If you could write a 5,000-word takeout on one athlete, who would it be?

Don't even think about doing this one ... unless you are prepared to write a bunch of lies. This guy's nose should be stretching from California to New York it's so long. Don't trust a word he says.

 

One more idea struck me for a story.

How about a story on an athlete who constantly gets traded, year after year. Or the guy who plays for multiple teams during the same season?

Chris Gatling came to mind for the first one and Jose Cruz, Jr. comes to mind for the second one.

 

Like Reggie Sanders.

 

I saw this story last season. It was L.A. based and pretty interesting. It was focused on Kenny Lofton (Dodgers) and Jimmy Jackson (Lakers). Both had played for more teams than years.

 

Guys, if they can be dead, No. 1 would be Jackie Robinson then followed by Arthur Ashe.

On a side note, i am not a fan of takeouts in newspapers. I remember I stated to read one about 2 years ago and it was decent through the first 600 words. I then went to the jump and saw 2 FULL PAGES of copy!

It is like going to the movies and not knowing it is a 3 hour flick. I wasn't happy and stopped reading it. If I wanted a 5,000 word story I would go to a magazine.

 

That's the thing about this one that's really interesting, Claws. Hogan has been Hogan for so long -- and he hasn't really been just Terry Bollea in such a long time -- that it would be interesting to really dig and see how much his character has taken over his life. Around the house, around town, just doing regular shit, is he Terry? Or is he Hulk? Has his TV persona overwhelmed him so much that art has melded itself into his life? (I'm betting it has.)

Lies? You're going get to lies, embellishment, that sort of thing, anywhere. You just have to be smart enough to cut through the shit.

 

How about Darren Daulton? The guy's mind operates totally off the chart. Stuff has been done, but this really needs to be explored in his day-to-day context, and especially toward the date he thinks the world is going to end.

 

If I could administer a drug that would make him talk to me and thoughtfully answer my questions: Sandy Koufax

My top choice would probably be Mariano Rivera -- this man is the most consistently dominating pitcher of my lifetime and I feel like I know nothing about him. He seems like he would be a very thoughtful quote.

I would also want to a story on the guys who, for lack of a better term, make the Faustian bargain to try to make the majors and fail. What makes me think of this is that there is a classmate of mine who was a high draft pick for the Twins and made it as far as AAA before completely wrecking his arm. Now his left arm is only marginally more useful than Bob Dole's. I don't know him well, but I'd love to ask him if he would do it all over again. I think if you found 3-4 of these kind of guys who all had different views on their playing days it could make a great article.

 

That's a different kind of story, but a good idea. If you're going to do a story of this length, it's a lot better if it is some kind of issue that allows you tell more than one person's story.

I agree that single-subject stories of this length can be a tough sell to newspaper readers, no matter how well they are done. But string together a series of smaller stories on one subject and it becomes a lot more manageable.

 

I almost started a separate thread on this. My local newspaper does very good work, some very talented people. But if I turn the page and see two open pages on the jump, the likelihood I'm going to finish it that morning is about 5 percent -- and the paper leaves for the recycling bin when I go to work.

If it intrigues me, I might try to catch up with the rest online. But that's 50-50 at best.

This includes the big investigative pieces that my local paper does very well in the A section, too. And the long series. I rarely do more than skim the headlines and art and maybe info boxes explaining what the series is about.

Don't want to discourage editors commissioning these things, or the writers who write them, but I wonder how many average readers are like me -- and I'm in the biz, for God's sake.

 

Roger Clemens and how he became a multimillion-dollar freelancer.

 

Then contact Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter through www.wrestlingobserver.com.
He'd be a great source for your article, but he'll tell you the same damn thing I've warned you about. Hogan might talk about his bass guitar playing days or that he broke his leg the first day he went to a place to learn to wrestle, but you could certainly write about Terry Bollea before the HH image and perhaps find a decent 1,500 word story. 5,000? That's just giving him too much space to spread his lies.