Ever cover two games at the same time?

I've done baseball and softball districts at the same time several times. I basically watched one and got the other out of the scorebook to go with some quotes. Also covered an indoor football game in person while writing a hockey game off the radio once. That was tough.

 

Yes. College hockey game in one arena and right across the street — on campus — the same college was playing volleyball. I didn't really "cover" both, but I wrote about the hockey game and at intermissions ran across the street to grab a photo from volleyball.

 

Back in the day I would have to write round-ups from baseball or soccer tournaments (usually state tournament) that had games going on at the same time. It was usually a situation where there was a specific game that we thought would be the best and then write the rest as a roundup. Of course, I did that once and the game was a blowout and the one going on on the other field was by far the better game and I ended up writing the story on that one and putting the other one in the roundup...

I think on the prep level or God forbid if your paper covers little league, it happens a lot...

 

Only occasionally, and it would be a combination of baseball, softball and soccer whenever being played nearby (sometimes where I can see both scoreboards). It takes some hustle work to pull it off, but it can be done.

 

I covered four college hoops games in the same day at a conference tournament several years back... That was worse because I had to write full gamers from each.

 

But there was still only one game at a time going on and you had a least a little bit of time to get a decent gamer put together in the intermissions, no? Still, that's a full day of work by any standard.

 

Since our staff has been whittled down to two guys, I cover two games at once, take photos for both, then head to a third game at night.
Once this season, I went to HS golf, took photos, drove 10 minutes to the HS, took photos at tennis, got results, quotes, drove back to golf, got results, quotes, headed back to HS and took photos of track meet that was finishing up, got results, then went to a volleyball game at the same school that night.
Working at a daily, I could never pull this off. We're a weekly, but that day I still needed the stories done so I could get them in for the morning deadline. I didn't sleep much that night.

Tonight I'm at tennis at 6, then head to lacrosse at 7:30. I contemplated trying to cover the volleyball game that started at 6:30, but I found a stringer to take care of it.

 

Reading this, and knowing that I am running the prep desk tonight, I just want to say how much I hate high school and scholastic sports. I love the stories, but can't stand the sheer amount of inches that are wasted on game stories. Now, covering two games at the same time?

What's the point? Just do it over the phone. I have a rule with doubleheaders. 10 inches and out on each one. Same time? No dice. I don't intentionally write garbage. I hate doubles, no way do I do two at the same time. Maybe I will get a line and a quote from the other game, but I am not writing a bylined gamer.

 

Until this year, I would routinely cover two softball and two baseball games at the same time at the same site in post-season play.
Oh, yeah. That would be for two papers (a daily and twice-a-week), with me writing for both and taking pictures for one.
Yes, four games, with two always going on at the same time. I was a one-man bureau.
The diamonds set next to each other and the tournament director always has good, knowledgeable people keeping the official books, so I could always get caught up quickly.
Wasn't easy, but the set-up of fields and people knowing what they're doing made it work. Though it required work, it was nice because a lot of my area softball and baseball teams played their sectional games there.
That all changed this year with a switch in who went where for post-season play.

 

The closest I've come came during the district tournaments for volleyball. The Class B school in town and the Class D school 20 miles out in the sticks were both hosting the tournaments, which run all-day.

The local HS (and hosts) lost the play-in game. After a semifinal featuring a sister paper's team and an out-of-town, the other large local HS got dumped out in the semis. With the final between the sister paper's school and an out-of-towner, I was under orders to go to the D school.

I arrived just in time for the final, which featured two schools on opposite fringes of our coverage area. I got photos and a decent story (winning team's MVP was playing with a severely-messed up hitting shoulder).

I sprint back to the big school to find that their championship was a five-game thriller that had just ended. I got a couple of quotes (nothing more asinine than asking questions about a match you didn't see) and tacked that onto the story for the sister paper (we share stories).

Not exactly the perfect solution, but it worked out OK in the end. Besides, I enjoy volleyball more than any other prep girls' sport (and not because of what you're thinking. ;D ) and there were some fairly compelling stories out of it.

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Recently, I took pictures at a track meet, grabbed Subway and went to the next town over to cover the second game of a softball doubleheader. Not really heavy lifting there.

 

Two of our softball teams play at a complex where the fields are back-to-back. Once or twice a season they'll play at the same time, and we'll do both. Usually end up covering the early one, keeping an eye on the second, then sliding over to field No. 2 when the first one ends. Two baseball teams also play at a field adjacent to the softball complex, so we'll do the same routine -- cover the early game, then watch the second half of the later one.
If they're at the same time, we'll go to one and keep an eye on the other. When one ends, we'll skip a couple innings and go fetch quotes and stats. No big deal. Fortunately, it's not every night.

 

If it was something like an NCAA tournament, that's not surprising at all.