For $40.....

Ah, the couplers.......

 

That made me laugh. If that's not a in my day story I don't know what is!

 

A year after Advance tossed all of the prep clerks for AL.com out on the street a week before football started, they brought back the supervisors for Fridays in the fall only on a freelance work-from-home basis. No more phone calls accepted, only copy from stringers and emailed stats from games we didn’t have somebody at.

The one exception was a guy who had been with them for a while, wasn’t a writer and knew he wasn’t, but was willing to go any sketchy part of Birmingham you could name. The standing agreement was that he would call in with stats, score summary and a few quotes. Whoever took the call then used these raw ingredients to create a 5-7 graf story any way they saw fit. Frankly we should have done that with virtually all our stringers instead of trying to rewrite what they emailed us.

 

That's where I usually end up with stringers. Or even our own news staffers who've tried their hand at writing gamers. By the time I edit what they turn in I could've called the coach, gotten the raw material, and banged out 400 words myself.

 

You can definitely get to a game 15 minutes ahead of time and be just fine; I do it almost every week for local home games. Our paper has a seat reserved in every press box in our coverage area, and I don't ask our guys to do video, pics or agate — just a gamer. If any of them are ever on site more than four hours for a normal-length game, I'd be amazed; I'm often there for less than three.

I realize our situation is the exception, not the rule...but there's still no reason any stringer should be at a game for over 4 hours unless there's a weather delay. And there's also no reason a stringer should accept $40 for even just a story, never mind the extras. But I can't say I know of any papers paying that little and asking for that much.

 

Filing from the road, I once expensed a $77 cab ride to get a new set of acoustic couplers at a Radio Shack outside Atlanta.

 

Ah, acoustic couplers and a TRS-80. Always loads of fun setting that up in a telephone booth to file a story.

 

For $43 my friend lost his life.

 

That was a long, long, time ago …

(Come on, it was hanging right over the plate)

 

That's what Woody said.

 

I'm not even in the business, I did all the website stuff for the junior hockey team I worked for and when I quit the sports editor of the local paper - who used to run my stuff all the time - gave me $75 a game to cover minor league hockey and basketball, high school baseball and hoops and the world junior fastpitch championship. All I did were gamers, no social media or photos, was easy beer money then. Would never do it all people are looking for here for $40.

 

Yes but other than that, how was the setup, Mrs. Lincoln?