Baseball beat writing jobs

I would recommend you get prep work first. Just make sure your in a place that you can move up, and that you are willing to leave the area. It's a shame when great prep writers get stuck for no other reason than unable to actually move.

I tell all our interns that there is nothing more difficult than covering high school football in my opinion.

Anyhow, very few papers have minor league writers. If they do, it will just be for the summer and you are headed to the prep desk after that anyway.

I am not sure minor league baseball gets you a major league job however. It would seem that a MLB writer would come off a major beat, such as college football, hoops, or a talented general assignment guy promoted in house.

There is so much talent out there, I think of setting such a narrow goal is the wrong way to go. When I got out of school I wanted to be a yankees beat writer. Now, that is probably the last thing I want to do. Why? I just am not interested after seeing how the beat works on the inside. Just too much work to get your butt kicked by the traveling metros. And, I swear every MLB beat writer is either divorced or never married.

 

Richmond is one of them suburbs, like Ann Arbor or Colorado Springs.

 

Isn't the Plain Dealer looking for someone?

 

Okay, now that my "witticism" is out of the way, I'd just like to second what other posters wrote about the day-to-day grind that is covering baseball.

Coming out of college, I wanted the Mets beat for a NY paper. I wanted it so bad, I could taste it. Surely, I was smarter than the beat writers. I could turn a phrase. I could do the job.

Bullshit.

I had a chance to cover some games, and it's such a grind. You work nine, ten months out of the year. Get to the park early. Stay late. You're writing six stories a night if your paper has early editions. You live like a doctor, on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I realized I couldn't do it, especially factoring in the travel.

If you can do it, God Bless Ya. Just remember that it's not an easy job.

 

Just wanted to echo the thought that covering a minor league beat won't get you an MLB beat. The NBA beat writer for a paper in my neck of the woods came from an NHL beat back East.

 

You can learn a lot covering minor league baseball. But it won't be as a beat. We have a double-A team in the area and we share it with three guys -- as we do everything else.

 

Sh..... Please don't wake him. He still thinks that the Nationals are the ones that used to call Syracuse home.

 

Let me add myself to the chorus:

Be prepared to pay serious dues. I would have loved the job I have now right out of school, but reality said otherwise. I covered strictly preps for years and learned more there than I would have had I started in this job. (For the record, I cover a D3 college and the Cleveland pros.)

There is nothing more difficult than covering preps, but it's also where you get some of your best stories if you keep your eyes and ears open. If you start doing that and eventually get where you want to go, you'll appreciate the job that much more.

 

amen. too many yung-uns don't grasp this - a beat writer is a beat writer. it's about being a good beat writer, not about writing about baseball.

pretty much every sports writer at every paper is capable of writing about any sport. occasionally you might get a guy who knows more about one sport about the other but anyone can learn to cover games.

if you break stories on an intensely competitive minor league lacrosse beat (if there was such a thing) you're qualified to cover a beat. sports writers at the major metros switch beats all the time.

 

I'll add my two cents to this thread.

I'm working as a PT correspondent rotating with two others covering a Double-A team. Two of us are just out of school and one is a longtime journo who is doing this PT while pursuing another career.

I just love that I'm getting the chance to do this and show what I can do, but I'm in the same boat as STBG. I'll go pretty much anywhere if it's the right opportunity to learn and grow. If I don't leave here soon, I'll get back into the preps rotation once we start up.

Good luck, STBG.

Thanks to the entire board for the guidance and opinions. I've been a longtime lurker and finally decided to start contributing here.

 

look for a paper with a minor league team (double A or triple A) as a starting point. even if the (main-guy) job isn't open, it doesn't mean you wouldn't be able to fill in from time to time. it also doesn't mean the (main-guy or beat) job won't be available next spring.

bust your ass on every assignment, and after you've been there awhile busting ass, let your editor know over beers your interest in covering minor league baseball as a beat.

 

I was a GA at my previous stop before getting an NBA beat. And I covered high schools and small colleges before that at my first paper.

By the way, I can't believe we've gotten this far without a PickleJuice reference.