Mississippi State beat writers vs Louisiana-Lafayette

In fairness to ULL, I've been at that stadium and press box. It's just not that big. Suitable for a typical ULL game, but if you're bringing in more than 1-2 people from the visiting side, you're going to need extra space. Not like you can go out and build a new press box overnight.

Now, is this something the NCAA should consider when determining regional sites? Perhaps.

 

Were these guys more upset about the mechanics of setting the thing up, or the fact that they were sent out to the bleachers in the first place? Because that last part is very common. I have been in the cheap seats for a baseball All-Star Game and an NFL playoff game. It happens all the time, everywhere.

The only real beef would seem to be that their equipment could get ruined out in the rain.

 

Which happened at Super Bowl XLI. I was there. I watched many of my colleagues have their equipment messed up in the downpour. I was lucky. I was far enough under the over-hang to stay relatively dry. The NFL, caught out to some degree, tried to provide a protective tarp, but it didn't really work.

The difference between the Super Bowl and a NCAA baseball regional is that you could retreat to the Super Bowl media room if need be. It would've been massively inconvenient -- it was located in the bowels of Miami's stadium -- but in theory, you could.

I doubt the beef among MSU writers at ULL was with being in the bleachers. It's a pain, but not uncommon. I guarantee the grousing when to Defcon-1 when reporters got stuck in the rain.

That's when the regional site should've had a room, or at the very least, a tent, to serve the working media, and/or, assign media there who weren't covering the Mississippi State games. The regional I covered had a press conference/overflow area in the home team's indoor hitting cages on-site. It worked fine.

 

Yeah, when I covered a regional at Tulane, they had a small press box too. The "auxiliary" press area was high school desks between the fences separating the field and the bullpen.

It rained like hell that weekend too, so those of us who couldn't fit in the press box sat in the interview room and watch it on TV.

 

Someone mentioned a press room in one comment, so there must have been one. One would assume it would have a TV feed, if only one camera. So, yeah, if the weather gets lousy, go down there and hang out for a while.

It's not like you're covering golf or track with no place to hide.

 

I don't think the writers having a problem with the setup is the issue. They're entitled to have a problem with it, so talk to the host SID or probably the NCAA in this case.

Don't write about it, and don't think your readers give a flying fuck about your problems. And sure as shit don't say it's the worst place in America or engage in any public conversation that includes anyone referencing them as "less than people."

From what I've seen about how passionate Lafayette's fans are about their athletic program, you've got to know you're inviting a shitstorm that you don't need. Maybe these high-brow minds of Mississippi don't believe it, but people in Lafayette, Louisiana have the Internet and can read, too.

 

Speaking of college baseball, do a lot of the beat writers still live-tweet pitch-by-pitch from games? It's the same principle. Nobody thinks these games are as important as they do. The press box situation is definitely an issue for the school and NCAA. But readers?

 

Yeah, they still do that (or every play anyway). There's really no point in it, but everybody does it.

There's really no point in live-tweeting every play from a game that's on TV at night or on the weekend when all the hardcore fans are watching. Give scoring updates or end of every half-inning score, but better yet, give the Twitter followers something they might not see on TV (analysis of a particular play, who's warming up in the bullpen, etc.).

 

I remember some who live-tweeted play-by-play college baseball during games in February. Who exactly is sitting on the edge of their seat for play-by-play college baseball in February? Who wants their timeline flooded by that?

 

Eh, probably parents and girlfriends. Doesn't make it the best way to communicate. Don't most schools offer some sort of online feed of their broadcasts?

 

I get not bitching about the conditions in print or on social media. You come off as a whiner. Still, if U. La La wants to see itself as a big-time athletic program then they need to act like it. And the whole set-up at their ball park screamed bush league.

 

I remember reading Joe Falls (!) in the Sporting News (!!) when I was a kid and he'd be bitching about press box food. Even at a young age, I wondered why he thought I should give a damn about that.

*****

I like Matthew Stevens a lot and I admire the way he works the Mississippi State beat. He works harder than anybody on that particular beat, I think, especially because Columbus is an afternoon paper.

He was in the wrong on this, of course, and so spectacularly wrong that it's kind of breathtaking, really. But he manned up and apologized - and as far as I know, did so because he decided for himself that he had made a mistake and not because management was on his ass.

Our MSU beat guy wrote a column after he got back about the trip, but with a light touch that suggested, I think, that Lafayette wasn't entirely ready for prime time without being ugly about it. We got about zero blowback on that, mainly because this other thing took up all the available oxygen in the room.

And yes, we have a reporter - two, actually - down there this weekend. It'll be interesting to see how their experience plays out, but my primary concern is getting a good read on the visiting fan experience.

This is very different from an Oxford or Starkville regional, if only because of the sheer numbers of folks that can pack into those facilities. And that was valid point of discussion that got obscured in the "worst place on earth" discussion.