Nationals beat for Washington Post

I've covered pro and college beats of all sorts during my long and checkered career, but as I've always told people, the one thing they couldn't pay me enough to do is be a major league baseball beat writer. It's the biggest killer grind I can think of in this business.

 

But back in the day, "all" Joel Sherman and Bill Madden had to do was write a gamer and a notebook and weekly notes and report the shit out of their beat. Now, a baseball beat writer has to blog and Twitter multiple times a day, monitor the competition's blog and Twitter throughout the day, remain plugged into the Internet 16 hours a day in order to keep abreast of whatever shit the national guys at ESPN and Fox and CNNSI and Yahoo and Sportsline are throwing out there, and, at the first hint of news, from the wildest rumor that the desk has read to the most mundane of press releases that the team has released, drop everything that he is doing and find the closest computer and scramble to file something as quickly as possible so that the time stamp on his story or blog entry is a minute or two earlier than the competition's, thereby giving him possession of the "scoop."

I've talked a bunch with guys who covered baseball before the Internet age really took hold. Once they filed their story for the night, they knew that they were usually done. If you got beat, you found out when you picked up the paper the next morning. And in the morning, once you picked up the paper, you didn't have to worry about much until you got to the park.

Now, you can go into the bathroom and take too long of a shit and miss something.

Not to mention that, back when a guy like Madden was coming up, there were fewer media outlets covering the game and newspapers were more respected by everyone involved and the access was much better. We're in an age where it is even more important that reporters spend their time reporting -- developing sources outside the increasingly paranoid periphery, researching angles that the rest of the swarm have not pursued. Yet between blogging and Twittering and chasing down internet rumors, beat writers find themselves wondering, "Hmm, do I really need to be down in the dugout for batting practice, or should I go upstairs and blog now so I can maybe get my notes done during dinner and then be able to watch the first three or four innings of the game?"

It's a wonder anybody can do it for five years, much less 20 or 30 or whatever it takes to become a guy like Madden.

 

I did it for eight years – all alone, no backup, every road trip.
You could triple my salary and give me a private jet, and I STILL wouldn't do it again.
I have my life back now. Everyone is happier.

But when I was doing it, I loved it, was consumed by it. No choice. The great thing about it, if you like the sport, is that you're surrounded every day by dozens of people who know more about it than you do. And if you keep your mouth shut and your ears open (hard for some know-it-alls to do), you can get a free baseball lesson every single day. And the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know.

It was only when I stepped off the merry-go-round that I realized how much of my life had slipped by, and how many important moments in the lives of the people I care about had happened with me in Pittsburgh or Milwaukee.

 

I hear you and you are so right. The blogging and twittering are nfew fads. Hell, I remember when the TI (Texas Instrument) came out out and everyone went ga ga. Technology will dictate the business and rightfully so.
However, the act of being a good reporter instead of one that follows the herd mentality or knee-jerk fan reactions is the act that is truly lost.

 

No one thinks that way Moddy. There's no argument that you know more about posts concerning major league baseball coverage than I do.

 

Moddy, a lot of guys don't know how much work is involved in covering a MLB. That's all I've been saying. Let's leave it at that. It's not debate.

 

Are you trying to be a lawyer? I made a general stereotypical statement in the initial post. Shoot me. I should've said many guys don't know what it takes to cover a MLB beat. That would've covered many people and areas. Now, I don't know where you want to go with this but it's not anything to debate or get self righteous about.

 

I just completed my 22nd year as an MLB beat writer, and this post said it all. Every day I go to work, I know two things are going to happen. 1) I am going to laugh. 2) I am going to learn.

The job is a bitch, just as everyone has said it is, especially for those of us who cover West Coast teams with the many transcontinental flights required each season. It helps to have a supportive paper that will give you a blow now and again, particularly for road trips. But I can't imagine doing anything else now.

As for the prep writer who asked if he/she could do the job: Of course you can, if you are a good reporter and writer. I was a business reporter before I moved to my MLB beat. My first two years I was lost, but the same goes for all the writers who have come onto this beat the traditional way, climbing the preps-colleges ladder.