MLB '24 Regular Season Thread

Yes, he's the guy, couldn't remember his name. He was up for a cup of coffee earlier this season.

 

So true. Never ask a question in front of the TV/radio media who showed up one day, if that, per week (I realize not everyone in those businesses worked/worked like that. So no disrespect to anyone on this board, I was alluding to the PDX guys and several of the Eugene guys in my specific market. Unless one of you is Colin Cowherd, you're off the hook).

 

There was a time when TV news stopped sending reporters to games, just sent a camera guy and the boom girl (nothing sexist here, just what we called them back in the day because most of the "sound engineers" were women). They would crowd their way into a scrum. But all of the beat writers would back off and just leave the TV crew standing there in front of the player. Nobody said anything. One time the camera guy said, "C'mon, somebody ask a question." No one did. Then he said, "What is your comment on the game?" hahaha

This was from the Dodgers clubhouse in the '80s, done by a noted prankster, a tall, blonde lefty known as Q-Tip (his name rhymes with Jerry Reuss). He had a 3-foot dildo and put the call letters on it PNS. He used it like a boom mic. This was a Sunday when the TV stations had their newbies working. One of them sent a female and she was in the clubhouse for the first time. During the scrum, in the middle of all the microphones, suddenly the PNS boom mic appears. She was completely flustered and ran out of the room.

 

When it comes to misogyny, I don't know if you can beat white supremacists, locker rooms and the media. I wish I enjoyed "Anchorman" more, because based on the men I knew in television during the 1970s, that movie was way more of a documentary than a satire.

The lead anchor for UF's television news broadcast -- who went on to anchor at CNN -- was known as "Mr. Couch." It was said to get an opportunity to be his co-anchor, female students needed to spend the afternoon on his couch, if you understand my meaning.

 

Back in my podunk days, Jerry Stackhouse came to town for a basketball camp run by the local graduate on UNC’s women’s team at the time.

It was just me and the local TV guy interviewing Stackhouse afterwards. I asked all the questions; he recorded everything and held out his mike. Good enough guy, but when I saw the news report that he introduced as his “exclusive interview with Jerry Stackhouse” …

 

I remember. He wasn't very good during that short time with the Mariners, but he has shown excellent power and some patience in the minors.

 

Curious. Was the TV guy a pup?
Once I gravitated to print, I refused to put up with that kind of shit. However, it usually involved a newbie and I tried to "educate" them.
One instance immediately comes to mind. Was hanging around waiting to talk to the head coach of a college football team that had conducted its spring game. I let the broadcast newbies do their thing. As they turned to leave, I walked up, said hello and asked a question. A TV kid whips back around to get a piece of my action. I put my hand over his lense and said, "(name), you've had your chance. This isn't a gang bang."
The coach just smiled as the blow-dried hairdo stomped off.

Back to MLB ... most of us know Leyland and La Russa are tight. Heck, La Russa sat right behind Leyland on the stage Sunday.
One night in Kansas City, some kid asked La Russa if he might consider moving Stewart to the bull pen. Not withstanding Eckersley's presence there, Stewart was still the ace of the starting staff.
Thought La Russa was gonna blow. Instead, he paused then said, "That's the stupidest fucking question I've ever been asked."
Silence. The kid's career might have ended that night. Never saw him again.

 

Not TV, but I'd deal with similar stuff working at a local paper. Podunk High would make the playoffs and here comes the regional paper horning in on interviews. Sorry dude, I've covered the team all year and know stuff you don't. Ask your questions and be on your way.

 

I remember the 2000 World Series when, for obvious reasons, the local TV crews and their various newssiders all came crawling out of the woodwork. One night, I think at Shea, Bobby Valentine got stopped by a talking head from Fox 5. Bobby being Bobby, answered whatever questions were posed. Interview ends and Bobby walks by me.

"Who was that and where is she from?" he says. I told him and he rolled his eyes. I kind of felt validated, b/c in that moment Bobby was acknowledging that I was there for the drudgiest of the drudgy shit (of which there is a lot in a baseball season) and not just swooping in for the fun shit.

 

Yeah, I get it, but there's a flip-side to that.

When I was starting out, I used to shoot a lot of college football locker room post-game stuff. My goal was to get a couple of sound bites from key figures and get the hell out of there so they can air on the evening news.

That usually meant waiting out the beat writer who is camping out in front of the player's locker and asking the occasional question, but most just saying things like "I noticed whenever they used their nickel package, you guys were shifting into..." Just straight up "look at me, I played high school football" bullshit.

Eventually I would butt in with two questions: "Happy with the way you played today?" followed with "So where do you go from here?" I would have what I needed, I would leave, and the beat writer would go back to impressing the player with his ability to identify a formation.

The next morning I would read the beat writer's story and every single time, without fail, it would include the quotes that came from my two dopey questions... and rarely anything else.

So, yeah, sometimes that photog is a new kid who probably doesn't cover sports and is lost, and piggybacking on someone else's work.

And sometimes that photog is just waiting for you to shut the hell up so he can do his job and leave.

 

Pretty sure we both were. This was 30 years ago; I'd been working 2-3 years, he wasn't much older than me if any, but don't know how long he had been there.

I didn't care that he didn't ask any questions. Made me feel like a bigshot asking everything. But calling it an exclusive kinda made me mad.

 

I ran into my share of that. There was also a local radio station that would steal our work for their broadcasts. One time I covered a game. They had our paper opened to the preview I wrote. They were just reading from it, word-for-word, as a big chunk of their pregame. During a commercial break, I introduced myself. I thanked them for taking such an interest in my work and politely asked that they at least give my paper the credit for the information in their pregame. They did and asked me to go on the air with them during the next segment of their pregame. lol