How to Properly Telegraph A Joke

 December l8, 2024

   Some 35 years ago I took my daughter Deena to a sports bar in Glendale where the Phoenix Cardinals had a TV show and I was to be interviewed about a recent scandalous incident where the Bidwill family fired the Cardinal's head coach and we, the End Zonies, wore bags over our heads during the next game as a humorous protest. Cardinals management was reportedly not amused.

The End Zonies, The Paper Bag Incident

Sun Devil Stadium, 1989

   The owner's son, Michael Bidwill, told me what we had done was not cool and when I tried to laugh it off with we "were just having fun with it," he proceeded to take me to school with an anecdote about how hip his college was because in their basketball arena when a visiting school was shooting free throws, they would bust out newspapers and pretend to be bored with the game and a wall of newspapers would greet the shooter and this would flummox the visiting athletes and they would miss their free throws.

   "THAT is how you support your team!" Michael said, pointing his finger in my face before banning us from Sun Devil Stadium for life. I thought this was lame as hell (the joke and the ban) and never thought about it again until last night when Tommy, Harper and I attended a Cactus Shadows high school basketball game and the cheerleaders from the visiting team—Queen Creek—busted out, you guessed it, newspapers. . .

Newspaper Circulation Gets Unexpected Boost

from Queen Creek cheerleaders

   My granddaughter, Harper, asked me if we had this joke when I went to high school and I told her we did but instead of newspapers each properly dressed Cheer representative was issued a tiny telegraph module and when the visiting players were attempting to make free throws (underhanded by the way!) the Cheer representative would pretend to be feverishly sending a telegraph tapping at their keys furiously. I am proud to say, not one visiting team ever made more than two free throws in a row, ever.

   And, that, my friend is how you properly telegraph a joke.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

—Mark Twain