Chris Snow - New director of hockey operations for the Minnesota Wild

But that's exactly my point. From the outside, being able to "travel with the team, get to know the team, being a definitive voice on this most popular of teams" seems alluring.

But, in the end, its still a fucking job.

 

I can't fathom how terribly draining that beat would be, but it's not like he just completed a tour in a foreign freakin' theater of war or finished his eighth year of medical school.

In addition, I'm not prepared to call this dude a sun-kissed genius because he moved from writing about sticks and balls for a living to managing logistics for people who manage people who use sticks and pucks for a living. He made a career change. Big fucking deal. The average American makes three a lifetime.

 

No one is saying he did. But a few people have reacted as if Snow has just pissed on Red Smith's grave.

Red Sox beat writer for the Boston Globe might sound like your dream job, but it sure as shit ain't everyone's.

 

Sometimes you just have to count your winnings and leave the table with a smile. He'll get to tell his grandkids he covered the Red Sox for the Globe. Maybe he was beleaguered by it. I don't know. But I'm not going to weep for him or the business. He made a choice, good for him. So many people want to leave the business and don't. They become its sad captive.

That's an idea a good number of people who post here don't appear to get. Not everybody wants to be Chris Snow. :

 

LJB -- agreed.

Here's another thing to think about.

You only get one chance in the world to be 25. It may sound corny, but it's true. Now is the time to soak life up. While a lot of 25 year olds are out at happy hour and getting laid, Chris Snow is in the clubhouse listening to a guy like Manny Ramirez ask, "Who's Chris?"

Not in anyway trying to paint the Red Sox beat as a bad job, because it's not. It's a damn good one. But you need to think outside the realm of sports writing here. Spend a year and a half covering the Red Sox, great. If you feel your life could be better, by all means make it better.

If that means partying your ass off on Friday night and nailing 70 percent of the actresses in Hollywood like Vinny Chase. By all means do it.

If that means becoming the Director of Hockey Operations for the Minnesota Wild, more power to you.

Not sure if it was Socrates or Jon Bon Jovi, but somebody said it:

"It's your life!"

 

Definitely was Bon Jovi. Everyone knows that from Philosophy 101 in college.

 

huh. so how come you're not on espn? hey, what's stuart scott really like?

 

Preach it, daemon. Some want to be a gold card member in the Fuckin' Stud club. Other twentysomethings want, in the immortal piece of Socratic wisdom that westcoastvol passed on to a despondent Crippler Crossface, "to be able to bang two hookers while wearing an Aquaman costume and leather chaps with Doogie Howser on in the background."

This is your life, Chris Snow! You might even be able to put your phone on voicemail for once.

 

Red Sox beat writer at the Boston Globe is not a bad-paying gig. I'm not assuming a giant pay raise, or any pay raise, for that matter.

 

No, not at all. Never said that, never thought that. I certainly wouldn't turn down a GM job in my favorite sport, that's for sure. Just thought the poster before me was trying to paint Snow's gig as some kind of negative. It's just an interesting situation, that here this guy had something so many covet, and he's able to get another offer that causes him to give that up.

To call his position enviable would be a gross understatement.

 

That's because you've never been a travelling baseball beat writer.

Whatever you think it might be, the reality is times five. Except the fun is one fifth.

It's not an easy concept to get by the many out there who would give their left or right nut to do it. And I understand where you're coming from. But if you all did get that chance, you would come to the same conclusion.

The travel was no picnic before; since 9/11, and with all the cutbacks with airlines, it's a bear - especially if you go in and out of a city that isn't a hub and doesn't have a lot of direct flights.

You think you get to work at 3? You've already been on the internet, writing ahead, on the phone for six hours before you ever get to the park. And of those 15 hours, unless you work at a really fair place, you get paid for seven. The rest, you do for the love of the game, and to not get your ass kicked by the competition.

You're always one sentence away from really pissing off someone whose cooperation you really need. So it's pins and needles all the time.

Winters off? Notta chance.

My last year on the beat, between early February and the all-star break, I was home a total of three weeks. Try having a marriage, or even have your friends remember you, on that schedule.


This isn't a boo-hoo post, because I loved every minute of it. But I've been out of it a year now, and I still shake my head at how quickly eight years went by. I never saw 'em. For a JOB.

Just sayin' that those are all elements of the job that someone has no idea about before they get into it. A lot of people realize it early, but the next thing you know, 20 years have gone by (not so much now; there's a lot more turnover).

If Snow realized it wasn't for him, good for him to try something else. That he was lucky enough, good enough, to have options just makes it easier, and prevents him from being a bitter, burned-out old fart 20 years from now. ;D