Joe Girardi rips into Joel Sherman

You want "hits" or "credibility and respect"? Seems to me that if he wrote about it his job covering The Yankees would have gotten a lot harder.

 

My bosses at my last two papers wanted the hits.
And they said it out loud when I asked that question specifically.
One of the (many) reasons I finally left the business.

 

It doesn't have to be one or the other, even in this case. If Sherman went off on Girardi, sure, he'd have a hard time. If he explained what happened in a calm and rational matter, trying to see it from both sides, he'd get the hits and keep the credibility. It seems more disingenuous, to me, to call the Yankees a bunch of complainers who are spiraling out of the division lead and not mention that you just had a blowup with the manager, one that your own newspaper is reporting.

 

Because being polite is more important than being "right."

 

Not always.

 

He could have always used the lame .... "a writer at Girardi post game press conference got into a dust up with Girardi over a question he asked."

 

Polite? Or did you mean professional? Not the same thing in this business.

 

This isn't the same situation, but it's a relevant tangent.

Older timers say Ralph Houk loved to yell at writers after a negative story or column. He'd made a big production of it in front of the players, either yelling at the guy in the clubhouse or otherwise within earshot. He'd really let the guy have it so the players would think, "Yeah, Ralph has our back."

The other part of it was Houk would always apologize to the writer later. But the apology was always quiet and in private.

 

So Houk was being professional and polite.

 

I wish I had a witty retort for that time Leonard Hamilton berated me for my line of questioning during a post-game presser.

 

Not at all.

 

I've had people rip me before during interviews, yell at me on the phone over stories, etc. I don't yell back. Now if I walk into a press box at a high school football game and there are no copies of the rosters, that's a whole different story.