Nightmare Nights

Well past deadline, I already had the lede written with Pirates reliever (Stan Belinda? I can't remember) shutting down the Braves in Game 7 of the 1992 NLCS and advancing to the World Series.

Then that fuckin' Francisco Cabrera came to the plate with Justice and Bream on base ... The rest is history.

 

BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! [/looserBravesfan]

 

I have told this story before.
On (ridiculously tight) Sunday deadline, my Trash 80 failed utterly.
It was last seen disappearing over the rim of the stadium, vanishing into the night.

 

High school hockey final. Had to troubleshoot photog's computer (with accompanying whining). Write running story for Net.
Write column.
Coordinate A1 story, which meant finding people for reporter to talk to besides my own stuff.
Write gamer.
Send photos (and it was very very slow going) via email over phone link. Reporter sends stuff on his home laptop via wireless. Naturally, he's PC, we're Apple.
Send stories after photos. Game starts at 7, 11 p.m. deadline.
Exhale. It all worked. The next day, I'm trying to write a followup and the coach, who never misses a chance to plug his team, is in bed with the flu and can't come to the phone. I had shaken his hand after the game and he told me later he almost didn't go to the game, he felt so bad. Two days later, I feebly rose out of bed and thanked him for the shared experience.

But the paper worked out fine, even though we had district basketball, state wrestling, etc. going on that day.

It felt like that first Rocky-Creed fight, where they meet and congratulate each other and say "Never again."

 

Perhaps the greatest deadline performance I've ever seen was Mark Bradley of the AJC scrapping his "Braves eliminated" column and writing a "Braves advance to World Series column" in about 10 minutes.

That night was a freakin' nightmare.

 

how did i get over it? booze and hookers.

 

crusoes: Love the Rocky reference.

 

Game 2 of an NCAA baseball super regional, team I cover facing elimination, but leads through 7 1/2 innings (visiting team served as home team for game 2 of the series). I've got 80 percent of a "Local team lives another day" story done.

Local team's starting pitcher is cruising with a 2-run lead, when he hits a guy, allows a single, then gives up a home run to put the visiting team up 1 in the bottom of the eighth. There's no way local team is going to touch visiting team's closer, so I start to write "local team eliminated" story.

Local team then hits a two-run homer (by a guy who was something like 0-for-his-last-27) in the top of the ninth to go up by 1, so I have to re-write AGAIN, from the "local team survives" angle.

Naturally, THE SAME GUY who had put the visiting team up by 1 in the eighth hits a two-run, walk-off job off local team's closer in the ninth to win the game and send them to the College World Series. So I start on my third re-write.

That's right, three consecutive half-innings (Bottom 8, Top 9, Bottom 9) of an elimination game with home runs that changed the lead (and the LEDE). Of course, all this happened in a nationally televised game that started at 7 p.m., so it was already past 10 p.m. when all the fun started.

Great game, though.

 

1981 or so, Eric Heiden comes to town for a cycling race in the wake of his five gold medals. He and I went to high school together (I was a few years ahead) and his father was my orthopedic guys for running injuries.

Thing was weird from the start. I've known this guy for 9-10 years or whatever, and I'm still nervous as shit in the wake of his world-wide fame. He says, "What the hell is wrong with you," several times.

But I do a decent reporting job and have the goods for a good 1C Sunday feature.

In those days, you typed your stories on special paper on a special typewriter, and then scanned it into the system, where you edited it on a very finicky computer where you had to save sections of the story as you went.

My habit was to dash out what was basically a rough outline and notes on the paper, then scan it and do all the real writing there.

So that's what I do, and I work on the story for a day or two and am finishing it up 30 minutes before a Saturday night desk shift is about to start -- and blow out out of the system. Gone, completely.

Tell the boss, who was a really weird guy and could be a real dickhead. He says, "Well, your desk shift starts on time." So I basically have to do 8 hours of editing and polishing on what's basically notes and do the same job I've already done once -- and do it in 25 minutes.

So I frantically try to pull it together and do the best I can, and 25 minutes later, he says,
"Time's up, just give us what you've got." No leeway.

So they edit it and put it on 1C and it's a piece of shit with my name on it. Complete with the story ending in the middle of the sentence.

I was absolutely mortified, and just prayed Heiden didn't see it.

(Side note: I was also the editor of a small paper and was holding page 1A for three stories from my main city reporter, and as deadline approaches, I find him lying in the parking lot drunk as shit. His wife had just called him and said, "Happy birthday, and I want a divorce." We didn't really have wire copy. That was an interesting scramble; photographer got some of his pictures run VERY BIG.)