Nationals beat for Washington Post

I don't think there is a paper in the country that has a mandated beat rotation. In fact when you hear of a beat writer switching pro sports, it's almost always someone who doesn't want to cover baseball anymore.

 

The three-year time period for developing sources and comfort level may be valid on most beats, but the learning curve on baseball is endless. You can never know enough scouts, agents or assistant GMs. Try recognizing an agent in a hotel lobby during the offseason, much less getting true insight, in the first few years on a beat.

 

My first season covering baseball I was lost, but I was also 23. After my first season the manager and GM were fired and when a new regime came in, we were all on equal ground, which was nice.

I never though dealing with agents was tough. Unless you're one of the top guys in the business they care more about your organization than they do your name.

 

Question from a guy who's worked preps and colleges his entire career.
How hard is the adjustment to an MLB beat? I'm not looking for this job for a variety of reasons - my fiancee's refusal to move from RI unless I'm making 3x as much as I am now - but wondered if a good prep reporter could just be thrown in and do the job seamlessly.

 

In a way, you're doing all the same stuff - covering the game, plus the off-the-field stuff.

But then you've have to multiply the number of games by five, maybe six. Then you'd have to account for the long hours at the ballpark, and don't forget the travel. And add in the off-the-field stuff, which is now player arrests/suspensions/negotiations instead of just coaching changes and academics.

Could a good prep reporter do it? Probably, if you really worked your rear off and really knew what you were getting into.

But probably not, because it's still worlds apart.

Though, the college stuff would certainly help prepare you better.

 

The travel is a bitch, especially with the schedule the way it is now. You can get an Atlanta-Houston-San Diego trip, and almost nobody travels on team charters any more. See how many airline options you have for some of those segments.

You get to the park at 3 for a 7 o'clock game, so it's almost always a long day and you're almost always on deadline. Your paper probably also wants a notes package, which means updating injuries, trade rumors and that sort of thing. Sam Curveball might be throwing an extra bullpen today, or Mike Slider might be making a rehab start at Class AA. You're probably responsible for keeping an eye on the minor league system (usually five or six teams) and scouting, especially if your team has a prime draft spot. Are you doing Sunday notes, too?

There's always trade stuff to check with agents, scouts, other writers and the people with your team. There are usually a couple of pending contract issues, too. If your club is touting Joe Slugger as the next big thing, it's good if you can check with scouts and other teams' personnel guys to get a more objective viewpoint.

Your paper may want you to blog or do Q & A's or make a weekly appearance with Wally the Sportsdick on Fan Radio 720. Everybody in the office thinks spring training is a warm weather vacation, but your day will start at 7 and rarely end before 5. No need to take the golf clubs, tennis racket or Speedo. I've never spent much time in Arizona, but if you spend six weeks in Florida, you'll be sick of blue-haired drivers, outlet malls and shiftless, tourist-resenting locals in no time.

Oh yeah, then there are the games -- 162 of them, some of them extra innings, some of them rain-delayed, some of them just inordinately slow and dull. You'll curse out loud when Tony LaRussa makes the third pitching change of the inning in a 9-2 game. It helps if you can get to the other clubhouse and get to know people. Even if they don't know your name, they'll recognize you as someone who's around and you can get useful background information, some of it about your team. And I hope you're not competing against someone eho's been covering for 10 years.

Then there's that uneasy feeling when you're trying to get back to the hotel from the DC ballpark after everyone else has left, but I don't want to scare you away.

 

Great post by sloan.

I've never been on a baseball beat and quite frankly, I have no desire to. The schedule of a regular sportswriter are tough enough on a family. I don't even want to think about what it's like for a baseball writer.

 

I have four words.
Pussies
Need
Not
Apply

 

What concerns me about baseball coverage in newspapers is that there seem to be few younger writers who stay on beats for extended periods of time. And with baseball more than any other sport, the ability to break stories, particularly in the offseason, is tied to relationships with executives from different teams, agents and scouts. The biggest papers have veteran national writers, Dave Sheinin for example, or Joel Sherman and Bill Madden in New York, that are plugged in nationally and capable of ensuring their papers break news. But I don't see where the next generation of those caliber of well-informed reporters is going to come from, with limited exceptions, since people don't stay on beats long enough to prime themselves for those roles.

As for covering baseball, if you work hard, you can handle it, as long as you understand there's an incredible learning curve. For instance, when your team puts a Rule 5 pick on waivers in order to begin the process of returning the player at the end of spring training, there's little chance you can have the connections to be tipped off about that in order to break it in your first few years. You just wait and all of a sudden it's announced that the player has been offered back. Heck, in your first first years you may not even know that the player goes on waivers before being offered back. It just takes time.

 

It is what it is Play. Covering MLB especially for the Post isn't easy. A lot of guys think it's just sitting around and gathering stats. It is not.