Where did you run Kalas/Fidrych obits?

Hey, like I said, slow news/sports day, with all the local stuff rained out.

My personal choice would have been two guys hitting their 300th career HR back-to-back. Much more newsworthy, even for those of you who aren't Sox fans.

Wasn't my pick, though ... this universal desker was laying out about 200 inches (two full pages) of obits and other great stuff in the A section last night ...

 

Actually, the best baseball accomplishment of the day was Hudson's cycle...first by a Dodgers since 1973, first in the history of Dodger Stadium.

 

Bruce Snyder's death got more play in our section, because of the local/regional ties.

Fidrych was No. 2. Kalas got a mention in the roundup.

Kalas, while somewhat well-known for his NFL Films work, was primarily a regional figure. Not that many outside of Philadelphia knew of his work, just as most outside of the Upper Midwest never knew of Herb Carneal and most outside of the PNW have ever heard of Dave Niehaus. Yet both Carneal and Niehaus were/are on par with Kalas in their ability as a baseball announcer.

And sorry to disagree Buck, but Fidrych was far more to baseball fans of his generation than a "one year cult sensation." He was a national figure.

I'd guarantee you that, had The Bird walked into any baseball stadium in the country last summer, nearly 30 years after his retirement, as the word spread of his arrival the reception would have been unbelievable because he was that popular, and remained so over the years. He struck a chord that resonated until his death.

 

We put The Bird's short obit on Page 2, with our local and national briefs.

 

We ran about a 10-12 inch story that lead with Kalas and had Fidrych attached at the end in notes copy.

It was on page 5, which faces our MLB page.

I probably would've been nice to run more on each of them, but by the time people picked up our paper, the majority of them already had heard the news.

 

In a very small Tuesday section, I ran a Fidrych brief on Page 1 and a 10-inch Kalas story on Page 3.

I disagree with the notion that Kalas was primarily a regional figure. My wife would not know his name, but once you say "the guy who's voice is in the Chunky Soup commercial," then she can make the connection.

 

I ran Fidrych on the cover, lucking out with the two locals I thought might have known him turned out to have known him very well.

We briefed Kalas.

 

You know, it's dumb, but I hadn't even considered the conflict this was going to cause for my local paper.

There must be an "out" for extreme examples, but I guess this wasn't considered one. As a weird example (sorry, Jeff), what would the Sun-Sentinel do if Jeff Konine died suddenly.

That'd be huge news in South Florida, but at Tribune, probably eight inches on the baseball page. So now what?