Stampede Blue

It seems the heat, specifically in the Twittersphere, that Bob Kravitz was taking after calling Peyton Manning's right arm a "noodle", was just a little too much for the Indy Star journalist.

On Friday, Kravitz did his best to clarify the comment, stating that he "misspoke":

"I do that sometimes on radio, especially when I haven't had my coffee. I was trying to be funny, flippant, basically saying you don't spend 35 million bucks on a quarterback with a noodle arm. In my head, I was thinking, 'He used to have a laser rocket arm, now it's closer to a noodle arm.' "

I can understand a harmless mistake and we've all had our fair share of bonehead comments. However, I think it's rather surprising that a respected journalist could use such a descriptive term (everyone knows what a friggin' "noodle arm" is...) only to later claim that he was basically messing around. Under these circumstances, that's not exactly a harmless mistake. We are kind of talking about a man's career here. So when you write in a town that currently has a ginormous media magnifying glass hovering above it, you really should try to practice some self-restraint and avoid such "funny" comments. Especially if they aren't, you know, totally accurate...

What seemingly makes the comment even worse is the fact that Kravitz was the first to be granted an exclusive interview by Manning post-surgery. And now this? Ouch.

Kravitz tried to further explain the reasoning behind his slip-up without making excuses, but kind of did anyway:

"In an effort to explain rather than make an excuse, when you do dozens and dozens of interviews over the course of two weeks (something I'm not used to doing), you occasionally say something you wish you hadn't said, or wish you'd said in a different way. I know that in the course of that same interview, I said that my sources said he was throwing 'OK,' but 'noodle arm' understandably has a way of catching people's attention."

I'll be the first to admit that I've personally never been a huge fan of Kravitz (I ride with Phil B.!). I do, however, respect his work as a journalist. If the content is there, you should be able to put your beef aside and enjoy the work. Kravitz has delivered some great pieces---the Manning exclusive was top-notch---and in a small way (as a fledgling journalism major myself), I have used his work, among others, as motivation to become a better writer.

But for a guy that's been in the game so long, this was an obvious no-no and now he's paying for it in the P.R. department.

Note to journalism self: Do not falsely claim that Peyton Manning's arm is a noodle.