Would you decline an interview opportunity?

Don't buy into this PR-driven beat coverage. Be your own man. Fuck 'em. Blow it off.

 

When I said PR-driven, all I meant was this...

Every day from October 1 until today, I could have picked up the phone and called these guys. Every day that I didn't, I was making the news judgment that it wasn't necessary to talk to them. (Or does that make me lazy too? I suppose I should call the whole 40-man roster every day, just in case one gets hit by a meteor.)

Now all that has changed about this player's news value is that the PR guy has put him in front of me.

That's all I meant.

As a guy who likes to do his own thing, it just feels kind of icky to come running in and do a story on Joe Blow because the PR people make him available, when I could have done the story on 90 other days by calling him if I wanted to.

Anyway, I'll go, chat with the guys, see what's up with them or if anything newsworthy has happened. If not, I won't write anything.

By the way, I'd like to hear if anyone else is going to the Children's Hospital every time one of his players shows up there, as friend of the friendless has suggested.

 

I totally see that side of it.

I was worried about the other side: "I bring Joe Shmo in here to talk to you and you don't even write a story on him? I could have just had him go home 30 minutes earlier if you didn't really want to talk to him."

 

I was being sincere. I see very little point in it. There's probably about a .001% chance you get anything useful out of going. I guess you gotta go because you gotta go, but if you blew it off and took advantage of what little down time you have I wouldn't think any less of you.

 

Mr Bobcat,

If you're in a one-newspaper market, you might be getting stale. Symptom 1: I'm too big to be doing this. You're not fishing for support here--you're recruiting enablers.

YD&OHS, etc

 

This thread blows me away. I'm guessing Bobcat perhaps dabbles in covering the MLB team in his area once in a while, but doesn't follow them on a daily basis and travel. Otherwise, he wouldn't be asking this silly question.
If the players aren't stars like you're saying, ask them if they're comfortable in their role of coming off the bench this year or if they think they should start. They may take the bait. Or don't go and read the players' quotes in someone else's story.
I still can't believe this thread is needed. Cripes.

 

Sounds like you are worried a little too much about upsetting the PR guy. Just be honest with him. Tell him of course you will be there, but you can't guarantee that there is a story unless something newsworthy has happened. Make sure he understands your interest, but realizes that you aren't going to write a story unless there is something worthy in it.

 

I can certainly see your point about being free to call them whenever, but you know you are not going to just call some ballplayer out of the blue without planning a story, needing reaction, etc.

If they are coming to talk, you go talk. You never know what tidbit you might unearth.

 

Ace,
What about going and putting eye-black inside the cap?

 

Nah. See if you can get him to play a game of tegwar.

 

At the risk of reopening this thread just when it was dormant for a couple of hours...

You guys are all right. I can't honestly argue with anything that's been written, although I may have done so just because that's the kind of guy I am.

Really, I should have just posted this as a vent. I was a little ticked off that one of my last precious off days before abandoning my family for spring training was being hijacked by the team for something so silly as an interview with a backup infielder who will have no shortage of availability a few weeks later. It was as if they were saying: "45 days of spring training isn't enough. Let's have a few in January!" This is my 12th season doing this, and it's pretty hard to get excited about anything that happens between now and opening day.

I'm sure everyone here has little gripes about his job, something he has to do but really doesn't want to do because he knows in the grand scheme, it's very minor. My error was in suggesting, even hypothetically, that maybe the earth would not stop revolving on its axis if, just once, the job went undone.

I'm sure I never would have blown it off. I was just sort of playing devil's advocate to see if I get anyone to tell me it was OK. Obviously not.

You may now return to calling me a deadbeat.