Not covering Little League All-Stars

I'm old enough to remember when it was only the LLWS title game that ABC broadcast on Wide World of Sports.

 

So an update on our Little League softball teams.

Come in yesterday to a voicemail from the 11-12 coach calling to complain that we haven't been covering them for five days in a town two hours away. Last night was the championship game for the 11-12s and the 9-10s, and "someone from the paper should be here."

So I call, leave a voicemail, telling her to call us with final results, game details, etc. Send a text message to the coach of the 9-10 team, telling her the same thing.

By 10:30 p.m., we've heard from neither coach. I finally get a hold of an assistant on the 11-12 team. He tells me that both teams lost, and that's why we didn't hear from them.

 

Priceless!

 

We had more LL districts in our area this year than the first three summers I've been here combined. I staff as much as I can for no other reason than there's nothing better going on - this is a winter sports area big-time, so it's basically LL or men's league baseball/softball or wire.

The problem I'd foresee with choosing not to cover it is that if that angry parent is smart (and admittedly, most of them don't do this), they go to the publisher. If said publisher is anything like my publisher, the customer is always right and the staff is always wrong, and you end up having to cover it in a way you don't want. At least if you cover it ahead of time, you get to do it on your terms. My predecessor got forced into doing a feature on a 20-0 Class D JV boys' basketball team a few years back like this.

In a world of byline quotas, hyper-local and such, I've found there are certain things that make perfect sense on this level, but once they get out of the sports department, it's like a different language.

 

I covered coach pitch tournaments for the first time this year, so I see what desker buddy was saying (guess what my proofreader's granddaughter is doing this summer, and the first two don't count). I do admit -- these things are like striking gold in terms of taking pictures.

 

2 cents from an avid news consumer and parent of an athlete.

My daughter was a 3 varsity athlete, field hockey, basketball and lacrosse (11 letters in 4 years. damn JV FH in 9th grade)

The school was a medium-small independent school, the only one in the county. We played in an independent conference and aside from a pre-season scrimmage or invitational tourney there was no mixing public and private/parochial. There are 12 public high schools(1600-2100 students per school) in the county. Every one gets covered by the local paper and related websites. Decent sized articles, some box scores, pictures. Even names and quotes. They wrote preseason articles with returning players, projections and outlooks.

When my daughter got to 10th grade a new reporter was assigned and she covered our school. We didn't know if she actually covered the games or printed game results and tallies, just what the coach phoned in. That is until I emailed her once to thank her and tell her how much it meant for my daughter's games to be covered. To see her name in the paper and some nice descriptions and adjectives. She dropped a bombshell on me. She said "I enjoy watching her play". For the first time our school had representatives on the all county teams, my daughter was all-county in 2 sports. She showed up occassionally, wrote a couple of sentences or a couple of paragraphs when the need arose. But we were on her radar. When my girl blew out her ACL in a championship FH game senior year, her sideline picture of my daughter's agony made the paper. Hard picture to view at the time but a stunning picture nonetheless. She went out of her way to mention my daughter's loss to the team for the upcoming basketball and lacrosse seasons. After the injury I made contact again and she told me that she'll miss watching her play.

I will subscribe to that paper forever.

 

I never minded covering LL. We never have anything going on in the summer except for the local minor league team (which I never really had a part of) and youth sports. It was nice to get out of the office for a while and rack up some mileage.

 

We may have two of the eight teams in the state tournament, which is just fine with me.

 

how did your daughter letter 11 times if she missed two seasons with injury?

 

What I hate most about kidball coverage,or lack of thereof:

We hear from the leagues when signups begin. If they ask, I'll try to send a shooter out for opening ceremonies (as someone noted uptopic, cute photos or some local celeb short-hopping the first pitch). Not heard from again until a team wins the Greater Podunk Super Subregional, and they qualify for the Really Big Regional in Shelbyville.

Then the phone rings and the emails start pouring in: "Here's our team picture. Hey we need to raise money for the trip to Shelbyville, can you write a story about us? You wouldn't believe how hard these kids try ..." Or they talk to someone on newsside, who thinks its cute, so they do it. At which point, the sports department's contribution becomes, "Here's our card. Give us a call or send an email and let us know how it goes."

Of course they don't. They go 2-and-barbecue, getting mercied both times. Of course, they wouldn't want their spawn embarassed by having that in the paper. Hello? You used us to let the community know what you were doing, they kind of expect to hear the results. And why do I know this? Because a couple called and asked how the team was doing and all I could say was, "I have no idea. They haven't told us."