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

For some reason, we've been getting complaints about running linescores instead of full boxes. The readers are acting like this is new, but we've been doing this for about four seasons now.

 

We ran lines for a week a couple of years ago during our "Week without AP." Got a few calls.

My wife hasn't had her weekly column in at least five years and people still tell her that they read her stuff every week. We pay close attention because we get paid to (the Montgomery Advertiser notwithstanding), but we forget how casual those casual readers can be sometimes.

 

Just checking back in on this issue. I have had, total, about 6 calls or voice mails about our change in approach to baseball boxes.

One guy talked with me for a bit and then said, "Well, I guess I'll have to buy USA Today." Maybe. We get the early edition of USAT in our market and it had, on two weekdays I looked at recently, 4 of 24 possible MLB scores and just 3 of those boxes.

And a batch of 2-day-old MLB boxes seem about as appealing as the dish of meatballs somebody left in our conference room over the weekend after a Friday afternoon baby shower.

 

I do think consistency is important. It's a question worth discussion and debate but at some point you have to make a decision and run with it and not change course every time the phone rings or a dog barks.

No matter what course you take, not everyone is going to be happy. And, sadly, most readers have little or no sympathy for issues we face like a shrinking newshole. All they know is the price keeps going up and the content keeps diminishing..... not exactly a great business model, but that's OUR problem to deal with.

 

Friend of mine who works at another newspaper said, after his paper dropped box scores at the start of the season, they get calls every day from people complaining.

We've lost a page from our usual daily allotment 6 times in the last 7 days. We've still had the MLB box scores, we've still had our prep roundup, we've still had our NHL and NBA playoff roundups, and we've gotten everything else in that we always get in. Nothing has been sacrificed.

 

Sounds like you are or have a really good editor. I had to learn how to fit more stuff into a smaller hole, too. You can do that to a certain extent. When the hole shrinks too much, it forces you to make hard choices.

 

We use a stat service for daily box scores and standings, then throw in a couple of game stories or a gamer & news and notes type wraparound to fill out one page. It's rough on some days, but one Mondays & Tuesdays when there's nothing local day-to-day and there are no stories in the can, it's a space-saver.

 

I'd suggest if you don't have local copy on Mondays and Tuesday you have a story budget issue.

 

I suppose that's relatively accurate as well.

 

That happens at a lot of smaller shops. I often would work desk those days with little or no local copy. No live events and the rest of the staff was taking a break after pounding it hard Wednesday-Saturday. I used to plead with them to try to get features and stuff in the can that we could run on their days off (I ran a lot of the features I wrote on those days), but little avail.

The nice thing was it gave me a day or two each week that I could run and dress up national enterprise/feature stuff without sweating space issues that always came up later in the week.

 

A little off topic, but these MLB gamers — especially the first or second ledes that don't have quotes — are quite possibly the most boring things to read. Even for me, when it's my team, I can't read those things. I know the play by play and the box score stuff by the time I go to bed each night. Eight hours later? You can't pay me enough to read those things (well you can, it's part of my job). Anyways, short story long, filling up an entire page w/ those things seems really counterproductive.