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What Makes This Piece Good, Vol. 13: Svrluga on the Nationals season

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Double Down, Oct 19, 2017.

  1. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    So, it's time for some shorter pieces in our little exercise. Game stories, in fact. And so we turn to a very recent example of a game story written, on deadline, by one of the best deadline writers in baseball, Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post.

    Now, it may help to understand some of Washington D.C.'s tortured history to appreciate this gamer (which Barry would have needed to be working on throughout the game, and filed right as Harper struck out, then gone back and filed again about 45 mins to an hour after the final pitch). But I don't know that it's necessary to completely understand D.C.'s angst. All you need to know is here is a columnist writing a gamer for a local audience that has experienced considerable misery in the last 10 years, and every other sentence here is informed by that history.

    For Nationals, a crazy night ends with anguish and a season-ending loss to Cubs

    What makes this piece, written on deadline, good? (Or not good, if you care/dare to argue such?)
     
  2. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    I'll read it in bits and pieces over the next day or two. I did like this:

    Slice open that inning and examine the parts, and the true Washington nature of this loss is revealed. Four straight Cubs reached base in unconventional ways, some known only to true baseball seam heads — an intentional walk, a strikeout with a passed ball (about which there was some controversy), catcher interference and a hit batsman. The website baseball-reference.com has 2.73 million half-innings in its database. None of them contain those four events — let alone from four consecutive hitters.

    “That was probably one of the weirdest innings I’ve ever seen,” Nationals Manager Dusty Baker said.



    The quote framed it perfectly. The information was immaculate. I love baseball-reference.com so to use that stat that probably no one else in America had, followed by that quote, is perfection.

    I'm one of those people who notices peculiarities in sports and probably would have made a mental note of that sequence ... but not necessarily thought to check b-r.com.
     
    FileNotFound likes this.
  3. John

    John Well-Known Member

    Barry is about as good as it gets.
     
    tapintoamerica likes this.
  4. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    Agree. But why?

    Let's use this to teach writers who don't have great mentors. I used to be one of those writers when I first stated posting here.
     
    Chris_Korman likes this.
  5. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    Wow. Just crazy good. I could not have written a game story like that in a million years, let alone on deadline.

    I have more to say about this story, but it's late and I'm not staying up much longer. I'll come back to it, but I'll start with this glaring (as in glaringly good) point:

    This is a game story. Yet, the one and only paragraph in the whole, lengthy thing that reads even remotely like the stuff you'd see in a typical gamer that would be written/sent by most writers is this:

    In the eighth, center fielder Michael A. Taylor — a hero in Game 4, when he hit a grand slam — drilled a two-out single up the middle, scoring Daniel Murphy with the run that made it 9-8. Jose Lobaton, the light-hitting backup catcher, followed with a single to keep the rally alive.

    That's it -- the only vestige of what most of us would think of as, or think of writing as, gamer material. Nevertheless, you still know and sense and feel that this is, indeed, a game story, and not some feature with the score thrown in. It has elements of that, but it is still most definitely not that.

    That's the No. 1 thing that makes this game story good.
     
    FileNotFound likes this.
  6. Doc Holliday

    Doc Holliday Well-Known Member

    Great story but I'm not sure I agree it's a so-called "gamer" in any sense.
     
  7. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

  8. lcjjdnh

    lcjjdnh Well-Known Member

    This was pretty much the only thing I really liked in the column. But that’s more a reflection of what I hoped to take out of the story than the piece itself, which was certainly well written.
     
  9. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    This is why/how I still recognize this story as a gamer -- not just a gamer, but a game story nonetheless:

    First, I love the first sentence. It sets up something perfectly, and very visually, even before you know what happens, or even if you don't know what happens. But the key words in the paragraph are "the educated Washington fan." Those are the readers the reporter is writing for, or else those who want to become educated. And it is game-y material, once you look past the good writing.

    This Thursday evening started in the mist and ended in a mess, and the educated Washington fan could have told you that when he or she woke up. The Washington Nationals played a game to extend their season. They lost that game. Their season is over. Those with strong stomachs, read further. The rest: See you in spring.

    The third and fourth paragraphs again set something up, and again, once you get past the amazing writing of the third graph, you see the history provided and the game material provided in the fourth one, which remains incredibly descriptive but definitely reminds the reader that we're referring to a game, though with previous-years information and perspective mixed in, as a good gamer should have where pertinent:

    But get through the gate at the ballpark, and dread is so readily available. The concessionaires slip it between the hot dog and the bun, mix it into the carbonated beverages, slide it into the programs. By now, babies here are born with it, ingrained.

    The final score at Nationals Park, in the fifth and decisive game of this National League Division Series: Chicago Cubs 9, Nats 8. The Cubs, champions a year ago, fly to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers for the right to reach the World Series. The Nationals failed to win a playoff series — again — the fourth time in the past six years they have reached this stage and taken a crowbar across the knees.


    After that, we're definitely talking about the game in question, with fairly typical, but good, gamer-type material included:

    But in breaking down this particular evening — when the Nationals once held a three-run lead — consider the simplicity of this: The Nationals entered the fifth inning with a 4-3 advantage and handed the ball to Scherzer, who might well win his third Cy Young Award this year as his league’s best pitcher. When Scherzer left the mound at the end of that frame, the Nats trailed 7-4.

    The stuff after that, starting with the graph that everyone is loving, is pure gamer play-by-play with historical statistical explanation in it -- again best to have if such unusual occurrences take place, and just adding to the gamer material, as it should if and when possible.

    Slice open that inning and examine the parts, and the true Washington nature of this loss is revealed. Four straight Cubs reached base in unconventional ways, some known only to true baseball seam heads — an intentional walk, a strikeout with a passed ball (about which there was some controversy), catcher interference and a hit batsman. The website baseball-reference.com has 2.73 million half-innings in its database. None of them contain those four events — let alone from four consecutive hitters.

    “That was probably one of the weirdest innings I’ve ever seen,” Nationals Manager Dusty Baker said.

    “It was bizarro world,” Cubs Manager Joe Maddon said. “There’s no question about it.”

    The things that happened Thursday night, they haven’t happened in the history of baseball. Yet they happened to the Nationals in what was to be their biggest, best night. As an organization, the Nats faced a game that could push them to territory they have not traversed. They have only played 13 seasons in the nation’s capital, and part of their franchise history is tied to Montreal, where they were born as the Expos in 1969. They filled a gap here, baseball’s 33-year absence, and so for the first few years, there was joy in their mere existence.

    After that, there is reference to the city's sports past that, for me, qualifies as the only part that's specifically trying to story-ize a city and its sports history that feels a little like transference and makes it more analytical/column-esque than a typical game story might be. But it is still loaded with good team history and facts that certainly don't take away from the fact that, yes, we're talking about a particular game.

    Since they became successful by winning their first division title in 2012, the Nationals had adopted the ways of Washington’s other professional teams. Or those ways had adopted them. It’s hard to tell.

    When Washington starting pitcher Gio Gonzalez gave up a double to the Cubs’ first batter of the night, then threw a pitch to the backstop to allow him to advance to third, Nationals Park grew quiet — and not oddly at all. This is the tension that now accompanies these events in this town. Many of the players on the field may not have been a part of such events earlier, though Gonzalez himself was the starting pitcher in a Game 5 five years ago. But many of the fans, they were here.

    So the crowd of 43,849 carried past pain with it, a 6-0 lead against St. Louis in that fifth game in 2012, five years ago to the night. It’s nights like these when, in Washington, little-known names such as Pete Kozma, a pesky, light-hitting infielder for the Cardinals, become infamous. Kozma’s crime against the District: a tiebreaking single in the ninth inning, killing those Nats, providing the foundation for a past filled with pain.

    That last graph, with the crowd size included -- is certainly gamer material, with the little bit of play-by-play that mirrors 2012 -- to the day! (Who would've had that fact-checked and included that on deadline? Amazing!). But again, it is clearly about this game.

    After a couple more graphs of city history/more column-y type stuff, there was certainly gamer material. There is analysis included, but the best gamer stories should have that:

    The most stunning collapse Thursday came with Scherzer on the mound. A starting pitcher by trade, he was in the bullpen for Game 5 — even though he had started Monday’s Game 3 in Chicago — because of the nature of the event. He had told Baker he could have pitched an inning Wednesday, but the Nats didn’t need him because Stephen Strasburg threw so brilliantly in a 5-0 victory. That he got the first two outs and then allowed four runs — it’s not conceivable.

    “Nothing in my head was getting sideways,” Scherzer said.

    Yet everything in the ballpark already felt that way. With the deficit at 8-4, the night could have been over. The Nationals had morphed into a sloppy version of themselves. But it fits that they would provide more torture. So they made it close.

    Then there was the typical game material that I referenced in my previous post, with the quote about the controversial play. Very normal, pertinent game stuff.

    In the eighth, center fielder Michael A. Taylor — a hero in Game 4, when he hit a grand slam — drilled a two-out single up the middle, scoring Daniel Murphy with the run that made it 9-8. Jose Lobaton, the light-hitting backup catcher, followed with a single to keep the rally alive.

    And then, disaster. With leadoff man Trea Turner at the plate, Cubs catcher Willson Contreras, blessed with an ungodly arm, threw to first in an attempt to pick off Lobaton. The umpire initially called him safe, but the Cubs asked for a video review.

    “I thought I was safe,” Lobaton said.

    The next paragraph was a good conclusion/wrap-up and still had a game-story feel to it. I would have ended the story there.

    Welcome to Washington. After consultation with officials in New York, Lobaton was ruled out, and the inning was over. Not long after, when Cubs reliever Wade Davis struck out Bryce Harper in the ninth, so was the season.

    After that, the last paragraph of the story was superfluous, and it did seem kind of column-y. But otherwise, this was definitely a gamer to me. I never forgot that I was reading a game story, even though it wasn't just a game story.

    That's what made it good, though.

    There was some amazing writing and the historical knowledge and perspective that, as Double Down said, informs everything. That may make it seem like it's not a game story. But to me, it just made it a better game story.




     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2017
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  10. John

    John Well-Known Member

    Pretty sure Barry's story ran on A1, not with Nats coverage in sports section. I think he tweeted something to that effect.
     
  11. Double Down

    Double Down Well-Known Member

    Ok, so gamer or column, worrying about which label is has seems like a minor point.

    It's a story written on deadline with a lot of sweep. I think it's great. Others may not.

    Let's discuss why it does work, or does not.
     
  12. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    It works as a sports history lesson, and it draws the reader in well, so that they can share in Washington, D.C. sports, whether because of or in spite of all the pain.

    I don't typically follow Washington, D.C. sports, but for the span of time it took me to read and think about this article, I did. Along with the 43,849 fans who were there live, I shared the experience, and I cared about it, them, and the team. In short, it was A1-worthy.
     
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