Does any paper still publish an old-time full agate page daily in a digital form?

If you subscribe to a McClatchy paper, the e-edition includes numerous pages McClatchy produces for the entire chain in addition to the replica pages of your local paper. That includes extensive agate but, for some reason, no college basketball box scores.

 

But enough about BYH.

 

I did this for the 15 years I was a full-time sportswriter and absolutely loved it every night. I enjoyed deciding where everything should go in the beginning of the shift and putting together the TV/radio schedule, and then relax until 9 when it was a tornado until the 11:15 deadline, especially during high school basketball/wrestling season. (It's 11:13 and there is one second remaining in the Grizzlies-Hawks game ... is it going to end in the next minute?) But then, on some random day with no high schools/local colleges, I would try to get in everything the AP wire put out ... This Day in History, the full transactions list (got released from the Lake Elsinore Storm? Congratulations! You've made the Norwich Bulletin in Connecticut), full Champions Tour stats ...

I got called (good-naturedly, I think) the Agate Nazi because I was a stickler for the little shit (like having the right point size on scorelines, bolding the INN/H/R/ER/K/BB on pitching lines) and for someone who loved things in an organized, orderly manner with the tiniest of minutia all similar, it was a great job to do. Sure, the dopes in Putnam probably gave two shits about the college football result between Carroll and Montana Tech, but it filled up my column.

I still work part-time one night a week at what was our main competitor (now pretty much the only game in town) helping design news and sports, and the nights where I can do the agate page are some of the best nights for me.

What I don't miss? Tank McNamara. That comic was never funny.

 

Definitely, while making sure that pitching line didn't break over.

 

Many years ago, after running the ski report a few times our editor asked why. We said we'd gotten some requests from the local ski club that travels each year. He loved that we were helping our readers.

We did have a local ski club that traveled. They didn't give two figs about the ski report, though.

We usually had great space on Monday so we'd have a full page of agate with all the standings and boxes, full golf results, tennis, auto racing, updated season points standings for whatever was going on, the works. Then we began adding youth league season champion photos on the page. Parents were happy. Agate page could be trimmed as needed. Worked out great.

Best thing? Transactions. You notice a coach making a move, a player traded or retiring, anything in a minor league town or conference/org office, and it could turn into a nice story. Sort of like looking at the building permits in Classifieds or arrest reports. Never know what you'd uncover.

 

When I was a news reporter, that and the legal notices were a good way to figure out what was going on without being on the ground.

Can confirm. The first time I did Corky's agate page, pretty sure any work I'd done was no longer evident. And that's how you learn.

 

Probably the most hell I caught in my entire career was over the TV schedule on the agate page. I regularly took calls from people complaining about what was on… not that I didn’t have it right, but the game they wanted to see wasn’t carried. My general response was, “Uhhhhhh, you know I don’t control what ESPN shows, right?”

Lakes Stages and Ski Report = good time.

 

Our fishing and hunting guy at the Herald left abruptly for a better job out of the business one summer. His replacement was a guy who was half-desk and half GA, a real good man, but a city kid who'd never baited a hook or shot at a duck in his life. So his calls for the Friday "where are they biting" feature (remember, Mass. has about a thousand miles of coastline) were must-listen entertainment. "So, a six-pounder. Is that good?" "What's a fluke" and so on and so forth.

 

Agate Nazi pretty good. My favorite was Agatollah.

 

I got a talking to about cutting the Ski Report out from the agate page when we were tight on space (this was only a couple years ago)

Was a bit pissed and noted that, (1) anybody who's going to area ski resorts has a phone and is looking up snow conditions on that, and (2) even for people who rely on the newspaper ski report, by the time the print edition gets in their hands, the ski report info is more than 24 hours old.

One person called and chewed out the sports editor, though ... avalanches aren't the only thing that rolls downhill!

 

Not sports, but my old paper ran the “noon day stock report.” We were a p.m. paper that went to press about 10:30 a.m.
That meant the info people were getting was 24 hours old at best.

 

I would have volunteered to scrub toilets at the Valdosta Daily Times if it meant skipping my turn to put together the weekly fishing report. Oh the hours I spent turning the copy we got got from some lake lodge or charter boat captain into something that would at least earn a C-minus in junior high English class.