News Media Archives

It's not always fun:

Back when I made these flight plans, it seemed perfect. Arrive at LaGuardia around 11:15 a.m., grab some lunch in Queens and head over to Shea Stadium with plenty of time to spare to cover the game.

Then we had a rainout, the doubleheader was scheduled and now I have to race out of LaGuardia to get to Yankee Stadium then fight traffic going back to Queens. In all, this will be about a 19-hour day from wake-up call to getting home.

But the good news is I get to go to Shea Stadium to see Sidney Ponson pitch. Print and save this post for the next time you think, "I'd love to be a sportswriter." It's generally a great job and I should not complain. But unless Marissa Miller is covering the game for Sports Illustrated and has the seat next to me in the press box, it's not going to be a five-star day

We've Got Heart continues their series on Women in Baseball with a profile of Amber Theoharis. She's the sideline reporter for the Orioles games on MASN.

Carl Bialik gives Baseball Musings a nice mention in yesterday's The Numbers Guy column. Thanks, Carl!

We both write for The Sporting News.

Waiting for Next Year sits down with Terry Pluto. Here's Terry's take on Marte:

So, do you envision Marte becoming that "middle of the order impact hitter," or is that in the rear view mirror?

You guys sound pretty sophisticated, talking ages. When we signed him at 21, if you project out his numbers from there, Marte should have been a lot better than he currently is; but looks like he hit a wall and took a few steps backwards. He's worth looking at to see what you have, but I lost confidence. Some guys look great on paper, but he has a very long swing, he can't touch the outside corner of the plate, and his defense is very heavy-legged. He's a nice kid, does not give anyone any problems. He's a big mystery to me.

Sports Illustrated turns to a comic book artist for their latest cover. It shows an extremely muscular Rays player holding Derek Jeter over his head with one hand while a Bizzaro Superman looks on. Jeffrey Renaud of CBR News writes the story of how artist Mark Bagley drew this on a very short deadline:

Bagley, who, heroically, is scheduled to provide pencils for all 52 issues of "Trinity," told CBR News Tuesday evening, "Dan Didio called me Thursday afternoon asking if I could do the pencils. I asked him what the deadline was and he said inked and colored by Monday. I said something nasty, and agreed to do it. From then I dealt with Mark Chiarello.

"'SI' gave me a paragraph long description of what they needed, and I went to town with some sketches. I had a sketch approved by noon on Friday, and finished the piece Saturday morning.

I love the result.

Joe Christensen gives us an inside look at what the night of a beat writer is like in a close, extra inning, back and forth game:

My next deadline was 11 p.m. And it seemed like a gift from sports writer heaven when Bobby Korecky nearly pulled this 11th-inning trifecta -- first major league hit, first major-league run, first major-league win.

I had the story all set to go. But then, Morneau struck out, and Cuddyer grounded out, stranding Korecky at third. (Cuddyer stranded nine runners on base tonight, by the way.)

Well, it was sort of back to the drawing board at that point. Slot editor Jeff Rivers told me he needed something by the end of the 12th inning, even if it was a running story (ie: the game was in the 13th inning when this edition of the Star Tribune went to press), and this wound up saving me.

I had to make that story look like it was finished, even if the game wasn't. So, I was pretty well prepared when Clark hit the game-winner. Of course, I had no contingency plan for a Livan pinch-hit, or a Livan walk-off. I think my head would have just exploded.

Yes, Livan Hernandez was ready to pinch hit last night. Hernandez is a career .233 hitter with nine home runs.

I don't think anyone would help bloggers this way.

Jon Weisman is soliciting your input. Who are your favorite sports writers?

The Big Lead reviews Bob Costas and the "State of the Sports Media" show that aired last night. Thankfully, I don't have HBO so I could concentrate on baseball games. It doesn't sound like they treated Will Leitch of Deadspin very well.

Update: Will Leitch gives the behind the scenes view of what happened.

There are plenty of people in the "old" media who enjoy blogs and find them useful. It always seems the blowhards get the stage, however.

Rick A. at My Baseball Bias defends Murray Chass. My job offer is still open.

Gordon Edes is leaving the Globe for Yahoo.com. Gordon is one of my favorite baseball writers, and it's good to see him getting a national audience.

Hat tip, Projo Soxblog.

By the way, my offer to Murray Chass is still on the table.

The Big Lead has a source that puts the Harold Reynolds settlement in a positive light for ESPN.

Joe Cowely (the writer, not the former pitcher) demonstrates why you don't challenge professional athletes at their own game. Note that Pierzynski doesn't even throw hard.

When I was at ESPN, one of the researchers I worked with was a Red Sox fan named Vinny. Vinny used to throw a fake punch at people to see if they would flinch. If they flinched, he would hit the person in the shoulder. Of course if they didn't Vinny would receive the punch.

Well, for two years, every time Vinny saw Ray Knight, he would greet him with, "I hate you Ray Knight," as Vinny was still upset about the Red Sox loss to the Mets in the 1986 World Series. One Sunday morning Ray walks into the research office, and Vinny throws one of his pulled punches. Ray, who has stood in against a Nolan Ryan fast ball in his career, doesn't flinch a bit. Totally unfazed. Ray looks at Vinny and says, "I didn't flinch, that means I get to punch you." Ray then hits Vinny hard in the upper arm. There was nothing pulled about the punch. Vinny is in pain, and I'm laughing. Ray throws a pulled punch at Vinny, and Vinny flinches. Ray says, "You flinched, I get to hit you again, " and pounds the same spot. Again, I'm laughing, Vinny is laughing through his pain and Ray has a big smile on his face. I don't think Vinny did the punch game after that, and I don't think Cowley will write as harshly about players in the future.

ESPN and Harold Reynolds settled their lawsuit, although we don't know what terms were reached. I hope Harold received a nice pay day.

Update: Here's more from ESPN.

Reynolds told USA Today on Tuesday: "My family and I are very happy to have achieved an amicable settlement with ESPN. I feel my goals were satisfied, and I look forward now to concentrating on the game I love.''

ESPN said they settled for a fraction of what Reynolds was asking.

Peter Abraham reports that MLB and newspapers reached an agreement on online content:

There will be no limit on photographs or on the audio of press conferences (such as the manager's pre-game or post-game sessions). That is good news for those of you who enjoy the clips that we post here.

Other interviews will be limited to two minutes, which isn't a major problem. We will have to take the audio off our sites within 72 hours, which doesn't strike me as an issue for too many readers.

With permission from an individual team, longer audio interviews (such as our reader Q&A sessions) would be allowed.

Since most bloggers don't have credentials, I don't think there's much MLB can do about what we post at the moment.

Jon Weisman at Dodger Thoughts responds to Murray Chass's dislike of bloggers. Remember, Murray is about to lose his job with The New York Times, and I've offered him a job here at Baseball Musings.

It looks like The New York Times is trying to save money by buying out Murray Chass. No wonder he's so upset with bloggers. This news is a big downer for Fire Joe Morgan.

To be honest, I'm already mourning the loss of hundreds of future statphobic-fish-in-a-barrel posts. If this news is true, FJM has lost a goldmine.

I am not one to hold a grudge, however. Murray Chass is welcome to write for Baseball Musings, and I'm willing to pay him $10,000 a year. I'll edit his pieces to make sure they reflect statistical reality, but with the contacts he's developed over the year, he'd add a new dimension to the content here. Murray, you have a home whenever you want it!

Reader Jon sends along this note on an XM broadcast this afternoon:

Did you catch Murray Chass on Charlie Steiner's XM show today? Below are some random lines I was able to capture while at work today, sorry I didn't capture anything or in fuller detail (maybe XM provides a show archive?). Murray was followed by a guy who has a Dodgers blog and also writes for SI, I didn't catch his name. But he provided a nice rebuttal to what Murray spouted off. If it was anybody besides Murray Chass I wouldn't write this to you.

He then forwards some quotes from the Times writer:

"I hate bloggers." "Worst development in media business, anyone can be a blogger." "No credentials required, just spouting off their opinions." "Our wives could go on and do it if they wanted to." "I know they're not going away but I wish they did."

Nope, not going away. I'd love to see Murray's wife blog, by the way.

The person following Chass was Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts. I hope he writes up his rebuttal.

Citizen Sports Network is now producing video about major league baseball. Check it out below:

Peter Abraham is flying to work today:

It is 9 degrees outside of my place in New York as I write this. It's expected to get to 76 in Tampa today. Can't say I'm sorry to be getting back to work. I'm leaving for LaGuardia shortly and will check back in from Florida once I get a chance.

Peter Gammons penned a song about the Mitchell Report. Cool.

The BBWAA is now open to internet writers. Unfortunately, it appears to be writers who used to be newsmen:

After combing through the list, my first reaction was "what about Rob Neyer?" Well, as it turns out, Rob's nomination was one of two that were turned down. How can that be? Isn't Rob full time? Is he not a baseball writer? Is ESPN not "credentialed" for the post-season? I don't get it.

While I'm happy for the 16 web-based writers who were approved (many of whom had previously been members for years, if not decades), it doesn't make sense to exclude one of the most thoughtful, knowledgeable, and level-headed writers in the business. Rob gets it. Unfortunately, the BBWAA didn't get it quite right this time.

I commend the BBWAA for opening up its membership beyond the newspaper industry and am hopeful that the organization will see fit to approve Rob and many others inside and outside of ESPN, CBS, FoxSports, SI, and Yahoo in the future.

Thanks to Jeffrey Protzel for the link.

The baseball writers are tabling their decision not to vote for players with bonuses for awards. I suspect that this proposal will now get lost under the pile of junk of mail that builds up on the table and get throw out by the cleaning crew.

The late Larry Whiteside gained Hall of Fame recognition yesterday, and his friends remember him.

All any of us need to say about Larry Whiteside was said by commissioner Bud Selig from his office in Milwaukee yesterday afternoon.

more stories like this"I say this with all of my heart: I loved Larry Whiteside," said Selig. "I knew Larry from the day we bought the Milwaukee Brewers, and Larry was there from the outset. He was one of the fairest reporters I ever encountered. He was a friend to me and I was a friend to him.

"I remember in 1971, I tried to hire Larry to be the head of public relations for the Brewers. I know he thought long and hard about it and it was a very difficult decision for him. But I think shortly after that, he had a chance to go to the Boston Globe and really be at the pinnacle of his career and he took it. He was a great journalist. A great man."

The Bill Conlin story enters the wider blogosphere.

Bill Conlin would like bloggers wiped out. While some are going to rightly upset by the Hitler comment, the real problem is that Conlin doesn't respect the free speech right of bloggers. As a newspaper man, he would be the first defending them.

AZ Snakepit seems to lack knowledge of modern media. In talking about the change in time to put the DBacks-Rockies in prime time out west:

Still, regardless of the reason, I'm glad it was changed, and it only makes sense. The East-coast ALCS and the West-coast NLCS can now both get coverage in local prime-time, without overlapping. My only qualm is that the late (10pm Eastern) start of the D-backs game will mean even less coverage there, since it'll probably finish too late to make it into the papers on Saturday.

Out here on the east coast, our reporters have something called "computers." These attach to an internet thingy, which sends their story back to the office at nearly the speed of light. Then another "computer" at the office sets the type, and the paper can be published in plenty of time! This has caused the people who set type one letter at a time to lose their jobs, but it's worth it to have them out on the street starving so we can see the results in the paper at 6 AM the next morning.

Dan Patrick announced today he'll leave ESPN on Aug. 17th. I just want to wish Dan best of luck. I didn't work with him that much in my years at ESPN, but he was always fun to be around, always ready with a smile and a wisecrack. Good luck in your next endeavor, Dan!

The Mariners will hold a news conference at 11:30 PDT. No word yet on why.

Thanks to Maury Brown for the info.

The New York and Boston media faced off in a game earlier today and almost came to blows, according to this thread on Sons of Sam Horn. Here's the story at the LaHud blog.

Thanks to Eric Rubin '80 for the link.

The Baseball Zealot points out the Paper of Record site, which has The Sporting News back to 1886! I remember taking trips to the library to pour over microfilm looking at old boxscores. This site might make that trip obsolete!

Update: I was looking to see if I could find anything on Gehrig and grand slams, and came across this page from January 1934 on MLB hitting records. Times change. The "long hit" is given much more prominence than the home run, and doubles are called two baggers.

Sports Media Guide interviews Derrick Goold, beat writer for the St. Louis Cardinals. His comments on Albert Pujols are quite interesting.

The Smoking Gun posts a copy of Harold Reynolds' contract with ESPN, part of his admended lawsuit. The New York Times offers a summary.

The agreement states that the network could terminate Reynolds's deal if the announcer were to be involved in any "willful or egregious" act that would "constitute an act of moral turpitude" or which would "otherwise constitute public humiliation" to ESPN. It appears that this section of the agreement will prove to be central to the network's defense of its actions. While ESPN has not specified what triggered Reynolds's firing, the ex-athlete's Connecticut Superior Court lawsuit charges that he was canned for giving an "innocuous hug" one day to a female intern, with whom he later dined that same evening at a Boston Market.

I'm guessing the young lady is going to be the star witness if this ever gets to court.

Via Deadspin, the Smoking Gun provides us with the complaint filed by Harold Reynolds. Some points about Harold brought up in the suit:

I can't remember Reynolds swearing. I also never saw him smoke or drink.

I've been a recipient of Harold's generosity. He's helped me get tickets to games, and once gave me his first class ticket on a flight to the World Series.

It's going to be an interesting fight. I can't wait to see ESPN's reaction, especially to the part about ESPN not complying with law that requires them to make Harold's personnel file available to Reynolds.

Harold Reynolds is going after ESPN:

"I have tried everything possible to handle this situation quietly behind closed doors. After numerous conversations and multiple mediation discussions with ESPN executives, it is clear that ESPN had no intention of solving this problem amicably," Reynolds said in a statement.

"For 11 years, I served ESPN with enthusiasm and dedication. It is unfortunate that ESPN has handled this process in an unprofessional manner. At the end of the day, my integrity, reputation and family are my top priorities, and for those reasons I need to set the record straight and clear my name."

ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said Monday that the network had been made aware that Reynolds either has filed a lawsuit or plans to in coming days.

Good luck to Harold. I remember from STATS, Inc's negotiations with ESPN that their lawyers were sharks I hope Reynolds is ready for a very nasty fight.

I'm looking at my RSS feed and the New York Daily New is all Torre, all the time. They list eight different headlines on the Torre specualtion.

• George bides Torre's time
• Torre deserves 1 more year - Rudy
• Owner must nowshow who's Boss
• Steinbrenner hears voices
• George, do itnow or never
• Do Yanks need to ax Joe? YES
• Lou stays mum on Yank job speculation
• Jiltin' Joe? Most fans say, 'No'

Talk about owning a story.

U.S.S. Mariner praises sports writer Larry Stone for his understanding of how a baseball team is built.

The AP gives Peter Gammons' new CD, Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old an excellent review. We also get this word on his health:

"He's making good progress, and everyone's encouraged with how he's doing at this point," Vince Doria, the ESPN news director who was also Gammons' boss at the Boston Globe, said Thursday.

Proceeds from the sale of the CD got to Theo and Paul Epstein's Foundation to be Named Later. Click here to purchase.

Ryan Van Bibber sends a link to the baseball issue of Vice-Versa:

It's a nice distraction from this Grimsley insanity.

There's fiction, non-fiction, poetry and photo essays all related to baseball.

I just received my April 3rd edition of the New Yorker in the mail, and the cover is very funny. I can't find a copy on line, but it's a drawing of a baseball field viewed from the left field bleachers. Number 25 is standing in left, about ten times wider than anyone else on the grass.

Update: A commenter found the link to the cover.

Baseball Musings is conducting a pledge drive in March. Click here for details.

Congratulations to Ty Hillenbrandt, host of the Lehigh Valley Yankees Fan Club radio show. He's won the Next Great Sportswriter competition at FoxSports.com! Stop by and check out his excellent work.

Hal McCoy owns up to his mistake of yesterday:

I was misled by a couple of outside sources, who believed Beattie was the choice. They were wrong and I was submarined. I have never been so happy to be so wrong.

This is why you shouldn't trust anonymous sources. I wonder if the sources had an agenda where they wanted Beattie hired? Will never know, although when a source is this wrong I wonder if they're really worth protecting. After all, is McCoy going to trust them again?

Krivsky responded well to the payroll question:

Krivsky, a man with a smile nearly always in place, almost sneered when payroll was mentioned.

"The payroll thing? Hogwash," he said. "Forget it. I'm not here to talk about budget or money. We'll do it within our means. It's how you spend it. The roadside is littered with high-spending teams that don't win."

Benjamin Kabak looks at the ethics of the sports media, from the Michael Vick scandal to award voting.

I would disagree a bit on award voting. The MVP, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year voting is structured so that favorite sons can't win. Let's say that every year in voting for the MVP, the sports writers each picked the best player from their local team. The person who wins, in that case, will be the consensus second choice. It's easy to say, "I work with this guy, I like this guy, I'm voting for him #1." But the second choice you think about. So in favorite son voting, the second choice is really the guy you think deserves the award.

This type of voting is called a Borda count, and it's designed precisely to negate the conflict of interest voting. One writer can't make that much difference. People point to Pedro Martinez losing the MVP vote to Ivan Rodriguez because one writer left Pedro off the ballot, but if the other 27 voters all had Pedro #1, Martinez wins that award. There was a clear split in the voting that year, with six different players getting first place votes. What everyone agreed on was that Ivan Rodriguez was near the top, and he won.

So the conflict of interest in MVP voting is overblown. The much bigger conflict, as I see it, is with newspapers and media outlets that own clubs. Chicagoans see this every year in the difference in coverage of the Cubs and White Sox, while Boston fans saw this in the reporting on the general manager negotiations this winter. Maybe there should be a disclosure in every article written about a team that the newspaper owns a share.

The Baseball Crank notes an early version of last night's game story that lamented Geoff Blum not getting garbage time.

Deadspin links to an article on the traffic to ESPN.com. It appears Yahoo and others are gaining on the leader.

It's not surprising, given how ESPN pushed most of the interesting content to the pay side of the site. I used to love to visit their baseball page because you had a large number of columnists from which to choose. Now Neyer, Gammons and others are blocked out unless you pay. ESPN.com is becoming only good for headlines, and you can get those anywhere.

I understand the web site needs to turn a profit. It's too bad that doing so makes it less attractive to new customers.

My wife had CBS Sunday Morning on this morning, and I watched a piece on the Washington Nationals. You can read the transcript here, but the video does not appear to be on-line. As I watched, I couldn't believe one shot in particular. Here's the voice over.

Frank Robinson is more than just the biggest name on this ball club. He's part of baseball history. Thirty years ago, he became the first African American to manage a big league club, which means he's in a unique position – not just to help rekindle baseball's relationship with an entire city but a specific part of the community that has grown ever more distant from baseball altogether.

A mural next to a weed-covered baseball field a few blocks from the Nats' stadium says it all. "Play ball?" Sure. Every kind but baseball.

The shot is looking from behind a backstop across a baseball field to a building where a mural depicts a number of sports but no baseball. A good point. But the weed-covered baseball field is just baloney. The weeds are behind the backstop, and from the angle of the camera they looked like they were well behind the backstop. The actual playing surface of the diamond looked fine. There was grass on the infield and the outfield. The grass was mowed. The dirt looked smooth. It was a perfectly usable baseball field, as nice as the ones in the park two blocks from my house. It's a small thing, but it makes me wonder about the rest of the piece.

The Red Sox are beating the Yankees on the web:

The Boston Red Sox's recent edge over the New York Yankees appears to extend to the digital domain. And George Steinbrenner probably can't do anything about it. Last week, the sports publisher Street & Smith's released its ranking of professional sports Web sites, and in the baseball category the Red Sox led the major leagues while the Yankees were near the cellar - in 27th place among 30 teams.

I've noticed I get more traffic when the Red Sox or Cubs do well than when the Yankees do well. It could just be that the fans of those two clubs are more internet savvy.

Via Instapundit, Tapscott's Copy Desk reports on a journalistic scandal involving Mitch Albom.

Update: Broken link fixed.

The Baltimore Sun has a nice interactive feature, Interactive Baseball Cards. The front has a picture, the back has a bio and player stats. And since the Sun writes the bios they're not always complimentary. Have a look at the back side of Sammy Sosa's card.

This is a great example of how reporters can take advantage of the knowledge of their readers. Joe Posnanski of the KC Star is looking for story ideas for spring training over at Baseball Think Factory. Feel free to contribute to the discussion over there.

Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.

Murray Chass does a great impression of a blogger and Fisks the media who are drumming up the Boston vs. A-Rod story.

In this new version of "Get the good guy," the Red Sox are blameless. One player, Trot Nixon, ignited the game with negative comments about Rodriguez last week and a torrent of teammates have followed. But the teammates' comments have not been unsolicited. They were at the urging of reporters eager to inflame the game to incendiary levels. They were all but handed a script.

Athletes have long accused reporters of creating stories, and, sadly, this is one of those instances. It has become one of the most distasteful instances I have witnessed in 45 years of covering baseball.

I find it interesting that running Sammy Sosa out of town on a rail wasn't enough for Chicago. The Tribune is still writing negative stories just in case the Cubs fans didn't know what an awful person Sammy had become. In the latest, they travel to Sosa's home island to try to find people that might have a negative view of the home town slugger.

Folks, you've made your point. Sammy has nothing to do with the Cubs anymore. You traded him for nothing, and no amount of negative publicity is going to change that or make the Cubs any better. Cubs fans aren't going to be loyal because the scourge of Sosa has been removed. They'll be loyal because you win. And if they see Sosa having a great year in Baltimore and the Cubs struggling to stay above .500, they're going to start wondering if the wrong person was run out of town.

I found this story in Newsday interesting.

If the Mets are to add Carlos Delgado to their winter renovation, they'd prefer to clear some salary.

Conveniently enough, Mike Cameron would prefer to be elsewhere.

With Carlos Beltran taking his centerfield job, Cameron has conveyed to the Mets that he'd rather play centerfield elsewhere than play rightfield for them, according to an industry source. The Mets would like to shed Cameron, who is due about $14 million over the next two seasons, off their payroll as they prepare to meet with Delgado in Puerto Rico, as early as tonight.

An industry insider? Not even a Mets insider? That's pretty flimsy sourcing to go with a story. Here's what Minaya has to say.

But yesterday, general manager Omar Minaya said the team wasn't planning on moving Cameron anywhere else but to rightfield. "Of course we want him here," Minaya said. "We love the idea of Carlos Beltran and Mike Cameron roaming the outfield at Shea Stadium."

Minaya met with Cameron earlier in the offseason and discussed the idea of moving him to right, and Cameron gave the green light to make a play for Beltran. Minaya said as late as last week that he spoke with Cameron to update him on negotiations with Beltran, but figures he now needs to make another call.

"You never know, these types of situations," Minaya said. "I'm sensitive to any feelings Mike may feel. So I will probably have a conversation with him at some point in time."

So Omar has had at least two conversations with Cameron where Mike said it was okay to move him to right. Now, someone outside the Mets organization says that Cameron's not happy with this? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Of course, I thought it would be logical to trade Cameron. He's a good fielder, but his offense isn't up to right field. Maybe this is an attempt by the "industry insider" to stir up trouble so he can get his hand on Cameron. Or it could be that Cameron gave the go ahead wanting to look like a team player but figuring that the Mets would be out bid for Beltran's services. We'll have to wait to see how this plays out.

Peter Gammons has won the annual Spink award for

meritorious contributions to baseball writing.

One of my great pleasures in my years at Harvard was reading the Peter Gammons Sunday column in the globe. I consider myself lucky to have worked with Peter for 10 years at ESPN, and have him mention my work a number of times in his columns. He's a good colleague and a better friend. Congratulations, Peter!

I just did a search on Google News and All-Baseball.com came up as one of their sources. If anyone ever sees a Baseball Musings post on Google News, please let me know.

It really would be great if Google had a similar service just for blogs. Often times I see a story and would like blog reaction, but if my favorites aren't covering it yet, that reaction can be tough to find.

A Boston Globe reporter is doing a story on Red Sox fans abroad and their thoughts on the playoffs. If you fit into this category, leave your thoughts on the Red Sox post season here.

I'd say the Daily News beats the Post for best tabloid headlines today.