Baseball writers

It is unusual for baseball beat writers to be replaced before the end of a season? First Pittsburgh, now Los Angeles.

 

It's not like these staffs have a bunch of extra people lying around. If it was mid-September and teams were out of playoff contention, maybe you could get by. But the Pirates and Dodgers are in the playoff race, so you need to cover every game, home and away.

People left. So you need to replace them ASAP.

 

I guess I'm thinking of the Old Days, when there was a backup baseball writer, who did sidebars and occasional frontline coverage to give the main guy a breather, and the bigger papers also had a national baseball writer who could be thrown into the fray. Today, I'm surprised that there isn't more burnout among baseball writers than there already is.

 

I'd wager 99% of the nation's newspapers no longer have a national baseball reporter. There might be five in the country.

I'm sure the Times and PG have back up writers, but they'll still need to hire someone quickly to get back to two on the beat. In fact, it looks like the PG lost the back up writer, not the primary beat beat writer.

 

I have infinite respect for anyone who is a baseball beat writer. A game literally every single day...I could not do it.

 

Two thoughts:

1) A lot of times I'll see a writer from another beat (colleges, NFL, etc.) cover a game or two to give the regular beat writer a break after a road trip.
2) Having not seen a "Why I'm joining The Athletic" post yet, what is next for Andy McCullough?

 

McCullough is finishing the season on the Dodgers beat, then staying. The Times is expanding. Castillo is coming in now to get used to the beat, which strikes me as a pretty smart idea given how much news there is in winter.

 

I could do it, and love every minute of it. My last goal in life is to cover the Cardinals from Spring Training to World Series Game 7.

 

What happened to Brad Turner (LATimes Clippers reporter)?

 

So will McCullough stay on the Dodgers beat next season or his he moving to a new role?

 

This. When I worked in newspapers I always told people that's the one job I could never do, no matter how much I was paid. I'm surprised any baseball beat guy makes it through a season.

That said, most of the guys I've met who did it for a long time were REALLY hard-core -- to the point that they would sometimes go to the ballpark and watch the game when we'd send someone else to cover for them to give them a rare day off.