Inky reporter vs. Brett Myers

I won't even go as far as to say you might be right. It's a big-city fallacy.

 

When did Rosie turn into Armageddon?

 

Sam Carchidi has been covering high school, collegiate and professional sports since 1975. He has been a staff writer and South Jersey sports columnist at The Inquirer since 1984, writing primarily about high school athletes and professional baseball.
Carchidi's most recent book is Bill Campbell: The Voice of Philadelphia Sports, published by Middle Atlantic Press. In 2001, he co-authored Miracle in the Making: The Adam Taliaferro Story, about a Penn State player's remarkable recovery from a paralyzing spinal injury.

Carchidi's column appears in the Inquirer's South Jersey section on Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays.

 

We have an excellent prep writer who has turned down other beats because he loves Friday night high school football.

I wouldn't want to be a prep writer, but as a college beat guy, I'm no better than them. In some communities — including some big ones with healthy newspaper circulation numbers — prep sports are very important.

 

Sorry, didn't mean that as an attack on you. Was just saying that's what Myers thinks. I just used your post saying what his main job is stress the point that athletes are idiots, as in this case, when they try to tell you that you're not an MLB beat writer so you don't know my sport.

I mean shit, if an NBA player ever said that to me, I'd wonder if they realize the NBA game of isolation and ball hogging is most definitely not the game of basketball. It's a joke and will be forever in my book compared to how it's done in high schools nationwide and mainly on the girls court.

As for Carchidi, Myers is basically saying he has no friggin' clue about the sport because he only covers it at the high school or little league levels. Yeah the MLB brand of baseball is the way to go. A big decrease in small ball played across the league shows how much these ass clowns really know about their own game and how it should be played.

 

Listening to the tape, you can definitely tell there's history between the reporter and Myers.

That said, I'm a little surprised that some of you thought Carchidi was wrong for asking Myers if he really thought the home runs were "pop-ups." The ball left the park. That comment begs for a follow-up.

Are you saying the park's too small?
Did the wind take them?
Did you really think they were just pop-ups?

Myers asked Carchida for his opinion. Carchidi gave it ... "I thought the first one was out, not the second." Nothing provoking about that.

Myers then insulted him, so there's no doubt who started this.

"How do you spell retard?" is a bit strong, but T.J. Simers plays the instigator all the time and is praised throughout the industry. Carchidi is getting a hard time on this board, from what I can tell, because he spends most of his time covering preps. That's irrelevant.

I'm guessing that even if Carchidi would've said, 'No, Brett, I don't mean to be sarcastic, I'm just not sure what you meant,'' ... Myers would've jumped on him just the same. He was waiting to pounce.

It's impossible to predict how we would have responded in the same scenario (had it been me, I would've had to cut the conversation short to make deadline), but I'm guessing it's hard for a guy with 30-plus years of sports reporting experience to stand there and take crap from a foul-mouthed pitcher who's upset because he gave up a couple of home runs.

 

Saw this in the comments section after listening to the audio, and I busted out laughing reading it:

“I’ll knock you fuckin out” should have been followed by the reporter pulling out the “perhaps you’ve mistake me for your wife” card

 

..and we're off!

 

And it is clear Myers is being ripped for his history with his wife, which is irrelevant to this incident. (Look at the first few posts in response to the original posting if you don't believe me)

I'm in no way critical of the reporter because of his work on preps. See my stance on preps in an earlier thread.

I've been in a baseball clubhouse after a game, as a fill-in, and been intimidated/threatened by a player who had a bad game. He wanted to stuff me in his locker because of how I worded a question. I didn't escalate the situation, as Sam did.

I merely informed the player that I was using the words his manager had just used to describe said player's performance. That shut him up and he answered my question.

Myers lost it, appears to be a pain to cover and I'll grant you that he tossed out the first naughty word.

But the reporter did not have to stoop to that level, no matter how strong the urge or how difficult it would have been to bite his tongue. The reporter was unprofessional. Sorry, but no excuse-making (Myers started it) or rationalization can change that fact.

Both handled the situation poorly.

 

As an infrequent poster here: Who is Rosie?

 

I disagree. I'm not saying that Myers was correct to act like he did. All I'm saying was that it was obvious what he meant when he said they were popups. It meant he didn't think the balls were hit all that well. End of story. There was no need for the reporter to ask if the ballpark is too small, because the Phillies have been playing there for four or five years and everyone knows it's too small. As for the wind, that may have been a legitimate question.

As it was, simply saying "You really thought they were popups?" just sounds like he's saying "I'm not buying your answer," which is un-necessary. It is not his job to buy the answer, just to write it down. Carchidi could have followed up the quote in his story with a description of the home runs, or he could have just let the readers figure out if Myers is an idiot.

I've been covering baseball for 10 years and I've done that a million times. I covered one pitcher who said "I thought I pitched pretty well" every time, even if he gave up 10 runs. I never once thought of saying to him: "You really thought you pitched well?"

None of this is to excuse Myers, by the way. He plainly acted like a jerk.

 

Sorry, but I believe you misread that pretty badly, bob. I don't detect that at all.