Open Letter: It’s Okay Not to Know Anything About Sports — A Response to Sen. Eric Schmitt

Amanda Hollander's piece is a satirical open letter to Senator Eric Schmitt, written in the wake of reporting that Schmitt's line of questioning about former special counsel Jack Smith collapsed when he apparently confused two basketball teams. Rather than piling on, Hollander offers a sympathetic, comedic account of how easy it is to be bad at sports trivia and how that ignorance feels socially isolating.

Smith to others who prosecuted former President Trump. That effort weakened when Schmitt confused teams while pursuing his line of questioning. Hollander takes that misstep as an occasion to push back against public mockery and to normalize not following sports.

The letter is satirical and conversational. Hollander deliberately piles up absurd, impossible sports crossovers — for example mixing baseball players with football touchdowns or imagining curling teams led by gymnasts — to make the point that sports knowledge is arbitrary and exclusionary for many people. She repeatedly compares her own cluelessness to Schmitt's mistake and frames it as something ordinary and forgivable.

• The author jokes about confusing which Chicago Cubs player scored the "winning touchdown" of the World Series and other obvious category errors.
• She lists invented mismatches (e.g., Florida Panthers and Wimbledon, Knicks and the Super Bowl) to underline the absurdity of expecting everyone to know team histories and sports facts.
• Hollander points out how social circles can shame people for lacking sports knowledge, recounting friends' baffled reactions when she couldn't place which teams played or what events happened where.

Hollander's core claim is simple: being unfamiliar with sports is common and not a valid reason for public humiliation. The letter treats Schmitt's error as a human slip rather than evidence of some deeper failing, while also skewering the cultural pressure to be fluent in sports trivia.

Schmitt's performance and the political consequences of his attempted "gotcha" moment. Other outlets noted the senator's mistake and its effect on the credibility of his questioning of Jack Smith. Hollander's contribution is not a news report but a satirical defense that reframes the mistake as relatable.

Hollander uses comedy to argue that confusing sports teams does not merit the kind of public derision Schmitt received. The piece invites readers to treat such mistakes with ordinary tolerance instead of piling on, while also calling attention to how sports fluency can operate as an unwritten social test.