The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams

LongTimeListener · Dec 5, 2013

YankeeFan said:

Talk about a different world, huh:

Between 1939 and 1960, the years spanning Ted’s career with the Red Sox, Boston had eight major newspapers, or nine if one counted both the morning and evening editions of The Boston Globe, which had separate staffs and circulations. The morning papers were the Post, the Herald, the Record, the Daily Globe and the Christian Science Monitor. The evening journals were the American, the Transcript, the Traveler, and the Evening Globe. The Post and the Record dominated the city in 1940 with circulations of 369,000 and 329,000 respectively.

In the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, major league baseball was by far the dominant sport in the country, and would often take up a third of the front page of newspapers in Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. To be a baseball writer assigned to cover one of the big league teams was a highly prized assignment.

The writers wore suits. On long road trips, they’d play poker on the trains with the players and among themselves. Some great yarns came out of those trips, but in the fraternal milieu, it was understood that the stories would stay in-house, never to turn up in print.

On average, the writers were a generation-or-more older than the players they covered. Before World War II, the vast majority had not gone to college, and in the ’40s, their salaries ranged between $5,000 and $7,000 a year. But you couldn’t beat the perks. In what seems a quaint anachronism today, it was common practice at least into the ’60s for the ball clubs to pay all the expenses of the writers when the teams traveled. The reporters would stay at the best hotels, order from room service, and eat at fine restaurants. Moreover, they spent six weeks in Florida for Spring Training on the teams’ tab as well. In return for such largesse, the clubs of course expected, even demanded, favorable coverage, and they received it. On the rare occasions they did not, the teams would not hesitate to assert their economic leverage over the papers.
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We will have to keep this handy when someone here lectures everyone on the ethical lapses being committed all over the place now that wouldn't fly in the good old days when journalism was perfect.

Dick Whitman · Dec 5, 2013

YankeeFan said:

Talk about a different world, huh:

The writers wore suits.
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No doubt.

YankeeFan · Dec 5, 2013

LongTimeListener said:

We will have to keep this handy when someone here lectures everyone on the ethical lapses being committed all over the place now that wouldn't fly in the good old days when journalism was perfect.
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Yes. I thought the same thing.

Dick Whitman · Dec 5, 2013

YankeeFan said:

LongTimeListener said:

We will have to keep this handy when someone here lectures everyone on the ethical lapses being committed all over the place now that wouldn't fly in the good old days when journalism was perfect.
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Yes. I thought the same thing.
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Those lectures are at about 1,000 times the frequency and intensity on team message boards, particularly college team message boards. I should have kept a file of some of the posts comparing me unfavorably to Grantland Rice/Red Smith/the Cheerleader in Residence at my own paper for decades (god rest his soul).

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The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams

LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

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The Kid: The Immortal Life of Ted Williams

LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

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