike continues much longer, you might see a little more.
But don’t get Tiger going on that subject.
“I’m not too happy with the strike,” he said. “I’m not happy because it’s greedy owners and greedy players, and I think it’s stupid.”
On that point, Tiger Bell, you and I agree.
Comments
comments for this post are closed