Favorite minor sport to cover...

I like doing tennis, because it's more featurey than recappy.

 

College hockey. Didn't cover it on the high school level, but really liked the sport.

Not big on a lot of the spring sports, esp tennis and track.

 

I'll second (or third) the votes for track and field.

One of the best sports to shoot. Lots of different events, so you can try different things.

And lots of individual moments/achievements you can use when you write it up.

 

Box lacrosse. Love it. It's probably the second biggest sport in my hometown, after hockey.

 

I've been a minor league baseball beat writer for 15 years and love it.

I live in a town where the minor league team is very popular, and my paper has always devoted great resources to the coverage (such as a week in spring training, a 48-page preview tab that wins an APSE every year, wrap for home opener, special section for league title; we've even published two books I've written on inaugural season and recapping title season).

My goal was always to cover the majors, but the good thing about the minors -- if it's a higher level (we have Double-A) -- you get to watch pretty good baseball and can still have a personal life and see your family because there's not much travel. Of course, you have to find one of the select places in the country where the team is that important and the paper is devoted to the coverage because of reader and advertiser interest.

Most minor league stops aren't that way, but if you can find one, it's not a bad place to spend a career.

Cory Giger
Altoona (Pa.) Mirror

 

I'd be curious how many papers travel with minor-league teams.

 

Any individual sport. The stories are much richer. But especially golf, because you're done by sun-down.

 

Auto racing and swimming. Short track racing is the best. Races are quick and the people are more often than not good interviews. Swimming I know is sick, but I swam in high school and still love being at meets.

 

Mixed martial arts always seems to have a few good feature stories each event. And the media people are happy to help you find them for the obvious reasons.

 

I would say horse racing, but it really isn't minor around here like it is in most places. I'm guessing the best comparison would be how the NC papers cover NASCAR.

 

Not many. Trenton papers used to cover all road games, but not for a while. Several papers in Eastern League will go to 10-15 games a year that are easy drives. I'll go to 10-20, depending on whether team is in playoff chase or reaches postseason.

 

Why would you get grilled for that?