And so it starts...free food cut from Mizzou pressbox

Yep. Free food is a bonus, though I do imagine that a lot of teams, or organizations, will go this route as well.

 

The PA guy at the minor league stadium bitches endlessly about the quality of the free food in the press box. Very irritating.

 

Best press box eats I've enjoyed is a tie between the fajitas at Texas, or the continually scrumptious spread at UGa... where I had red velvet cake for the first time.

plus, they used to serve ham sandwiches with some honey mustard after the game. The fact they were served by smoking ladies in red shirts and black skirts wasn't a drawback, either.

 

Yeah. Especially those with ESE's who have nothing to do but read ethics journals these days in the wake of unethical cuts.

 

Ah, paying our own way. I think back to 1978 or 1979 when the Orange County Register decided it was going to be like the LA Times and pay for its writer to fly with the Dodgers. Hal Schneider, the sports editor, told Fred Claire, Dodger PR at the time, about the decision. Fred assured Hal that it was not a big deal because the Dodgers had their own plane so it did not cost extra for Register writer to fly. Hal insisted the Register would pay its way. End of the first month of the season, Hal got a bill from Dodgers for flights. He called Fred and said there was something wrong because the Register travel agent had checked out the fares and they were much less than the Dodgers charged. Fred explained that ``the Dodgers travel first class,'' and if the Register wanted to pay the way for the writer it would pay first class or the Dodgers wouldn't charge. Register decided to travel for free.
By way, big moment for Dodgers to cut out paying for writers, inlcuidng incidentals, rental cars and hotel rooms along with per diem, came after winter meetings in Toronto when one of the Dodger writers who has gone on to bigger and better things ordered a bar with bartender from room service for his room during the meetings and signed it to the Dodgers.

 

Tracy, that guy would be my hero today in light of what's happening to the industry.

 

I used to work at a shop that wouldn't pay for me to eat when I traveled to my beat team's home games, even though it was a 3-1/2 hour roundtrip from home. But when I was on my interview, the ASE (who had formerly held the beat) told me to just launder the cost of a meal back into my mileage. Did it for four years and no one in management (or accounting) ever questioned it ...

 

I could go the rest of my life without a sportswriter free food joke, so I've always been a proponent of letting us bring our own food. Like the rest of us, if I'm covering something all day, I'll eat what they're serving. And I'll drink the hell out of sodas and water, because I'm always thirsty and drinks cost practically nothing to provide.

But few things in the business piss me off more than fellow sportswriters bragging about (and shoveling in) free food. And when people bitch about the quantity or quality of the free food, I want to punch them in the face.

 

Longer than that. I remember the switch to charging starting around 1993.

Anyway, my limited experience with college press boxes has been that the primary beneficiaries of free food are the kids who work for the campus paper and the campus radio station and the SID helpers and stat runners. When you're going to college, you probably don't often spend $7.50 for lunch.

 

This thread is starting to make me hungry, even for a sammich that would debacle or be debacled by me.

 

I covered the Beanpot twice in college and the spread in the Garden dining room was amazing...twice as amazing for a broke college kid. Now I'm trying to eat healthy and press box food would fly in the face of that goal.