Desk editors: What did you do with Braden's perfect game?

OK, here's the scenario. On Sundays I'm a one-man sports department, meaning I have to pick stories and decide where to play them in the four-page section.

I thought the perfect game pitched by Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics was a big deal (first this year, 19th in MLB history). I scrapped previous plans and made it my lead story (top of section front, huge headline, etc.) The other paper up the road (which also is available on some racks in town) gave it five paragraphs and no photo at the bottom of the front.

So it got me thinking and wondering where other papers of different sizes and locations played the story.

To clarify, my paper is NOT located in California and we have no real ties to any particular MLB team.

 

I'm in N.C. We gave it several paragraphs on an inside page.

 

I put it on the cover. NASCAR raced on Saturday, which opened up a hole. Little else going on besides Tiger pulling out (he he) and local MLB.

 

Definitely worth the cover, especially on a slow news day. How many perfect games in MLB history? 19?

Also, the storyline was good.

 

Two column secondary photo on the front, basically right on the fold with story extending to the bottom of the page and jumping inside.

It was a fairly slow weekend for us, too.

 

Teased it at the top of my page and gave it a big photo and breakout box with all his outs and numbers on my mlb page.

 

We played it at the bottom of our front, giving it a photo and pairing it with the AP gamer from the MLB team that's an hour up the road.

 

Front page, top of the page with a good size photo and a breakout of the 19 perfect games in history.

It was a slow night and I was stretching to find much else to put out there, so I was extremely happy for a perfect game.

 

Main package on sports.

We're in Alaska, so landmark stuff like this always gets good play since its the only pro sports content that can attract our entire readership.

 

The feedback is good to get, but unless your paper has an absolutely hyper-local philosophy, or you had some local event of overwhelming importance, you'll never go wrong putting a perfect game, with any type of display, on your section front. As somebody pointed out, 19 of them all time.

 

True. But different decisions are being made these days.

A huge teaser (complete with photo and some large type) sending readers to an inside story is OK these days. If it's at the top of the front page it's arguably better treatment than a small headline at the bottom of the page.

Not too long ago ANY simple no-hitter was a no-brainer "Tear up the front!" event. Glad those days are behind us.

 

A perfect game -- a day game on a Sunday with no NFL or NASCAR race -- is an absolute gift and should be treated as such.

Top of the sports front.