Ooooh ... it happened in NEW YORK ...

URGENT 
Johnson agrees to $26 million, 2-year contract 
Eds: UPDATES thruout with Johnson agent reax, details, contribution line. Moving on sports and sports services. 
By RONALD BLUM Ž
AP Baseball Writer Ž

NEW YORK (AP) — Randy Johnson agreed Sunday to a $26 million, two-year contract with Arizona, leaving only physicals and final approvals to complete his trade from the New York Yankees back to the Diamondbacks.


An urgent? Come on, now. What else did we think was going to happen?

Does this mean that when the trade is completed we get an AP Newsflash?

 

They also AP alerted Bobby Hamilton dying and that was in Nashville and about a guy who is out of Nextel Cup. So, um, neh.

 

I can swallow the Bobby Hamilton urgent a lot easier. NASCAR household name dies.

 

Sorry, Shottie ... since it doesn't hurt the readers, and particularly because of where I sit, I'd much rather AP err on the side of more urgents, not less.

 

Bobby Hamilton is HUGE name in NASCAR, CU. No problem with an urgent on that.

An alert when a new contract is negotiated? Ridiculous. Just because it happens in New York doesn't mean it's worthy of an urgent.

 

What she said!

 

'

Randy Johnson's a "name." He's not technically in New York anymore anyway.

And see previous post above.

 

I wasn't arguing against one for Bobby Hamilton. I was just pointing out that they do do them for things that happen in other parts of the country.

And I'm not defending the AP, because I think they go overboard on alerts from New York, especially concerning the Yankees, but there are probably more Yankee fans in the country than any other baseball team. Just the way it is.

 

Again, as I head out the door: What, exactly, is it that AP sending something as an alert hurts?

False adrenaline rush? Other than that, how AP delivers that news has zero impact on readers.

 

Like he said. Johnson's a name, so it deserves some play. And we did not know how it would play out. There was a deadline the D-backs had to beat or the trade falls through.

It sounds like some of us have more problems with the NY dateline than the subject matter. It's AP style to use the dateline where the writer is filing from. The baseball writer is in NY, hence the dateline.

I've got no problems with AP alerting us to breaking news. And the Hamilton death is a no-brainer. He's a big name in NASCAR circles.

 

A multiple Cy Young winner getting traded, even if he is past his prime, is pretty newsworthy.

 

No one is arguing that it's not newsworthy, just that an urgent alert is silly.