Washington Post to drop Orioles coverage, "share" Sun's stories

As I understand it -- from someone at the Ledger -- they were hiring two baseball "beat" writers to blog and do ocassional features. Carig was the first. They now have Brian Costa in Mets camp, so I assume he's the second. There supposedly is no guarantee they will be retained beyond the basbeall season.

 

Same as I heard. They also hired a couple young, talented HS feature writers. On the same one year deal.

 

HS writers mostly for blogging not print?

 

A little of both, I believe, but they'll do more print stuff than the MLB writers. I could be wrong, but I think that's right.

 

I would argue that The Post used to cover the Orioles better than The Sun used to.

This is sad.

 

Sign of the times.

I suspect if Washington had not stolen the Expos, then the Orioles would be considered the hometown team. But, as the memo said, space is being cut, as it is virtually everywhere. We're not going to see the same space and coverage that people had gotten used to in the 1990s. That's just the economic reality and we might as well quit whining about it and start addressing the question of "How are we going to use the space we do have?"

As a reader, I could care less where the story comes from: AP, local staff, other newspaper, etc. A story is a story. there are few too many media outlets out there now competing to break stories anyway. If news is out there, chances are I'm going to find out anyway. It doesn't do a paper any good to trip over itself trying to be first anymore. Not in this day and age.

 

I sort of disagree with this. If your beat writer is good, readers can tell the difference, and they do care. Especially on a beat that requires copy every day, readers develop this sort of relationship with their beat writer.

 

IF The Washington Post were going to devote more resources to the Nationals by cutting the Orioles, I'd be more than glad to see the Orioles given the same treatment in The Post as the Kansas City Royals or the Houston Astros.

However, I've met Marc Carig several times when he covered Maryland for The Post and I was at my old shop. He's a damn good guy, and I know he was excited about the chance to cover baseball. I'm glad he's working at a paper somewhere and that he's covering a MLB team, but I didn't want to see all this happen.

I don't think the Orioles should be given space in The Washington Post, but this deal reeks worse than Daniel Cabrera's ERA last year.

 

I sort of disagree with this. If your beat writer is good, readers can tell the difference, and they do care. Especially on a beat that requires copy every day, readers develop this sort of relationship with their beat writer.[/quote]

Honestly, I haven't seen any but the most hardcore newspaper readers "develop relationships" with a particular writer except for the columnists. I don't see too many people waxing poetic about Dan Balz's latest story on A1 the way some people do about Thomas Boswell's latest column.

Yes, there's a decided difference between wire copy and beat writer coverage, but I don't think the average reader really would notice that much.

 

Boswell's piece for The Washington Post on the morning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, BEFORE the ball rolled through Buckner's legs:

It Hurts to Watch Buckner
October 25, 1986, Saturday, Final Edition SPORTS; PAGE B1; THOMAS BOSWELL

Limpin' lizards, here comes Bill Buckner. What on earth are we to make of the Boston Red Sox player who has become the symbol of The Agony of Victory?

He crawls on his belly like a reptile. He couldn't run any worse if his feet were on backward. That isn't Billy Buckshot praying; he's walking. The man is a child's Christmas toy. No matter how you put his body together, he still plays baseball.

What's the count on Buckner? Two arms, two legs, no ankles. Laugh, laugh, I thought I'd cry. Who else falls down, then does the backstroke under a popup?

When it comes to visual memories of the 83rd World Series, Buckner may hold the patent. Buckner crawling after a ground ball on his knees. Buckner diving for a popped up bunt and giving it a Bobo Brazil head butt. Buckner carrying his sickly bat out to the foul line during pregame introductions as a public statement that, damn it, he will break out of his slump.

Buckner belly-flopping across home plate, helmet over face like an 11-year-old, then lying there waiting for an autopsy. "I didn't slide," he said. "I died."

Buckner says he's not really that slow going from home to first, "It's third to home that takes 20 minutes."

In Boston, they say he wears so much tape that "he looks like the Invisible Man, out for a walk."

He ices so many parts of his body after every game -- both feet, one knee, one shoulder and his hamstrings -- that he has been asked if he's a devotee of cryogenics, the science of freezing a body until a cure for what ails it comes along.

"The way he runs is the theme contest of this World Series, isn't it?" wrote Leigh Montville in the Boston Globe.

At first glance and second, too, Buckner is both amusing and inspiring. He's every kind of blood-'n'-guts.

He's the willingness to endure any amount of pain and any potential for embarrassment or failure just so he can say he played the game.

But Buckner, and his situation, also are more complex than that.

Is he playing hurt?

Or is he hurting the team?

Is he unselfish or very selfish?

Is he a hero or a hotdog?

Is he the worst player on the field in this Series -- an utter liability on offense, defense and the base paths who should be on the bench in New York so Don Baylor, who at least has joints that move, can play first base?

Or is he an inspiration, the symbol of everything the Red Sox are about and the last man you'd want to remove for the sake of some dry strategy?

Is the brown-haired man with one high-topped black shoe incredibly courageous or amazingly foolish?

The answer, please.

All of the above. Though probably quite a bit more of the good stuff.

It is unlikely that any man so hurt -- at least so conspicuously hurt -- ever has played a major role in a Series. Or been so determined not to get off the stage, no matter what the cost to himself. Or maybe his team.

This postseason has been agony for Buckner in more than one sense. It's not the pain. He's used to that. He's taken an anti-inflammatory drug for the last 10 years of his 16-season major league career, although he knows doctors don't like that.

He has had nine cortisone shots this season. The X-rays of one ankle show bone virtually against bone. After the season, he'll have spurs and chips removed. He has studied up on plastic ankles. No, it's not funny.

Buckner knows all the stories about players who called it quits rather than risk permanent injury. Buckner openly courts an invalid old age and perhaps middle age, too. "I think it's worth it," he says.

But is it worth it if he bats .174 in the Series and .196 for the postseason? Is it worth it if he has no walks, four RBI and only one measly extra base hit (a double) in 51 at-bats in October?

Is it worth it if he botches a popup and a bunt that should be a double play? Is it worth it if he reaches nothing at first base?

Above all, is it worth it if he is two for 11 in the playoffs and one for 10 in the World Series with men in scoring position?

In short, to be honest, is it worth it if he's worthless?

What makes all this so wrenching, so unfair, is that the sophisticated statistical studies of baseball in the '80s have, basically, unearthed only two men who, throughout their careers, have consistently proved that the word "clutch" can have an empirical basis: Eddie Murray and, to an even greater degree, Buckner.

No other player in baseball raises his level of performance so consistently when the pressure is greatest, the game situation most dire and the team in the greatest need.

Quoth "The Elias Baseball Analyst": "Has batted for higher average with runners on base than with the bases empty in eight of last nine seasons."
With runners in scoring position in recent years, Buckner has batted .430, .341, .220, .325 and .320. His slugging average rockets up even more in such spots.

That's why it's so painful to watch Buckner's defensive swings and the weak pops and grounders they are producing now.

Ever since he hurt his Achilles' tendon in Game 7 of the AL playoffs, he really has been a shadow of a ballplayer.

Buckner just says he's stubborn. His grit, however, puts Red Sox Manager John McNamara in a tough spot. When a man gives this much for the team, how do you take him out, even if you should?

When McNamara fills out his lineup Saturday before the Red Sox face left-hander Bob Ojeda, he'll choose between his head and heart.

With no DH spot, should it be the rusty but healthy Baylor at first?

Or should he gamble on Buckner one more time, in the vital No. 3 hole where he can kill rallies, and at first base, where Len Dykstra and Wally Backman may finally, in desperation against Roger Clemens, try to expose him to a drag bunt?

As of now, McNamara says, "If he's hobbling like he has been, he'll be playing." If so, hold your breath. He may play funny, but he doesn't deserve a sad end.

 

Whoops.

 

He was aces back then, wasn't he.