Old tapes

Liability is the answer I've been given. I've never quite understood it, if you've done everything correctly.

 

Pete must not have been aware that Cleon Jones, also of the Miracle Mets, is from Mobile too.

Also the hometown of Satchel Paige, Billy Williams, Willie McCovey and Ozzie Smith, among many other major leaguers.

 

Yes, Pete knew that, and so does Blitz. I was working at the same paper as Blitz at the time, and the whole event was a Mobile baseball suck-off other than Blitz's gambling question.

However, the Ozzie Smith claim is a little suspect. His family moved to California when he was six (he played on the same high school baseball team as Eddie Murray, and on the same basketball team as Marques Johnson). He was born there, but he doesn't claim Mobile as his home.

 

Yeah, as long as you haven't screwed up, it seems like keeping tapes would protect you rather than making you liable.

Maybe newspaper bigwigs assume their employees are gonna screw up, whereas broadcast bigs don't.

 

Pete doesn't hold with getting caught having sex in a van. Not unless he's got money on it.

 

Oh, I don't think that's the case. The difference is that in broadcast media, audio/video is the life's blood. They save that stuff, just as we archive our papers. That's all.

 

They may not be worried about the people who never screw up -- if everyone is told to toss their notes regularly, then the person who does screw up has an excuse for not having notes.

 

Good points, I guess.

But say this for Mobile - the city has produced more Hall of Fame baseball players than any city other than NYC and Chicago.

 

No doubt. If you expand it to include the entire state of Alabama --- Willie Mays, Heinie Manush, Early Wynn, Joe Sewell and some others, it's an impressive list.