Becoming part of the story -- out of nowhere edition

I'd mention it to the girl's coach, but in private. You could have been injured because she was being a brat.

 

If she was the startof the game, I would have made a point to interview her and I would have at some point asked her why she threw the ball at you.

Then I would have weighed my options from there.

But -- not having seen it -- sometimes when folks get mad the brain just misfires. If she didn't throw it hard, maybe she felt like throwing it but just planned to flip it to the official or scorer or whatever and it came out this in-between shove.

 

You have to pick your battles. This doesn't sound like one you want.

 

Yup, that's what I thought after I cooled down, although the real Farmerjerome was dissapointed I didn't throw the ball back at the bitch. ;D

I'm still annoyed after I slept on it, but I felt I made the right decision and feel like a better reporter because of it.

 

Very well handled, farmer. Professionalism counts.

 

I agree that you made the right decision -- tough as that can be.

Hopefully, the ball was just thrown into the stands in anger, not at you in particular.

Still, player was acting like a spoiled brat and should be disciplined by her coach. Too bad, by the sounds of it, that didn't/won't happen.

 

Only thing I would have done different, Farmer, is interview the girl in question as she was the star of the game. Then she would have wondered, while being interviewed by a sportswriter, "Oh shit, I threw the ball at a reporter. What's he gonna write about it?" And when you let it go, she's grateful, figures you're a pro who's seen it all before and doesn't sweat the small stuff. (all true)

OR -- She figures she got away with something, feels pretty smug, and somewhere down the road gets her comeuppance when she pulls something again.

Not your place to discipline her. Now, if you'd been hit by the ball, different story. And I'll bet the reaction from refs and coach would have been different, too.

 

Lawsuit!

 

Agreed. You handled it very well.

 

I cannot help but think that in this case, I would write a letter to the principal explaining what happened and identifying the girl.

I think you handled it well to get through the game, not be part of the story, and write your piece.

But I do not think you should leave it here.

Just my opinion.

 

I think I told this story one other time on here, but on my first week of one of my gigs, a high school softball player struck out and threw the bat right near me. I was writing something in my scorebook, and barely had time to move away.

Her coach immediately benched her and apologized profusely. The girl also came up to me and apologized.

Me, if they hadn't done that, I might have just mentioned it to the coach in passing that she might want to suggest to her players that it's not the bat's fault (or the basketball's, in this case), that they messed up.

 

Reminds me something that happend to me a couple years into my career, though purely accidental.

We've had two phenomenal softball pitchers in our area -- I'm talking DI quality no doubt.

I was covering a game that turned into a blowout and started daydreaming and almost got beheaded by a foul ball of one off these pitchers. Not exactly a lesson worth learning if I got hurt.

You'd think I would know better, since I watched a woman's nose get broken the same way by the same pitcher earlier in the season. :-\