Writing a sports story

My editor has always said as long as it holds up, go for it. That said, there might be two or three topics per year that are worth writing more than 20-25 inches about. And if I turn in a game story longer than 20 inches, he sends me threatening e-mails. When I went all "creative" and turned in a 37-inch gamer earlier this year, he tried to crush my hands with a rusty keyboard so I wouldn't do it again. The point is, there are NO assignments where you set out to write 2,000 words. It's worth what it's worth.

 

You wrote a 37" gamer? What the hell did you talk about?

 

It appears our esteemed newbie, ksu_jeff, has been nuked. TTFN.

 

I feel like I'm about to make a confession in Writeaholics Anonymous.
It was a high school baseball game. Down here in Mississippi, the private schools have their own association and an overall tournament after all the class tournaments. Our local school, which plays in Class A (the smallest), had won its class tournament and was playing a AAA school (the biggest) in the overall. The local team has a stud pitcher, though, and was winning 8-2 in the seventh. They took the stud out and brought in a senior who hadn't pitched in a month. The senior gave up seven runs, and the local guys lost. On top of that, he made the last out with a runner on third. After the game, everybody on the local team was laughing and joking, because they already had their state title, didn't really expect to win this overall game, and didn't give a dang one way or the other. Everybody except the senior. He was just sitting in the dugout, staring ahead stone-faced like he had just cost them Game 7 of the World Series. It kind of tugged at the heart strings, you know? And in trying to describe this scene, along with giving some details of the actual game, I got a little carried away.

 

A phrase to live by — A story should be like a woman's skirt: Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to keep it interesting.

 

I've told this story before.

First week of football season in a new town. I've put out the APB for stringers, and one lady says she's willing to cover Bumfuck High. We don't have a Saturday edition, so she's under no deadline pressure, just has to have the story in by Sat. afternoon. At this point, I've only talked to this woman by phone, and am more or less going on faith that she will come through.

About 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, the foulest-smelling cracker I've ever met comes into the office, with husband and young 'un in tow. She has her story written - on loose leaf notebook paper. You'll not be shocked to learn that it sucked - to the point where her scoreboard arithmetic was badly off for a game that was something like a 48-35 shootout.

Bumfuck had to settle for a 5-inch brief.

 

Was her young 'un on the team?

 

I once wrote an enterprise piece that was 96 inches long. If I recall it was 3,300+ words.

 

Paring stories down, to me anyway, is more of a challenge than writing long. Writing a major conference gamer in 550 words is BRUTAL.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Write it like it's not a sports story.

YHS, etc

 

Drop it like it's hot.

 

I've written a 52-inch piece on steroids in high school and the pressure to succeed and 'doing it the right way" that is about it for stories that long. Otherwise it's a lot of 20-25 inch features and then 12-20 inch gamers. in the land of high school sports on smaller staffs, that is all you can do. and people eat that shit up.