Shaughnessy: "We now have a bad connection"

My experience has been that these are the absolutely easiest guys to get through to.

 

A couple of points to add:

1. It is disingenuous for Shaughnessy to write an article from his couch on Monday night where he pulls all his quotes from the NESN post game conference and then on Saturday night put together this whine bout lack of access.

2. The most remembered article about the JFK funeral was Jimmy Breslin's gravedigger column - which I'm guessing didn't involve Breslin making appointments with publicists. Writers should be expected to use their imaginations to come up with novel insights. In fact the most insightful thing I my have read about the Red Sox in the past few years was a simple interview with the guy who has been official scorer at Fenways for decades. Everyone could have had access but it was a blogger (if I recall correctly) who cared enough to ask.

3. It should not be forgotten that Shughnessy used his "access" to the Red Sox brass to get a job for his daughter with Tom Werner's production company. How are we supposedto take anything he says about the Red Sox seriously now? It's bad enough that the NYT owns 17% of the team - but now the columnist who is supposed to be fair and critical of the team is in their debt for a personal favor?

Shaughnessy is a fraud.

 

having been a long-time beat writer on an nfl team from the early '80s to mid-90s, i understand what dan is talking about. sure, the anecdotes he offers never saw the light of day in print. that's his point. you could cultivate relationships with star players then and they'd know your name and be comfortable sharing off-the-record tales with you.

it's a tradeoff. you develop relationships with players and coaches -- heck, i had EVERY player's offseason phone number and they gladly shared their in-season numbers -- and yes, you knew that 25 percent of what they told you might never be used in the paper.

but by having these relationships, the 75 percent you'd be able to use is a good 100 percent more than you'd use today. i the '80s/'early '90s, you could actually talk to the starting qb one-on-one IN THE LOCKER ROOM any day of the week! and then also get him on the phone at home to get more info or confirmation of info.

it was a totally different world. a far better world for any beat person worth a darn. the point of having such grand access and relationships is that you don't write everything you know. but you know much, much more than you do now and could use plenty of it.

i tell our young writers today about the access back in the day, and they look at me cross-eyed. there's no comparison to what it was like back in the day. how anyone in the biz could think the old days weren't waaaaay more benficial to reporters boggles my feeble mind.

sure, my friends think it's the greatest job ever to be at these pressers today and gang-bang interviews in locker rooms. but when i have a few beers in me and tell 'em how i used to sit with a star player in his dorm room during lunch between two-a-day sessions at training camp, or had not only players but their wives knowing my name and sharing info, they're mesmerized.

and you'd have that kind of relationship with everyone from the starting qb to the third-string te. and they would educate the rookies on who the beat guys you could trust were. on a major metro beat, with as many as 8-10 papers covering the team daily with little turnover on the beat, this was key.

if there are a youngin's who think this wasn't better, well, i weep for them. sadly, the ketchup can't be put back in the bottle.

yeah, the money today's players make has changed the ground rules. but i'd still argue that the teams are the ones who have cultivated the way of limited access/enabling. if the ground rules for access was the same as they were back in the day, the beat reporting biz would be that much better. players are like sheep. the organizations set the tempo. they are the enablers. yuch.

 

Scrub middle relievers? Shit. Try high school kids. Cover recruiting for a shift if you ever want to lose your faith in humanity.

 

That's very interesting. I'm not doubting it one bit, and good job on your part.

 

The peripheral stories are important - and often memorable.

But getting to the core participants is still important.

And your post is essentially an ad hominem attack on Shaughnessy that misses the point - that like him or not, his words are right on.

 

B-I-N-G-O

 

Waylon - it is you who misses the point.

Shaughnessy was a beat guy in the 80's. Thus he had better access. Now he's too busy doing Jim Rome or watching games from his couch to attend games and practices. And he wonders why the players aren't his chums? You don't hear the whines coming from the beat guys - this is coming from a guy who is whining about "ohh things are tougher now - I won't just be spoon fed quotes by my buddies on the team."

Speaking of beat guys - I'd be hard pressed to tell you who covers what beats now for the Globe. They keep switching or laying off or losing people. No wonder teams are tightening access. The personal relationship is a two way street and the personnel moves by the paper makes it seem like they are only interested in the equivalent of one-night stands with the team.

I'm guessing that Chad Bradford or Gordon Edes have all the access they need with the Red Sox - because they are making the effort on their end as well. Of course now Edes will probably soon be gone and the new guy will probably wonder why he doesn't have the same access as Bradford.

 

Sullivan: Game 5, tonight. What time you getting out there?

Shaughnessy: Not tonight, Joe. Access has been that bad. I can't even get a question in to Cassell.

Sullivan: Really?

Shaughnessy: Yeah, I thought I'd write about Kevin McHale's in-grown toenail and how much Robert Parish liked to chief a fresh baggie of weed before big games. Let's see what else I got here...the color of DJ's stubble, Walton's two-hour rant about Walter Mondale during the '86 season, Bird's favorite milk shake...yep, hell of a column, this'll be!

 

I had parents at a fucking school board meeting tell me, no joke, "It's not my policy to speak to the media." And this was in 1994.

Everybody, it seems, is media-savvy. Or thinks they are.

 

Perhaps Mr. Shaughnessy denied the Evil Bastard access.

 

I actually heard Ordway mention that story last week when Maxwell was co-hosting, some caller asked for a story and the Dolph Schayes/airport story was what he used.