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Baseball reporter is killing it on Jeopardy!

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by LongTimeListener, Jul 24, 2012.

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  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I've mentioned this each day on the baseball thread, but might be worth more attention here -- or maybe not, I don't know, but it seems pretty cool to me.

    Andrew Baggarly, Comcast's SF Giants reporter and a former beat guy for the Oakland Tribune and San Jose Mercury News, is a three-day (at least) winner on "Jeopardy!" He has taken home $60,402 so far. According to other writers' blogs out here, he is being amazingly coy about how each day has gone, which is creating quite a bit of suspense in the press box as the show airs at 7:00 p.m. so he's sitting right there while the Giants are getting ready for first pitch.

    Huge clutch hit today -- he trailed by $3,600 late in Double Jeopardy, risked $4,000 on a Daily Double and nailed it. Then he was the only one to get Final Jeopardy right: the character who was written as an obnoxious Republican by creator Gary David Goldberg, but was turned lovable by the actor. (One contestant named the actor instead of the character, and one contestant named the first name and the show but didn't get the last name.)

    For a reporter ... man, that's some nice cash.
     
    LongTimeListener, Jul 24, 2012
    #1
  2. UPChip

    UPChip Well-Known Member

    Missed the episode...

    ...who is Frasier Crane?
     
    UPChip, Jul 24, 2012
    #2
  3. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    I consider Andy a friend and we worked for a few years in the late 1990s in SoCal. And he's a SoCal guy. He's being coy because he can't reveal how things go.

    I messaged him after tonight's show to say, "Is where you're at now what you made combined the last two years at BANG?"

    Very proud and happy for him. His boss/sports editor when he worked in SoCal (San Bernardino) was a Jeopardy contestant in the late 1980s (I want to say 1989) and finished with $10,000 but finished second.

    Andy started as an intern at San Bernardino out of Northwestern when the paper, then under Gannett ownership, had a program to send summer interns there. And he was an eager go-getter, so much so that he rapidly developed a nickname that has faded with time but one that was funny at the time. Hell, it's still funny. (Nothing brutal. We all had them. I had 350-plus.)

    And he wrote some good stuff for us, including a great Thanksgiving takeout on a remote desert high school football team that was playing well and going deep in the playoffs but the team would spend a lot of time at a nursing home for veterans. Pretty good stuff.

    And he wrote a huge Sunday takeout about an eighth grader. Dubbed the Big Kid. Going to be the next big thing. Had a photo taken of him hanging on the rim of an outdoor court at the middle school the kid went to. First real takeout on the kid.

    Tyson Chandler.

    Those were the days.

    Congrats to Andy. Hope he keeps it going. Another San Bernardino grad making it big.
     
    MileHigh, Jul 24, 2012
    #3
  4. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    No.

    I should clarify: The category was '80s sitcom characters.
     
    LongTimeListener, Jul 24, 2012
    #4
  5. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    Who is Alex P. Keaton?
     
    imjustagirl, Jul 24, 2012
    #5
  6. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    ^^ Bingo.
     
    LongTimeListener, Jul 24, 2012
    #6
  7. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    Are these streamed anywhere? Does not appear to be among the OnDemand offering on Comcrap.
     
    HanSenSE, Jul 24, 2012
    #7
  8. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    If you've been watching the last three episodes (I missed the first one because it was pre-empted for obvious reasons), last night in the intros, he said as a kid he appeared on a Kids Week version of Card Sharks 20-some years ago.

    Before tonight's show aired, he put out he wore a yellow sweater on tonight's show as a shout-out to his mom, who put him in a similar sweater when he appeared on the show many years ago.
     
    MileHigh, Jul 24, 2012
    #8
  9. Birdscribe

    Birdscribe Active Member

    The Student is schooling the Master... ;)

    Very impressive, indeed. Proud of Baggs, who has been trying to get on the show for years. His Day 1 performance was one of the most roller-coaster games I've ever seen on the show. He hit all three Daily Doubles and blew both of them on Double Jeopardy.

    I covered many a minor-league game and prep game with Baggs. But my favorite Baggs story came from the '98 U.S. Senior Open media day at Riviera.

    I'm paired with him and he's all jazzed about playing Riv for the first time. I told him Riv is a great course, but the kikuyu rough is a whole another matter to deal with

    So we're on -- I believe -- No. 13 and he throws a shot into the kikuyu rough. He takes a whack at the ball ... and it moves about 3 inches. So he takes another whack... and it moves about another 4 inches.

    He bellows out, "I can't hit out of this shit! How do you hit the ball out of this shit?"

    I nearly wet myself.
     
    Birdscribe, Jul 24, 2012
    #9
  10. Rumpleforeskin

    Rumpleforeskin Active Member

    I waited for Birdscribe to chirp in on this thread. It only seemed right.
     
    Rumpleforeskin, Jul 24, 2012
    #10
  11. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Recap your appearance/win. I'm guessing -- and I haven't asked him this -- it was a huge benefit that Baggs won his first game on a Friday show. He's a Jeopardy champion, no pressure to change clothes in 15 minutes and race out for another game. Gets to chill, have dinner, wind down, etc. Anything after that first win is gravy. So he comes back for the next taping and he's relaxed and anything that happens, happens, though the last two games he needed nice comebacks, but still. There's not a lot of pressure, per se, since he's been there, done that, and the opponents are on stage for the first time, which I'm sure is semi-freak-out mode.
     
    MileHigh, Jul 24, 2012
    #11
  12. Ben_Hecht

    Ben_Hecht Active Member

    Just the latest example of how journalists enjoy huge inherent advantages in trivia competitions. It is to laugh. Carry on, Andy.
     
    Ben_Hecht, Jul 25, 2012
    #12
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