No-hitters and Your Paper

Still don't think Dan Rydell was too far off.

Ever hear of disagreement?

 

Sure. Ever hear of blanket, assholish statements without knowing all the facts?

 

You've got legitimate reasons that preclude you from making a late change. There are others who don't make that late change because they feel a no-hitter in the majors wasn't worth it.

Big difference.

 

I think most people, including myself, got riled up when he made the decree that your newspaper was essentially crap if you didn't move it to the front page. It's one thing to make the argument. It's another to make what I took as a personal attack on something I bust my ass on at least five nights per week.

 

Fine. So you didn't like the delivery. The point remains, and I think some slot people looked over their shoulder upon reading that and quickly asked themselves, "Ooooo ... should I have put that no-hitter out front?"

Maybe that wasn't you. But then again, you can't speak for everyone. Neither can Doc, or Frank, or MeatLoaf.

 

Shotty, it's not even so much putting it on the front page ...

"If you didn't tear up your front -- and override the color deadline for something like this -- you're not a good newspaper."

... That comment tells me that if we didn't make it a lede or centerpiece on the front, then we're not any good. At least that's how I read it. So my putting it in the bottom right corner with a mugshot probably wouldn't be enough for this guy to think I did my job last night.

That's why his blanket comment was not well received by some here.

 

I think most people on this board know their markets and make the decisions on where to play a MLB no-hitter appropriately -- whether to tear up the cover, break it out on the baseball page or lead the roundup.
Before the internet and 24/7 ESPN news, I think it was a no-brainer for no-hitters to go on the cover. Now, in markets like mine where the higher-ups want local, local. local, I'm not so sure. We talked about where to play it and decided to lead the roundup. guess that makes us a shitty paper in Dan Rydell's eyes. So far, I've had zero call from complaining readers saying, jesus, how did you not have the no-hitter on the cover.

 

And as I stated previously, we did rip up the front. But I would never say that anyone who didn't is not a good newspaper.

 

1. Sports desks with absolute rules ("all no-hitters are centerpiece all the time") are run by robots and, more than likely, are crappy sports desks.

2. Hitting for the cycle is every bit as rare (1 every 800 games) as a no-hitter. And players who hit for the cycle NEVER make the front.

So much for the "it's rare" argument.

3. No-hitters are "cool", but in the grand scheme of things it's more of a crapshoot than a monster accomplishment. Think about it: If, in the ninth inning, a ball had taken a bad hop and dribbled into center field for a single . . . no fronts would have been torn up.

I'm sorry, but whether one ball hits a pebble and takes a bad hop in a baseball game . . . out of your market . . . in April . . . should not make sports desks scramble like Muhammad Ali just died. Perspective, gents.

That being said, it makes for a nice front-page story unless, like some markets do, you simply have 4-5 stories of bigger interest.

We put it at the bottom of the front and killed a page 2 story to accommodate the jump. Not too difficult. But frankly, a top of the page banner color reefer would have given it more prominence, IMO.

 

Midseason when there was not much competition for the cover, yes. Or whenever Nolan Ryan threw one. Otherwise, we had this kind of conversation then. Our readers had TV and radio, so competition with electronic media isn't new. Our guiding factor always has been the stories people were most likely to read rather than the headlines they were most likely read that told them all they needed.

The first time I was running a desk when it happened was Len Barker's perfect game in 1981. It was a Friday night, our paper was tabloid on Saturdays, broadsheet the rest of the week. So it was not a question of putting a story on the back page (there were no stories), but of what to give the WORLD ENDS hed to, some dude from Cleveland or the local MLB team that would wind up in the postseason that year and which we staffed. The SE made the call and we had a larger-than-average tease (48-pt hed, I think) and photo above the SPORTS flag and the dominant play to the local team. I still think we made the right call, but if we'd gone the other way, I doubt we would have been shot at sunrise. There is no right-or-wrong to this -- except that you've made the right choice when you've considered your readers' needs, and you've made the wrong choice if the deciding factor is what's easiest for you.

 

Or if the deciding factor is "well, we've always done it this way."

 

Yes. And BTE, nice post above. Didn't realize chances for a no-hitter are about the same as hitting for the cycle.