Sports passion

Sports passion

My, my, what passions sports seem to evoke in people! Now we are debating how to fill the sports pages of The Jakarta Post! I hope these emotions don't produce (dare we predict?), "ping pong hooligans?"

Mr Graeme St. John (May 20, 1995) suggests I have no basis for my statistics on The Jakarta Post's readership breakdown. May I refer the kind gentleman to the newspaper's "Fact & Figures" brochure provided to advertising agencies, a copy of which I obtained last January. Unless the figures have changed very much, a 60 percent Indonesian readership is not unreasonable. I have spotted our favorite newspaper many times in Indonesian households.

Perhaps the reason why "Your Letters" has more original letters from expatriates is that many Indonesians do not like to debate, dispute, or even venture an opinion, especially in a language foreign to most of us. But I believe there is a silent majority of loyal local readers who also enjoy the sports pages.

As for the information on favorite sports here, I based it on a private count of sports stories in the two leading Indonesian dailies for 10 days in late April-early May 1995. Not entirely scientific, but no plain guesswork, either.

"Knee-jerk Indonesian parochialism?" Since when is a consuming interest in rugby football the height of worldliness? Please let The Jakarta Post's sports editors decide. This reader has a few gripes about the sports pages himself, namely that there is not enough space devoted to swimming, athletics, gymnastics, volleyball, and baseball -- all Olympic sports, therefore hardly parochial.

Now what was that you said about cricket and rugby in The Jakarta Post?

FARID BASKORO

Jakarta