Writing ledes/gamers from games watched on TV

I'll do this sometimes, just for the hell of it if I'm around a TV and a computer and I've watched some/most/all of the game. I just did it with the LA/St. Louis game. If I put on an egg-timer it's kinda like I'm doing it on some hellish deadline. Not... like I do that sort of thing...

Anybody want to commiserate with me? Or chide me? I may be completely insane for writing during "non-working" games, but what the hell, eh? Feel free to post your stuff in here if you so desire. These quotes, unfortunately, were not phoned in from the locker room.


Sometimes the most critical performances come from the unlikeliest of places.
Sometimes the biggest blunders do too.
The seemingly unsinkable Matt Holliday dropped a line drive in left with the St. Louis Cardinals leading with two outs in the bottom of the ninth on Thursday, opening the door for a two-run Dodger rally and an improbable 3-2 win.
“Holy shit guys, did you watch what I just did?” Mark Loretta shouted. "Even I thought I retired three years ago."
The miscue from Holliday, who blasted a solo homer in the second to put St. Louis up 1-0, allowed role players Ronnie Belliard and Loretta to knock in RBIs on singles two at-bats apart to send the Dodger Stadium crowd into ebullient hysterics and L.A. on to a 2-0 NLDS series lead.
“Oops, my bad,” Holliday said, naked and impatiently pacing about the locker room.

 

Either cover the game, or use AP.

If you're just doing it on your own for fun/practice, go ahead and knock yourself out.

But you shouldn't (or allow your management to) lead your readers to believe you and your paper were actually there covering a game, if you weren't.

I once worked for schmucks who wanted me to do this (They had dropped AP wire in the ever-innovative quest to go 'all local,' and then got a firestorm of calls from readers who wanted to read game stories on the local MLB team). I almost got fired for dragging my feet over it. Happily, I got a new job soon enough I didn't have to battle about it for very long.

 

Um.......hell, maybe I'm the one who read the first post wrong. Don't think I did, but it's possible.

 

Er... what?

 

It's not you.

 

Weird idea of fun. I usually just watch the game on TV and relax. I have enough games to write about for work.

 

Sometimes a thing happens.
Sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes I'm a reader and I already don't care, because your lede just told me something that I already knew and gave me no new information.

 

Many papers did this over the years. At the Chicago Daily News, writers not traveling watched the game on TV or listened on the radio, then got the head coach and maybe one player on the phone. "Special to the Daily News" was used in place of the beat guy's byline.

 

He's not talking about writing for the paper off TV.
He's talking about doing it for fun. For practice.

 

The main problem I have with this is the writer can have his or her observation colored (so to speak) by the opinion of the PXP guy or gal and color guy or gal. Which precludes this, in my opinion (again, so to speak), from a columnist covering a game this way. The columnist should observe the game independently and formulate his or her own opinion.

But for practice for a college kid or newbie, I suppose it can't hurt. See what you wrote and what the "pro" writer wrote and how you differed with turns of phrase and observations of the game.

 

All right, let me give it a try ...

"Monday's game between the Dolphins and Jets was a tale of two halves."

Not bad, eh?

 

Someone said "holy shit" on TV??