So, our paper isn't going to remake for Bonds' 756th...is yours?

I had 5 pages last night and I was caught up with all the early stuff on pages 1-4.
I planned on using page 5 as an all Bonds page if he hit it. So at 11:45 I started putting NFL and some local copy on it. I was about 1/2-way done with it when Bonds hit it.
So that page was scrapped, moved the local copy to page 3, cut some PGA wire to make room, called up my preset Bonds cover, transferred 2 stories from the original cover that had to run on it, and then it was just waiting for Bonds optionals.
I was right on my 2:30 a.m. guess for that copy, and I walked out at 2:50 a.m.
I saw AP was going to send more Bonds agate but all I got was the top 25 HR hitters. That's OK, I used more sidebars on Conte's reax and the kid who caught the ball as well as a Dahlberg column and MLB reax piece.
My head was: "King Barry*" with a two-deck sub about passing Aaron.
Glad the wait is over, 1 more night filling in, then a vacation.

 

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I hope you have a job to come back to after vacation. Putting an asterisk in the hed was just plain wrong, and I hope your boss doesn't get too pissed off about the editorializing.

 

Bonds missed our main deadline by 20 minutes. However, we've been stripping our regional MLB team across the top of the section in case Bonds went yard. So we stripped Bonds into that spot, and we bumped the original game story to the baseball page. A1 also remade, replacing its top-of-page plugs with a well-made Bonds plug. The Bonds edition probably made 50-60 percent of our readership.

Had he gone yard during his first or second at-bats, we did have a pre-made cover. But, with so many papers already out the door, we weren't going to be able to remake a third page (college football, which was our centerpiece).

 

The only way, in an ethical sense, that an asterisk would have been kosher would have been in a pro-con opinion piece that you could have ran with the package.

That said, who would like to offer two steroid-free reasons why the asterisk would be appropriate, just for the sake of a baseball purist's argument? (Think pitching for both reasons)

 

The home run missed our main deadline by about an hour (that's the price we pay of a production agreement that says another paper prints ours). However we were able to stall long enough to get it on for a lift/replate that made part of the run. We couldn't change the color photo, just throw in a story and modify the photo caption to say he did it.

 

They had a chance to take it out, they didn't.
I try to make my big story heads more featurey, try to avoid cliches and inject a little fun in them.
And I'd like to think this isn't a fireable offense, but I feel, the asterisk was OK because it captured what most people were feeling about Bonds breaking the record.

 

Pissed off about the editorializing? Heh.

Before leaving for vacation, our SE set up a cover for 756 with our graphics editor. It's why we were able to unload the cover 3 minutes after he hit the ball.

It was a picture of a ripped-up baseball, the stitches coming off it and everything. And in the middle, in 18-point type, was:

BARRY BONDS
756 HOME RUNS
AUGUST 7, 2007

The message was, uh, clear.

 

We used asterisks liberally. First, I don't particularly care that it's editorializing, and I'll have this argument with people in the business until the day I die.

Second, I'm not even sure it IS editorializing. It's almost fact, summing up a prevailing attitude about the whole thing.

But I'm confused: What are these "deadline" things you keep talking about. :

 

Yes. We must seem awfully antiquated to you.

 

My paper ran it down the right side but got it in. ... I had no problem with this, because we have one of the biggest youth baseball tournaments in the southeast going on in our backyard with a ton of local art and interest. Bonds or no Bonds, that was going to be the centerpiece, and it was the right decision.

It would be like asking Williamsport to move the LLWS to the inside if Bonds broke the record during the series. Not going to happen.

 

The daily paper here tore up the front of both the A section and the sports section. And we're about 3,000 miles away from Pac Bell/SBC/AT&T Park.

Great headline on the sports front, though ...

A * IS BORN at about 200 point.

 

That's a great head.

Gramatically incorrect, but a great head.