Athletes who did not speak to the media

There are a lot of pitchers who won't talk (before the game) on the day they're pitching.

Randy Johnson would talk. He was usually a dick, but he would talk.

 

Barber never gets called out for it, either, even today.

Reporters know which side the readers will take. It's not a battle worth fighting in that manner.

 

It was my understanding during my MLB days that this was standard protocol. A lot of times, they didn't even show up until the clubhouse was closed, or at least shortly before it closed.

 

I covered a team where two of the starters would talk before games where they were pitching. One of the guys was notoriously friendly and the other was a rookie at the time, so maybe he didn't know better...

 

Yeah, there were a few exceptions to the rule. Very few, in my experience. It's also possible that the policy became more entrenched after you moved on from MLB. If I have our histories right from posting through the years, you left that beat in the late '90s, and that was before I covered it for a few seasons.

 

Jim Rice might have made the Hall of Fame before his final year of eligibility if he had refused to talk with the media.

By sometimes talking but sometimes blowing people off, he ticked off more writers (voters) than if he had dummied-up all the time like Carlton. Then when he did speak, he could be a jerk, ticking off more writers (voters).

Some guys don't want to talk to the media. Other guys are just jerks.

 

Ripping off a sportswriter's shirt probably didn't endear Rice to the media either.

 

Coming soon: Media who did not talk to the athletes.

 

Athletes who did not speak to the media when their travel plans changed:

- Mateen Cleaves
- Jason Richardson

 

-- Even though I wasn't the Rams beat writer, a crazy boss of mine decided I should write an offseason feature on Barry Redden, who didn't speak to the media. Haudricourt helped me a lot on that one because he covered him in college before moving to Milwaukee. Got a couple of Rams assistant coaches and his college coach. That was about all I could do.

-- Johnnie LeMaster, Giants shortstop, announced he would not speak to the media. Then he got hurt and he wanted to sit in the press box during games. Take a hike, Mr. No-Talk.

-- If I remember right, John Shelby didn't talk when he played. But when he became a minor league manager, I think they made him talk and I did interview him once on a minor league feature I was writing.

 

So, you say something complimentary about the other guy and move on. Sorry, but those sound like excuses. As somebody with some understanding of the media now, I'm surprised you still hold this view.

One of the most media-friendly high school athletes I ever dealt with was a wrestler. We'll call him JD. Damn good one, too. JD won a state title as a senior.

The problem with JD was he would actually got jealous if one of his teammates got any attention (he was a weird kid). One day I was talking to one of his teammates after a dual meet and the teammate starts laughing. I finally turn around and there is JD mooning us.

Another time I was talking to one of his teammates and JD walked up and started asking questions. On the plus side, they weren't bad questions. I think I even used one of the answers.

We had another kid who looked like Shute from Vision Quest, but with less of a personality. It was absolutely painful getting a word out of him. But when he lost a big match, he would still talk. Not that he lost many. He was a state champion as a junior and lost in the semis as a senior.

 

Greg Lloyd stopped talking to the local media in Pittsburgh for a while. He would still talk to the national guys, but he made a fuss of telling everybody he wasn't talking to the local media any more because he had been misquoted.

The sad part is he was right. He was misquoted by a guy from one of the local newspapers. I wish I could say that it was an uncharacteristic error, but that particular reporter was one of the worst reporters and people I've ever met in the business.