Pressbox deadlines

My family had season tickets to the U and the Dolphins for decades. I'm trying to imagine having no place to go before or after a game and failing miserably.

 

Very, very creepy territory around the Orange Bowl.

 

By nowhere to go I meant no way to leave the neighborhood.

 

I'm in JRoyal's camp. I hate transcribing with a passion. I annotate my scribbling with time marks on my recorder so I can go back and quickly find the quotes I need. I used to be in the camp of posting transcripts from Tuesday football pressers on my blog, but with everyone having access to the video/audio feed through the school's website, I find that exercise to be a waste of time. Just hit the highlights and move on.

 

I've run into these kinds of time limits in the minors. It's annoying but, seriously, have you never done preps? Go sit in your car and type and file from there. Or drive 5 minutes to a Starbucks or McDonald's or whatever if you don't have an air card.

Even in the Major Leagues you'll sometimes get the lone usher coming through after a couple hours asking how long you're going to be, or just saying they're leaving and this is how you get out of the park (if you're not local). I'll admit to having a hard time finding my way out before when 99 out of 100 doors are locked.

 

I mostly do AHL/college hockey. Usually I'm walking out while the cleaning crew is in the midst of their work.

As far as I know, I've only drawn the ire of the resident PR guy once, and I only found this out after the fact by seeing a conversation he had on Twitter with one of his buddies bitching about me being late in the pressbox.

This was a D-III school, so I take it waiting for a reporter postgame wasn't usually on his to-do-list.

A lot of the reason for the delay was wrangling coaches and players afterwards. One of the coaches had coached at my alma mater previously, and since I wasn't on deadline, I had no problem shooting the shit with him after the game.

Could I have been faster? Probably, but if it bothers you that much, tell me to lock the door on the way out instead of bitching about it via tweets.

I didn't get up in arms about it, but it just shows how nothing is hidden on the interwebs.

 

I can think of two Triple-A writers who have been issued gate and/or pressbox keys by the respective clubs they cover. They lock up on the way out.

If it's good enough for that level, it should be good enough for short-season 'Eh' ball.

 

Man, to think of the places I've filed from over the years. mostly restaurants, but also a couple of bars, hotel lobbies and even someone's guest room, not to mention other newspapers in the area.

 

First year on the beat in A-ball a former MLBer had no trouble with me being around the cage everyday. I got a lot of good stuff that I would use, if not that day than later on. He'd tell me player moves before the players.

After two seasons with him, new manager comes in doesn't like me being on the field even during BP. I'm limited to the dugout and have been ever since. Now, the PR guy won't even tell me who a new guy on the field taking BP is until the release comes out.

Postgame there is no set cooling off period so I invented my own guideline that I call the 'Spread Rule'. If the clubhouse door is open and I see players with plates of food I go on in. Sometimes it's three minutes after the last out, sometimes longer, but nobody has a problem with that.

The team has no problem with me being the last out of the stadium every night with the exception of the grounds crew.

 

I don't know of anyone who wants to dick around in a pressbox longer than he has to. That goes for the SID (who should have a story to write as well) or a reporter.

 

I've been in a college football press box for three hours after a game, but it's never just to file one gamer. It's a gamer, notes, report card, sidebar(s) and sometimes a column. There might be some blogging to do, too. Or some video to upload. And since my office is about three hours away, driving back to file isn't an option.

Oddly enough, I'm usually not the last guy out. But there have been a couple of occasions when I took pity on the guy who was stuck waiting for me to finish writing and filed the last thing or two from Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. Or by using a hotel's wireless and filing from my car in a parking lot.

Sometimes I wish it was just a matter of filing a 500-word gamer, but that's not the case in my world.

 

By acoustic coupler, on a pay phone, while holding the TRS-80.