OK, that's it. I officially nominate 11 August 2006 as the Slowest Sports News Day Ever.

How often do you get the opportunity about the day you were included in the encyclopedia? I think it's pretty interesting. Wikipedia is here to stay. I found it informative to get the scoop on how it works from someone who's in the damn thing.

Is the "singer for the Smokejumpers" part real?

Oh to have seen a performance by the Smokejumpers!

Double entendre heaven...

Sorry, King, I'm CobaltBlueTony, and I'm the surly Wikipedian who (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=King_Kaufman&diff=68213890&oldid=68213046) tagged your one-line article for deletion. Luckily for you, you've got avid blog readers who rallied around and informed me of just how out of touch with the world I really must be. They bahaved much unlike most sports enthusiasts (and wanna-be (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Welcome) Wikipedians and (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vandalism) wikivandals) I've had the displeasure of encountering (at local sports venues and online, respectively), and made sure the facts were there and reliable.

Since then, I've returned from the dark (disbelieving) side, and even (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=King_Kaufman&diff=69046187&oldid=69045683) defended the reference to your (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_%28music%29) non-notable band, just because you were in it. (Hey, if Brad Pitt picks his nose and someone takes a picture or writes about it, it might end up in Wikipedia! Just look at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson) poor Mel Gibson's article.) I invite you, with your vast repository of sports statistics, jump in the pool and become a contributing member to Wikipedia. While some find you notable enough to wikify, I know you're a regular guy -- and that's a good thing! Remember, professionals built the Titanic, but amateurs built Noah's ark! Happy editing!

CobaltBlueTony

I read your Wikipedia entry after it had been fleshed out and followed the link to your blog. The kids are cute and nice Star 'n' Stripes shirt King.

SC

the occasional slow sports day. This is the funniest piece I've read in Salon since Heather Havrilevsky wrote about Cybill Sheperd.

Having made a few corrections and additions to his Wiki page, I was amazed at how LITTLE information there was about King on the web.

For example...King, you've often mentioned that you attended Cal, and I found an interview with you (PaulKatcher.com) where you talked about Cal beating Stanford in 1986 (and you mentioned you were a student at the time), but I couldn't find out when you graduated. Simple fact, difficult to track down.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that some of us tried to add more pertinent information. I suppose I should have crawled around your blog more to see what I could have found. Or, instead of web lurking, we could all just ask...

To Eliza (enjoy!):

http://www.salon.com/wlust/pm/1998/11/06post.html

King, man, I love you, but you're a lyin' sack of something or other.

I mean, put myself in your hands, er, put yourself in my shoes. I'm here doing time--15 months in a Mexican jail, to be precise--for giving six shots from the bottle to a neighbor girl. Just a little diablo sauce, know what I mean? It's like, you know, my baby thinks she's Bettie Page. But the kicker is she ain't--she lives on the Richmond line.

And there are you, like the roaming shoe salesman, looking for a place to park your '86 dodge.

I know Johnny Damon said that them pretty boys are all the same but us ugly guys got style. But c'mon. I'm not ugly.

Bottom line: I don't wanna be friends with you no more.

P.S. God bless Google.

You're tellin' me. I forgot about a third of those songs.

Noah's Arc is one of those things that falls under the category of "pretend." Like so much of what you find in Wikipedia.

Enjoyed the column, which I frequently read despite being the typical non-sports-fan. Enjoyed as usual, I might add.

There's a nice piece by Marshall Poe in the Sep 06 "Atlantic" along the same lines, plus some cool wiki-history.

But, uh, they have a print edition, so their credentials must be ironclad. Pretty lame that a Salon writer should be denied access on the basis of the medium. Just saying.

/tangent

So to continue the meta-navel gazing: I was the one who uploaded your image, which I downloaded from the Salon site. Within a day, a dedicated Wikipedian tagged it for deletion, as I do not have the rights to the image. (I said it was a screenshot & thus should be considered "fair use," although technically it wasn't a screenshot...). According to Wikipedia policies, you need rights to an image posted, or it must clearly be fair use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion#Image:KingKaufman.gif provides the logic, which asks King to upload an image of himself and assert that he has the rights. Clearly self-promotion is discouraged for text, but encouraged for images on Wikipedia...

O King, what shall we do?