It's 2013, have you killed your MLB page yet?

There have been plenty of unfortunate developments in newspaper production over the last decade-plus, but I will not shed a tear over the death of agate.

 

" The Sunday Averages"

 

Yep, no reason to run agate if it's going to limit your local copy.

 

If we're ever down to two or three pages, I could see that.

 

You need to get those lazy writers of yours to write more.

 

I railed about this quite a bit for years.

In a perfect world, everyone could run all the agate --- and stories, and photos --- they wished. But when the reality is a shrinking newshole, it's tough to justify devoting an entire page (in a four-page section) to one sport every single day for SIX MONTHS. Especially without a franchise within hundreds of miles.

I can swallow it for the NFL as long as they play most of the games on Sunday and there isn't a ton of other stuff dying to get in the Monday edition.

But every single day for SIX MONTHS!?!?! I can do it in June, July and August, when the schools are out and there isn't a ton of other stuff going on. But April? When I have the NBA, NHL, tons of preps and college events to jam in? Or September? When I've got to deal with the space demands of college and high school football? Since we couldn't really afford the extra page at those times of the year and it just seemed terribly inconsistent to do it some days and not others, I was in favor of nixing it altogether.

 

I always liked keeping a copy of the Sunday sports page in the bathroom the entire week for all the cumulative stats, and then I would replace the section with next Sunday section a week later.

I take the Ipad in there, but it's just not the same. Not for the stats of all the players.

That's also why I like to see full standings in the Sunday paper. Many people only buy the Sunday paper, so it should sum up the week's events. At least that's my two cents.

 

the sunday paper i used to get also used to have every guy from the state who played in the minors and how they were doing.
god, i loved that page ... but then again, the section used to be like 24 pages or so.

 

Or the "local kids in college" thing some papers do. I like that one as well.