An Interview with Scott Miller

“I think our site is exceptionally clean — you won’t get stalled in the clutter that slows you on some other sites as you’re searching for something in our corner of the Internet universe. Video or the written word, you can navigate through both very easily.”

“I think sometimes the fun part of it is what gets lost today, with everyone racing to be first not only with the important stories, but with even third-tier personnel moves that leave most people thinking ‘So what?’”

“Watching baseball for a living is terrific…”

Scott Miller: Interviewed on May 18, 2009

Position: CBSSports.com national baseball columnist.

Born: 1963, K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base, Marquette, MI

Education: Hillsdale (MI) College, 1985, B.A, English major

Career: Los Angeles Times, San Diego edition, 1987-1992; Los Angeles Times, Orange County edition, 1993; St. Paul Pioneer Press 1994-1999; CBSSports.com, 1999-2009

Personal: Married, Kim; daughter, Gretchen (12)

Favorite restaurant (home): Spirito’s, Carlsbad, Calif. “Terrific family-owned Italian joint, family originally from New Jersey, outstanding chicken parmesan pizza.”

Favorite restaurant (away): “Just one? One of the best things about baseball travel is restaurants. I love Il Vagabondo in New York, a great little neighborhood Italian place; the barbecue in Kansas City – I’ll take Arthur Bryant’s or Gates, love ’em both; Legal Seafood in Boston – the baked Scrod is simple but perfect; Geno’s East in Chicago – ah, the deep dish pizza with sausage; Faidley’s in Baltimore’s Lexington Market – best crab cakes there, gotta get the “lump” crab cakes; Tommaso’s in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood – great pizza, great Italian food, legend has it that Francis Ford Coppola drank espresso here regularly while working on the script for The Godfather… I’d probably better stop now.”

Favorite hotel: Dearborn Inn, Dearborn, Mich. “A great old brick building and the grounds are beautiful. Right across the street from Henry Ford Museum and you can still feel the ghosts from the glory days of the auto industry. Plus, having grown up in Michigan, I always enjoy going back, seeing friends and breathing some of that clean Midwestern air.”

Scott Miller, posted on CBSSports.com, January 5, 2009:

The natural tendency when a person passes away is to forget the faults and remember the good things.

Regarding the late Minnesota Twins
owner Carl Pohlad, this is not one of those tributes.

Pohlad is given credit for saving baseball in Minnesota when he purchased the Twins in 1984, and maybe that’s true. But during his time in the owner’s chair, the remarkable thing is that he didn’t kill baseball in Minnesota.

Lord knows, he tried.

His volunteering the Twins for contraction during baseball’s despicable 2001 scheme remains one of the most reprehensible actions of any owner in recent memory.

His misrepresentation of his financial “contributions” while attempting to get public subsidy for a new stadium in 1997 for a time killed the whole idea of a new ballpark in Minnesota — and at the very least delayed the entire project by several years.

Oh yes, this guy was a beauty. He got his start in the banking business foreclosing family farms during the Depression. Nice, huh? He remained a cold-hearted businessman the rest of the way, too.

He was worth more financially than Yankees
owner George Steinbrenner, yet he kept the Twins’ payroll low, Scrooge-like, in line with all of the other small-market owners. He was one of Commissioner Bud Selig’s chief lieutenants in the war to keep club payrolls down.

The two had an odd alliance, Selig and Pohlad, to the point where Pohlad even sent the commissioner suits and sports jackets at times when he thought Selig needed an upgrade.

As such, and because it’s what Commissioners do, Selig offered condolences in a statement issued by major league baseball on Monday: “His devotion to the Minnesota Twins, the Twin Cities and major league baseball was remarkable. In my long career, I have never met a more loyal and caring human being.”

Bull.

He wasn’t a caring human being when foreclosing on those families all those years ago. And he was ready and willing to kill the Twins — baseball fans of Minnesota be damned — when the citizens wouldn’t give him a sweetheart deal on a new ballpark.

He threatened to move the team to North Carolina. It was one of the most transparent scams ever concocted. The prospective “buyer” in North Carolina essentially was a hillbilly propped up like a scarecrow to instill fear in baseball fans throughout Minnesota.

He told the public during that ill-fated news conference in ’97 that he would kick in $80 million toward the new ballpark. It was only later that it was discovered that, surprise, what was advertised as his contribution really was a loan that the state would repay to him — with interest.

And that wasn’t even the most vile thing that happened. No, within the myriad scare tactics was a beauty of a television ad produced by one of his sons featuring footage of former outfielder Marty Cordova visiting a children’s hospital and autographing a baseball for an ill boy.

The voiceover intoned something like, “If the Twins move away, boys like this one will never have the chance to get Marty Cordova’s autograph.”

Too bad the sick boy had died even before the advertisement ran on television. Nobody had gotten consent to use the boy’s image, so nobody associated with the advertisement knew he had passed away until it was too late. It was another disgusting moment, and another embarrassment for Pohlad.

Yet instead of any remorse or apology after all of this, Pohlad took it to the next level when he failed to extort a stadium from the taxpayers. He joined Selig in baseball’s dirty scheme, volunteering to serve the Twins up for contraction.

The irony of it all is that Pohlad’s Twins remained one of the most respected organizations in the game. The one thing he did right was to put baseball people in charge and leave them there. And I will say this: The baseball people running the show, from Andy MacPhail to Terry Ryan to Bill Smith, have always said that they were treated fairly by Pohlad. I’ve never heard any of them utter a bad word about the man, and I suppose that says something as well.

In the long run, Pohlad did get his stadium. The new ballpark will open in 2010, and from what I’ve seen of the blueprints, the good people of Minnesota will be getting a ballpark that they deserve.

I can’t say the same for Pohlad.

Q. Tell us how you really felt about Pohlad.

A. The thing that really bothered me about Pohlad was when he volunteered the Twins for contraction earlier this decade. He had misrepresented himself to the people of Minnesota while attempting to sway public opinion for a new and largely publicly funded baseball stadium. When he couldn’t sell it, largely because he and his people whiffed on the sales pitch, he essentially resorted to extortion: “If you people don’t get me a new stadium, I’ll take your team away.” A lot of fans had supported an awful lot of bad teams he had fielded, and I just thought that was as cynical as it gets.

Now, I thought a lot about that piece before it was published because of the timing, and I did take some shots from a few readers for being cruel. It’s always delicate whenever you’re writing in the immediate aftermath of somebody dying. You know how that goes — no matter how someone is while he’s living, he’s usually sainted in death.

No matter the circumstance, I think the most important thing is to be honest. It would be hypocritical to be anything less. Most of that Pohlad stuff, I’d written before in various forms and places: When I worked in St. Paul, and at CBSSports.com, especially when baseball was considering contracting the Twins.

Q. Why should fans go to CBSSports.com instead of the other major sports websites? Sell us on your website.

A. For starters, you’ve got to go there during March now that we’ve got live broadcasts of every NCAA tournament game. You can control your own tournament viewing.

At CBSSports.com, you’re going to get a well-balanced combination of breaking news, opinion and analysis from a staff of what I think consists of – here’s where I’m supposed to brag, right? – some of the most entertaining, passionate and knowledgeable writers out there. You won’t get just breaking stories, you’ll get explanations as to what they mean, how they affect your team and what to expect next.

I think our site is exceptionally clean — you won’t get stalled in the clutter that slows you on some other sites as you’re searching for something in our corner of the Internet universe. Video or the written word, you can navigate through both very easily. I think as you do there’s a very good chance you’ll learn something or get a chuckle or two, and probably both.

I love the line from the late Jim Valvano’s speech a few years back, that there are three things we should do every day: Laugh, think and cry. Now, hopefully, we don’t have to cry too often. But I think if writers can give you some information maybe you didn’t know before, and strum your emotions here and there — make you laugh, make you think, make you angry — I think that’s the best of all worlds. And I think most of the time we deliver on that at CBSSports.com.

I think Mike Freeman and Gregg Doyel are as entertaining and provocative as any columnists out there. Danny Knobler, who we hired just last summer, long has been one of the most underrated baseball writers in the country. Gary Parrish is incredibly plugged in on the college basketball beat. Dennis Dodd is as good as there is on college football. Clark Judge and Pete Prisco excel on the NFL. Our new NBA guy, Ken Berger, is terrific. And I continually get compliments regarding our Fantasy sports — especially from major leaguers who play Fantasy Football through us.

Q. How do you rate the other major websites? Which ones do you pay most attention to? Which journalists do you keep an eye on?

A. You compare Web sites today vs. even three years ago, the changes are amazing. More writers, more video, more information, more bells and whistles. All of our sites are constantly evolving.

I pay attention to the big sports sites, of course: SI.com, ESPN.com, Foxsports.com. Covering baseball has become such a 12-month, 365-days-a-year proposition that I’m always watching other baseball writers. I think the best in the business remains Tom Verducci, the longtime Sports Illustrated writer who’s also regularly on the SI Web site now. Tom writes with such grace and depth. For news and rumors, you’ve got to keep up with Ken Rosenthal at Foxsports.com and Jon Heyman at SI.com. I’ve always loved what Jayson Stark (ESPN.com) does — he’s always had a terrific way of combining news tidbits with plain old fun.

I think sometimes the fun part of it is what gets lost today, with everyone racing to be first not only with the important stories, but with even third-tier personnel moves that leave most people thinking “So what?” There are so many great writers out there — more, I think, covering baseball than in any other sport. I read Jerry Crasnick, Buster Olney and Jim Caple at ESPN. Caple and I worked together for years in St. Paul, and he always comes at things from a very unique angle. Peter Gammons, of course. And Yahoo’s baseball guys are very strong. Gordon Edes, Tim Brown and Jeff Passan. Jeff is an extremely bright young writer with terrific ideas. His piece on Zack Greinke a couple of weeks ago was outstanding.

Q. What non-mainstream sports media – such as blogs – do you pay attention to? Do you use aggregating sites?

A. The people at Baseball Prospectus never cease to amaze me. They are so good. I read a blog at Baseball Think Factory (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/) that is a nice sampling every day of what folks are writing at newspapers, Web sites and blogs around the country.

Like every other baseball writer, I check MLBTradeRumors.com every day — more often during certain times of the year, like the winter and July trade deadline. Tim Dierkes does a real nice job with that. Hardball Times.com is a must read.

There are others as well. I enjoy Aaron Gleeman’s Minnesota Twins-based blog. The U.S.S. Mariner folks are really good. Athletics Nation. There is so much out there that it’s impossible to read everything.

Q. Describe your job – reporting and writing demands, competitive pressures, time and travel demands, etc?

A. I generally write 3-4 columns a week and several blogs in between. When I’m not traveling, I’m looking ahead 2-3 weeks at the schedules of the clubs near my home in Southern California. Which teams will be home, which teams will be traveling through the area? I try and make sure I see every team at least once before the All-Star break, then maybe toward mid-August start whittling it down to contenders.

I come up with all of the ideas for my columns. Breaking news is obvious — when Manny Ramirez was suspended, I wrote one column almost immediately from home that morning analyzing it, then drove to Dodger Stadium, attended a press conference, recorded a video for the site and then wrote two more pieces.

During the season, I’m generally scouring the box scores either at night when the games are finished or, more likely, in the morning over breakfast while updating my day-by-day book – logging each team’s games, who pitched, what the pitcher’s line was, who homered, etc. I know that’s all available online, but I find I notice things – individual game things, trends, etc. – when I log them that maybe I wouldn’t otherwise. I’ve got the MLB Extra Innings television package at home and XM radio as well, so when I’m not at a ballpark I’m generally roving between games on television or on the radio, always on the lookout for column ideas. Lots of phone calls and conversations at stadiums, too.

My travel varies. I can count on being on the road from mid-February to April 1 every year for spring training, roaming through Florida and Arizona. And I’m generally gone throughout October during the playoffs and World Series, though I can sometimes sneak a couple of nights at home if, say, the Angels or Dodgers are in the playoffs. The All-Star game is an annual trip as well.

Otherwise, during the first half of the season travel is hit and miss – not too much, generally, unless something dictates it – say, Bonds chasing a homer record a few years ago. Second half of the season, usually September brings a pennant race trip or two or three.

With so many Web sites and so many people breaking news, the competition factor is always there. I liken it to a doctor who is always on call. You never know when a story is going to break, when the phone is going to ring with a tip, when the phone is going to ring with an editor asking you to check something out. Especially now with newspaper deadlines being out the window, it’s a 24/7 cycle, almost.

Q. What are the pleasures of your job?

A. The best part of my job is the people. Watching baseball for a living is terrific. I got into the business because I’ve had a passion for baseball and writing since I was in about the sixth grade. What I didn’t know then, but have learned along the way, is that some of the greatest pleasures on the job come from the relationships made over the years. Writers whom you’ve gotten to know by sitting for hours with them in press boxes. Players you covered as rookies who, 15 years later, you still talk with. Same with managers and executives.

There are different people and different stories each day. That keeps it fresh and interesting. It’s a constant education as well. Seeing the game in new ways through the eyes of some of the people you have met – or through the eyes of a person you’re going to meet tomorrow – is a pleasure and a privilege.

Q. You wrote after Nick Adenhart’s death: “You looked for meaning here Friday night as the heartbroken Los Angeles Angels stepped back onto the baseball field because there’s got to be meaning in here somehow, somewhere, right?”

Were you channeling Albert Camus?

A. Well, I’m not French.

Seriously, that was a tough, tough night. Baseball is a game of numbers and statistics, but sometimes I think there is a tendency today to get wrapped up in that too deeply, sometimes at the expense of the human side. That night in Anaheim was a stark reminder that beneath the numbers and stats are human beings. To me, this is a people business and the most intriguing part of the game remains the human element. I’m more interested in why or how a player reacts the way he does in a certain situation, what makes him tick, how did he get from point A to point B, or in how does a team mesh than I am in crunching numbers. I’d certainly rather avoid any more columns like the one on Adenhart’s tragic death that night, though, I can tell you that.

Scott Miller, posted on CBSSports.com, April 11, 2009:

ANAHEIM, Calif. — You looked for meaning here Friday night as the heartbroken Los Angeles Angels
stepped back onto the baseball field because there’s got to be meaning in here somehow, somewhere, right?

So you searched, and searched hard, and all you kept coming up with was tears and choked off sentences and flowers, lots of flowers. They haven’t even buried pitcher Nick Adenhart
and the two other youngsters who were killed in the horrific traffic accident early Thursday morning, and yet it seemed as if there were enough flowers for 300 funerals in the makeshift memorial in front of Angel Stadium.

“The night before last we got beat, we gave the game away, and you’re pissed off,” Angels owner Arte Moreno said. “And then this happens and you think, ‘None of it matters.’

“Sometimes we get too serious about the game. It’s just a game.”

A few minutes earlier, during batting practice, Boston slugger David Ortiz
told Moreno he wanted to meet Jim Adenhart, Nick’s father. Ortiz had been watching television with his son when news of Adenhart’s death came across, and from across the country, it hit Big Papi hard. Broke his heart, he told Moreno.

Commissioner Bud Selig phoned Moreno twice on Thursday, wanting to know how the Angels and Adenhart’s family were doing. Several owners texted Moreno asking the same thing and informing him of their own plans for moments of silence.

“Everybody,” Moreno said. “Everybody’s touched by this. We’re one family. Whether you’re a writer or a player or a fan, we’re all tied together.”

We’re all tied together.

You leave the ballpark late one evening in early April, and the new season and all of its promise stretches out in front of you like a big green pasture.

You return two days later, and it’s like someone has fenced it off.

What possible sense is there to make of a man who blows through a red light at an intersection, ending three lives with a fourth hanging in the balance, a young man who is medically sedated at UC Irvine Medical Center … and then tests nearly three times the legal limit for alcohol?

“It’s one of the toughest things I’ve had to go through not only as a player, but as a person,” Angels pitcher Joe Saunders
said.

What possible meaning can you find while sorting through the wreckage of broken dreams and crushed hopes?

“He was one of the coolest, most unique people,” Angels pitcher Dustin Moseley
said. “He had style. He could do just about anybody’s mannerisms or voices. … It takes you out of the bubble that is baseball. To say, ‘Wow, tomorrow could be my last day … what kind of impact am I making?'”

As Moseley and Saunders spoke, outfielder Torii Hunter
and pitcher John Lackey
were downstairs meeting privately with Janet Adenhart, Nick’s mother.

Roughly 24 hours earlier, the broken Angels met privately in their clubhouse, manager Mike Scioscia addressing them and Jim Adenhart speaking as well.

“I haven’t cried since I was 11, I don’t think,” Saunders said. “That’s the first time I’ve cried since then. To see the sheer emotions on his dad’s face.

“It tears your heart apart.”

Said Moseley: “The things we were able to tell Mr. Adenhart, to give him a hug. I think, for a second, it brought Nick back. We’re big boys, and giving him a hug, I’m sure it felt like he was giving Nick a hug.”

We’re all tied together, and that’s the meaning when it seems there is none, and that’s the sense when it seems there is none of that, either. There’s a death in your neighbor’s family, you bring over a casserole. A new family moves in next door, you bring over a plate of cookies. It’s what we do. We pull each other through triumphs and we pull each other through tragedies.

When we’re lost or uncertain, we come together.

Outside Angel Stadium, 30 minutes to game time, probably 400 people ringed the makeshift memorial on the brick pitcher’s mound on the grand entrance to Angel Stadium. There were hundreds of bouquets. Signs. Dozens of balloons (“I’m sorry” read one). Easter lilies. Stuffed animals. Lighted memorial candles. Red Angels caps. Poems. A fielder’s glove. Framed photos. Funeral wreaths.

Two men walked up wearing red T-shirts reading, “Angels never die, they go to heaven.” A boy who looked to be of Little League age walked up and somberly dropped a medal it looked like he had won in some tournament onto the bricks. A woman quietly placed a bouquet of flowers.

“I lost a son before he reached 20, in a car accident,” said the woman, an Angels season-ticket holder named Laura Sandoval, 60, of La Puente, Calif. “I know how the mother would feel. It’s got to be real hard right now.

“It’s all family. It’s like a family, this organization.”

A little girl who couldn’t have been more than 8 or 9 carefully, somberly laid a red Angels cap onto the memorial. Another woman placed another bouquet of flowers.

“Our neighbors across the street are die-hard Angels fans, and I recently lost my mother,” explained the woman, Marla Craig, 44, of Las Vegas. “I came here to mourn my personal family things and to see what actually happened here, and it’s been extraordinary. I’m overwhelmed. There are no words right now for how I feel.”

The memorial itself was extraordinary, fans streaming through the parking lot to pay their respects all day Thursday and Friday. What was so heart rendering 30 minutes before game time Friday was, when you walked out toward the stadium’s entryway, you heard the normal pre-game buzz of fans hurrying by. And then you approached the memorial and it was like you had entered a cone of silence. Fans encircled the large area, and without even the restraint of a temporary barricade, they knew. They respectfully stood back five or six feet, giving those who wanted to approach plenty of space.

“Driving by, I saw it,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “I think, as important as it is for us to see that and feel it, it’s there for the Adenhart family. I hope Jim and Janet have stopped by and taken a look. That speaks volumes for how people feel about their son.”

Inside the stadium, the flags flew at half-mast. The Angels wore a black patch with “34” in white on the left side of their chest, above the heart. They’ll wear that the rest of the year. They’ll also leave Adenhart’s locker as is in their clubhouse, uniform, glove, cleats inside, and they plan to set up a locker in his memory on the road as well.

There was an emotional moment of silence before the game following a video tribute, not only for Adenhart, but also for Courtney Stewart and Henry Pearson, the other two kids killed in the accident. As the Angels and Red Sox lined up on the base lines, outfielder Hunter and pitcher Lackey stood on the mound and held an “Adenhart 34” jersey.

“His parents asked us,” Hunter said. “Janet was telling me everything Nick had said about me, telling her this spring that I had talked to him that day and how nice I was to him. I was like, ‘Me?’

“You wish you could do better. … It’s amazing, the effect you can have on people. I didn’t know the effect I had on him. That’s why you treat people like you want to be treated. You don’t know if they’re going to be here tomorrow, or if you will be.”

Adenhart’s parents were in the stadium for the ceremony, though not on the field. And as the heavy-hearted Angels took the field to start the game, Hunter trotted all the way to the center field fence and tapped a banner picturing Adenhart pitching right on the heart.

“I don’t think there are any words,” Moreno said. “You bring these young kids in and they’re family. You’re committed to the kids, and then there’s just a piece missing. It’s always here. If you have kids, if you’ve ever lost anyone, it takes a piece with you.

“Yesterday it felt like I got punched in the heart.”

We’re all tied together, one thread running through our human condition. And yes, sometimes that thread is the same red thread that stitches together a baseball.

“I had to bury my dad,” Moseley said. “I couldn’t imagine burying my son.”

You looked for meaning here Friday night, where the Angels won 6-3, and maybe you found a small bit of it in the smallest of places. Eye contact and a smile. A soft pat on the shoulder, or a hug. A stuffed animal in the heart-wrenching memorial out front.

The Angels made professional therapists available to their players but, Scioscia said, “I’ll tell you what. The best grief counselor is your locker mate.”

And, sometimes, your friends and neighbors. Because as much as we hate it, it takes a lot of tears to get through this life. And a lot of help.

(SMG thanks Scott Miller for his cooperation)

An Interview with Vicki Michaelis:

“…I’m thinking of a Natalie Merchant song – there’s a line about the media stealing the glory of her story. I keep that in mind. While I wrote it, it’s not my story. My job is to go find another story and write that. That’s what I use to keep me humble. Hopefully I wrote it well enough but it’s not my story.

“There’s always another home run coming from a competitor – what is the Washington Post going to have tomorrow, or the New York Times the next day, or the LA Times on Sunday? The daily newspaper business is always about tomorrow, not yesterday. What have you done for me lately?”

Vicki Michaelis: Interviewed on June 4, 2008

Position: Olympics reporter, USA Today

Born: 1968, Windham, MN.

Education: Northwestern, 1991, BJ, MJ

Career: Palm Beach Post, 1991-95; Denver Post 95-00; USA Today 2000 –

Personal: married, one child

Favorite restaurant (home): Panzano’s, Denver “never had a bad meal there”

Favorite restaurant (away): The Boat Shed Café, southern island, New Zealand “everything was amazing – it’s built on a dock, you feel like you’re sitting on water”

Favorite hotel: Westin Bayshore, Vancouver “astounding views of the mountains and water, right next to Stanley Park, the best urban park I’ve seen and one of the world’s greatest places for a run.”

Vicki Michaelis, USA Today, May 14, 2008:

COLORADO SPRINGS — Kristie Marano and her daughter, Kayla, are playing a casual game of catch along a sidewalk near their apartment. Marano flips the ball high, and Kayla has to run for it. She comes up short, and the ball bounces on the sidewalk.

“You’re supposed to dive for those,” Marano says with a teasing smile. “It’ll make you tough.”

If it’s toughness she’s after, Kayla, 10, need look no further for a role model than her mom, a two-time wrestling world champion, nine-time national champion and Olympic hopeful in the 158.5-pound weight class.

For as much grit as Marano, 29, shows on the mat, Kayla probably won’t gain a true understanding of her mom’s resiliency until the day Marano decides her daughter is old enough to hear the story of how she delivered her into the world — in a bathtub in her parents’ home. By herself. “I need to try to find a way to ease it in — ‘This is how you can learn from my mistakes,'” she says.

A single mom with a part-time job in the garden department at The Home Depot (she is part of the chain’s program that provides full- time pay for part-time work to potential Olympians), Marano is juggling a full schedule to try, perhaps for the last time, to fill the gnawing void on her sports resume.

—

Marano was a junior world bronze medalist in judo when, three months before the Olympic trials for the 1996 Summer Games, she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. The injury helped steer her toward wrestling, where she could wear a knee brace during competition.

Going into the U.S. trials for the 2004 Olympics, where women’s wrestling made its debut, Marano was No. 1 in the 138.75-pound weight class. The day before the trials began, she failed to make weight, by less than half a pound. She had to wrestle at 158.5 pounds but still nearly made it, narrowly losing in the final.

“It was definitely a crushing moment,” Marano says. “My initial reaction was to be like, ‘I’m done; I’m tired of this.’ But I realized that I didn’t come all this way — and I was only 25 — to just quit.”

—

When Marano travels to competitions, Kayla usually stays with other women on the U.S. wrestling team. Some of them will be competing against Marano at the June trials for an Olympic berth.

“With Kayla, it’s really easy to say yes,” says teammate Katie Downing, who beat Marano in the semifinals in last month’s national championships. “I’m sure Kayla gives her mom a lot harder time. But whenever she’s with us, she’s the easiest kid to watch ever. It’s been really cool, seeing her grow and change.”

However, the kinship does add complexity to winning matches against Marano.

“It’s hard,” Downing says, “not only because I’ve stepped in the way of her dreams but also the dreams of a 10-year-old girl that I also think is awesome.”

Most evenings, Kayla goes with her mom to the wrestling room at the U.S. Olympic Training Center for practice. Kayla, who started competing in peewee wrestling tournaments last year, sometimes joins in weightlifting or agility drills. She often reads, plays games or wrestles with the 7-year-old daughter of national team coach Terry Steiner.

Steiner lauds Marano for keeping Kayla as her top priority even as she makes another Olympic push. “We spend so much time and so much effort and so much energy striving toward a goal, sometimes we forget what’s important. I don’t think Kristie’s done that at all,” he says.

—

In 1998, when Marano was 19, wrestling was her epicenter. She already was a two-time world silver medalist in wrestling, the protegee of her dad, Conrad Stenglein. Stenglein was her coach, and she still lived at her parents’ home in Colonie, N.Y., just northwest of Albany.

That spring, Marano found out she was pregnant as the national championships approached.

With no morning sickness and only slight weight gain, she had no idea how far along the pregnancy was. She procrastinated telling her parents or seeing a doctor, thinking she had time.

In early April 1998, she won a University Nationals title. April 15, she woke to pain. She headed for the bathroom where, she says, “My instincts just took over.”

Kayla was born soon after in the bathtub. Stenglein, home from work with the flu, was in another room, unaware of the life- changing event taking place a few steps away. Her mom, Nancy, was at work.

“I don’t know how or where to begin on that one,” her dad says when asked about it. “Amazing, I guess, is the only word I can use to describe it.”

Marano was clear-headed enough to sterilize scissors with rubbing alcohol before cutting the umbilical cord and to tie it off with dental floss. But her thoughts were much too clouded to face her dad. “Everything that day is like, I don’t know, just like a blur,” she says.

At some point during the day her dad asked her to retrieve the family dog, which had gotten out of the yard. She did that. She also carried Kayla surreptitiously out of the house to get formula and diapers.

“I don’t even know to this day exactly what was in her mind,” says her dad, an Air Force veteran who introduced his daughter to judo when she was 5. “I was always pretty strict with her, and that might have been a part of it.”

Says Marano: “The main thing, I think, is that I didn’t trust myself enough to go to the people that invested all their time and efforts in me.”

Her parents knew she had missed weight at a recent tournament. When they saw the traces of the birth in the bathroom, they assumed she had a miscarriage. She was crying as she gave them the news. Her dad’s first reaction? “I gave her a hug,” he says.

—

Now Kayla, a gregarious girl with long, brown hair and her mom’s powder-blue eyes, is her grandmother’s “pride and joy,” Stenglein says.

Born at 6 pounds, 7 ounces, and healthy, she has “never been sick a day in her life,” he boasts.

As for his daughter, he says, “I always knew she was tough, but that was crazy.”

Ten days after Kayla was born, with her doctor’s OK, Marano wrestled in the national championships. En route to the title, she beat a woman against whom victory had eluded her in judo and wrestling — Sandy Bacher, a three-time Olympian in judo.

Marano married Kayla’s father, Chad Marano, but the union lasted less than two years. Her first world title came during that time, in 2000. The second came in 2003, the same year she moved to Colorado Springs to train.

A high point on this improbable journey could come in August. Kayla got a passport last Christmas so she could go to Beijing. “I think it would be really cool,” she says.

A softness settles over Marano’s face when she is asked about competing at the Olympics with Kayla in the crowd.

“It would mean the world to me,” she says. “She’s been with me for 10 years, and she’s taken everything, without even questioning anything that I’ve ever done.”

Q. How did you write the Kristie Marano story to maximize the drama?

A. I tried a pretty typical writer’s trick, which is to let people know at the beginning what’s to come but not everything – to draw them in. At USA Today we have to be efficient at that since there’s only so much space on the front. You have to draw them in before they make the jump. I also had some thought to not making it too over-dramatic. In talking to her and her dad it was just something that happened in the course of their life – for them it was only dramatic in retrospect, but it wasn’t so dramatic that day. I wanted to sense that as well. I didn’t want to let it overwhelm the story, and over-dramatize something that is dramatic on its face.

Q. You’re saying a story that good can tell itself?

A. Exactly. You pull back on too many adjectives and metaphors and let her and her dad tell it and put it out there. It’s dramatic enough on its own.

Q. Was it written anywhere else?

A. I had seen it four or five years ago in the Denver Post because I live in Denver and I get that paper every day. I’ve had it in my mind for several years now but had never gotten the chance to talk with her. I didn’t know how much detail she would go into or how much she would talk. Maybe it was something she wanted to move on from

Q. What was the interview like?

A. It took place at the Olympics media summit in Chicago. Some people are brought into a press conference, and some are available at a round table session, where reporters drift in and out of the interview. My intention was to get her by myself – she’s in Colorado Springs and I could have driven down anytime. At the round table session I was alone with her for 35 to 40 minutes. When other reporters drifted past we weren’t talking about the dramatic part – so I did most of the interview right there, and the follow-up work later.

Q. Did you prod her?

A. Not at all. She was very open about it. She is approachable and friendly and obviously doesn’t have qualms about speaking about this. Her only concern in what she will tell her daughter some day. I asked her about that and she said he hasn’t quite figured it out. She said, ‘How can I tell her in a way that she will understand where I was coming from and also if she’s ever in that position so that she can come to me and make it easier on herself?’ Other than that, she jumped right in. So many people around her know about it – her teammates all know – the wrestling world is such a tight circle. She is comfortable within her circle.

Q. How did she wrestle just a week or two before she had the baby?

A. We’re starting to see more and more Lisa Leslies or Lindsay Davenports or some women on the US soccer team do it. They are elite athletes – their bodies can take bouncing back from pregnancy. She was young at the time – that also helps. It is amazing, likely not something any doctor would recommend. Clearly, her body and her baby were able to take it.

Q. Can you imagine that kind of delivery?

A. Coming from a woman who spent 24 hours at the hospital trying to make it happen, no, I can’t. But I understand her mentality about it because I think most or all women who have delivered children say you reach a point where you accept whatever pain there is because of the inevitability of it.

One editor asked me how her father could not have heard her screaming. I didn’t actually ask her but I have to assume she didn’t. That’s a Hollywood depiction of birth. Certainly some women do scream, but not all. You get to a level of ‘let’s just do this’. Somebody with the mentality of a wrestler or an elite athlete – like Michael Jordan in the NBA finals when he played with horrible stomach flu – they just set aside the discomfort and say ‘let’s get it done’. It’s more possible for an elite athlete to do that than someone who doesn’t have the mental discipline.

Elite athletes heal faster from injury – we know that. But it’s still impressive when they come back so quickly from pregnancy. I’m a runner – not good, but I do run a lot – and I tried to train for a marathon six months after I had my son. I had an IT Band problem I never had before. They said they weren’t sure why but maybe my hips had expanded during pregnancy and my IT Band was out of whack. I wasn’t able to take the strain of marathon training at that time.

When I see women back on the basketball court or soccer field or wrestling mat so soon it’s really impressive. There’s probably a whole area of medical study you could do to see how women do this.

Someone else on the AWSM (Association for Women in Sports Media) board, Joanne Gerstner (Detroit News), did a nice story that looked at some wider issues of female athletes, particularly pregnancy, what it all means and whether coaches are equipped to know what they can and can’t do, as well as the doctors and the women themselves. They’re so used to being invincible – and then this happens – do they know what they can and can’t do?

All we have is anecdotal evidence of who has done it and excelled. How many haven’t done it whose stories haven’t been told? We don’t hear about them. If you write about them two years later you say ‘she took a year off after having a child’, and then you get a Paula Radcliffe coming back a few months after having a child and winning a marathon. It could be a very interesting study to do.

Q. Response to your story?

A. A lot of people just said ‘wow’. It is rather shocking. Giving birth at home, at her parents’ house, she didn’t really know, and it didn’t seem to disrupt her wrestling schedule or her success. People said ‘wow’.

Q. How do go back to hitting singles after a home run like that?

A. You mean a 12-inch feature. It’s nice. You feel better about what you’re doing for a while. But I’m thinking of a Natalie Merchant song – there’s a line about the media stealing the glory of her story. I keep that in mind. While I wrote it, it’s not my story. My job is to go find another story and write that. That’s what I use to keep me humble. Hopefully I wrote it well enough but it’s not my story.

There’s always another home run coming from a competitor – what is the Washington Post going to have tomorrow, or the New York Times the next day, or the LA Times on Sunday? The daily newspaper business is always about tomorrow, not yesterday. What have you done for me lately?

Q. Do you feel pressure in your job?

A. I’ve been in the business since ’91 – I had a variety of different beats from high school and college football to the NBA to the Olympics. The Olympics is a lot easier to deal with because the world only pays attention every two years. You get pressure from editors but not so much from readers. The NBA beat is every day. For the Olympics you want to shine – it’s my time to shine – that’s when people are paying attention. Not to say I don’t do a good job in between, but it does keep things in perspective, as opposed to the NBA, where you can’t gear up because you don’t have the energy to, except maybe during the playoffs – except that no team I covered made the playoffs. Of the beats I’ve had this is the easiest one because it’s so cyclical, as opposed to being every day topical.

Q. What are your thoughts as you get ready for Beijing?

A. I don’t get much time to think. We’re one of three media outlets that predict every medal that will be won – USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and Associated Press. I am the Mel Kiper of the Olympics – I have to predict. I’ve already warned my husband and my son – I’ve got the trials to cover. I’m looking forward to August 8 because then I’ll know the medal projections are done and I can go back to writing daily stories.

Q. Which are the hardest events to pick?

A. Sailing and equestrian – based on my ignorance. I haven’t covered those a lot to make my own educated guesses. Swimming is easy because I’ve covered it a lot and know where to go to find the fastest times. Generally I do as much research as I can and then turn to someone who is an expert and willing to go on background. I’ll go through my picks and they’ll tell me if I made a major error, like that horse has a splinter or something. Some of it is admittedly dartboard throwing.

Q. Will someone compare your success rate with the others?

A. They always do. In Salt Lake City the US won 34 medals which was more than ever before. Then they went to Turin with some of the same people on the team, and more depth in some events, and it was tempting to predict them to win in the 30s again or even the 40s. AP predicted in the 40s – we came out with 29. I was even nervous with that because the US historically doesn’t do well in the winter on foreign soil. They ended up in the mid-20s.

Some website that tracks these things came out with how we had all over-inflated our picks and were all homers. There was an e-mail exchange with my editors and they acknowledged that we hadn’t gone overboard. These things are tracked in the industry. My editors like to track it.

Once I get this whole list done we’ll predict how many golds China will win. That will be a closely watched race – the golds for China and the US. We’ll come out with a story predicting China will or will not win the gold medal race, which will be widely read. That’s one reason we do the picks – it makes me an expert on almost everything going in. I can advise the editors on what table tennis stories to watch for, though it’s not generally something you would watch in the US.

Q. How big is the USA Today coverage team?

A. We sent about 80 people to Athens, including IT support staff and editors. I think it will be fewer this time, due to economics or lack of credentials.

Q. Will you cover the political angles?

A. Probably not. We have a couple of correspondents in Asia – one right in Beijing. They’ll handle most of that. This year they split my beat – I’m focused mostly on sports, athletes and evens. Another woman, Janet Lloyd, is doing coverage of the IOC and USOC. She’ll probably do more politics than I will. I’ll be recording Michael Phelps’ every breath.

Q. Have you been to Beijing?

A. Once – in the fall of 2006. It was mostly a work visit, but I did enjoy the sites. I went to the Great Wall, one of the outer-lying access points. I spent a little time at the Forbidden City and at Tiananmen Square. That historical event is seared in my head – it happened on my 21^st birthday. Students across the world were being shot and here I am waking up with a headache from my 21^st birthday. It was a seminal moment – I began to try to think of myself as a global citizen and pay attention to things like this. I went to sunrise at Tiananmen Square – it’s amazing how many people amass as the sun rises and the guards come out. I picked a random day – not a day you would expect a lot of people, but there were.

In terms of Olympics venues I’m sure it will look much differently than when I was there. It was pretty clear they were ahead of schedule and things would be exactly as they said – I’m expecting an efficiently run Olympics.

Q. Who were your writing influences?

A. Edna Buchanan, who wrote for the Miami Herald. I was a big fan when I was in college. She came to Northwestern to speak and I tripped all over myself trying to talk to her. When I described Kristie giving birth I tried to do it like she would have. Edna was on the crime beat – there were weird and dramatic things on that beat. She wrote in a very straightforward style – here it is, I’m telling you just what happened. She kept it spare, yet structured it so perfectly so that you got the drama without her having to embellish.

Q. Any sportswriters?

A. I didn’t intend to be a sportswriter. I wasn’t reading a lot of sports. My sportswriting career is a complete accident.

Q. How so?

A. My first job was at the Palm Beach Post, after I had interned there. The only job they had was a copy editor in features, really a sub-section to features, primarily puff pieces. It was my first job – life was pretty good – but my goal was to write and not be an editor. I saw that if I stayed too long I would make my way up the copy desk, so I bugged them to let me write, and I was doing things about the latest beach chairs on my own time.

Then the bureau job in Okeechobee opened up. I took it because I was willing to do anything to be a writer even if it meant being in this isolated place. Two days later they shut the Okeechobee bureau. The next thing that opened was covering high school sports. The managing editor said he had started as a high school writer – how do you say no to that? I went to the library and checked out book on sports I would be covering. I spent my time on the sidelines running alongside the officials – they explained everything to me as the game went along. I had a baptism by fire.

Q. What media do you read to keep up?

A. I have a bookmark subtitle – daily Olympic checks – with everything from the New York Times to espn.com to cnn.si to the Washington Post – the outlets the do the best Olympics coverage. Every morning I scan the wires. I get a Google alert that sends me whatever it finds on coverage every day – it sends my cool stories from Pakistan. I make sure I scan everything I can – you never know where a story will come from. If I hadn’t scanned the Denver Post a long time ago I would have missed the story on Kristie. That’s what I read for my job. In terms of staying informed I read USA Today, New York Times website, the Denver Post and I’m an avid listener of NPR.

(SMG thanks Vicki Michaelis for her cooperation)

SPORTS

USA Softball starts farewell tour, campaign ; Sport fights to stay in Games

Vicki Michaelis

886 words

14 February 2008

USA Today

FINAL

C.14

English

© 2008 USA Today. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.

The U.S. women’s softball team begins a 62-game, cross-country trek next week that softball aficionados should view as rock ‘n’ roll fans do the Van Halen reunion tour with David Lee Roth.

Last chance to see them together.

Maybe.

In 2005, the International Olympic Committee voted softball and baseball off the Olympic program for the 2012 Summer Games. The IOC could vote them back in for 2016. Or not.

That makes the USA’s Bound 4 Beijing tour, which begins Tuesday in Tucson against the University of Arizona, part preparation for this summer’s Olympics, part farewell and part campaign.

“We’re almost taking it as a way of saying, ‘Hey, look at what you’re going to be missing,'” pitcher Lisa Fernandez says.

International Softball Federation President Don Porter needs no reminders. He keeps a box on his desk filled with hundreds of letters and printed e-mails from young softball players exhorting him to do what he can to restore the sport’s Olympic status.

“That’s why we’ve got to get this back in,” Porter says.

The U.S. team, which has won all three Olympic gold medals awarded in the sport, carries a sense of urgency as well.

“I think the challenge for us is going to be to make a statement – – we obviously have so much to prove, and we’re so passionate about this sport remaining in the Olympic Games — but to not lose sight of what we’re trying to do at the Olympic Games,” U.S. outfielder Jessica Mendoza says.

Softball’s time as an Olympic sport is relatively short. It was introduced at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

A decade later, the number of NCAA Division I softball teams in the USA has grown (to 277 in 2007 from 222 in 1997), as has the number of youth teams (to 86,049 in 2007 from 73,567 in 1995). Mike Candrea, the U.S. Olympic coach and University of Arizona head coach, expects such growth to be affected when softball is no longer in the Olympics.

“I think it will trickle all the way down,” he says.

An effort by IOC President Jacques Rogge to make room for new Olympic sports without expanding the program put softball and baseball on the chopping block.

In 2005, IOC members voted 52-52, with one abstention, to cut softball from the program after the 2008 Games. Softball needed a majority vote to stay. Baseball was also voted out, by a 54-50 count. They were the first sports cut from the Olympics since polo in 1936.

None of the new sports under consideration at the time, a list that included golf and rugby, garnered enough votes to be added.

That left the door open for softball and baseball to regain their Olympic status. The IOC will consider the Summer Games program again in October 2009.

In the next 20 months, softball officials, players and supporters must work to reverse IOC members’ views on two primary factors that led to the sport’s ouster:

*A perceived tie-in with baseball.

IOC members “bundled” baseball and softball, U.S. IOC member Anita DeFrantz says, and baseball got the boot primarily because of doping concerns and the lack of an agreement with Major League Baseball to send the world’s best players to the Olympics.

Softball has no doping clouds hanging over it, and the best players compete in the Games.

“I’m not trying to bash the IOC by any means,” Mendoza says, “but if they’re going to be making decisions as far as eliminating and keeping people’s dreams in and out of the Olympic Games, it frustrates me that they don’t have the research.”

Porter travels the world to educate IOC members about softball. He also has asked national federations worldwide that govern both softball and baseball to split into separate organizations.

“Many of the IOC members on a number of occasions, including President Rogge, have told me we need to keep our distance from baseball,” Porter says.

*Not enough participation globally.

In the three Olympics that softball has been contested, four countries have won medals: the USA, Australia, China and Japan. That fed an argument that softball doesn’t have enough talent worldwide to merit Olympic status.

The ISF is working to put down roots in places where softball traditionally hasn’t been played — the Middle East, Africa and Europe — by donating equipment and hosting coaching clinics.

Since the 2004 Olympics, Mendoza has delivered equipment and conducted clinics in countries including Brazil, Czech Republic and South Africa. She worries the progress to spread the sport will slow without the Olympics.

“That disappoints me more than anything,” she says.

For six more months, as they travel around the USA and then to Beijing, the U.S. players will have ready-made audiences for their message. After that, it gets harder, but even more urgent.

“I’m going to continue to do what I can,” Fernandez says, “in order to get it back where it needs to be or where it deserves to be — and that’s as an Olympic sport.”

PHOTO, Color, 2004 photo by Eileen Blass, USA TODAY

Document USAT000020080214e42e0000j

An Interview with Randall Mell

“The nature of the game is solitary – every round is a journey, but a solitary journey – more than any other sport…Golf is intensely focused on this one man or woman – the battle really isn’t against a cornerback or a pitcher – it’s against yourself – and against all your demons and doubts and fear and shame – all those internal obstacles. What’s appealing to me as a writer is to see and tell that.”

“The sport has a different culture than other sports – it’s not as combative or adversarial. It’s a smaller world – there aren’t as many beat reporters they have daily contact with. It’s a more intimate surrounding.

Golf writers get criticized because maybe they’re not as hard or as combative or adversarial as other writers. There may be some truth to that…”

“Some people in the newsroom can’t get enough of Tiger and some are sick of him… Tiger is a magnificent player with a magnificent swing. But as a personality he is just dull and boring and not interesting at all. Rarely does he have anything to say in a news conference that is worth quoting.”

Randall Mell: Interviewed on November 3, 2006

Position: golf and college football reporter, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Born: Madison, Wis., 1958

Education: Wisconsin-Eau Claire, journalism, 1981

Career: Marinette Eagle-Star 1981, Lake Geneva Regional News 82-85, South Florida Sun Sentinel 85 –

Personal: married, three children

Favorite restaurant (home): 15^th Street Fisheries, Ft. Lauderdale “you can dress informally but they treat you like you’re wearing a tux – overlooks the Inter-Coastal – great food decent prices” –

Favorite restaurant (road): Crab Catcher, La Jolla, Ca. “located atop a cliff – spectacular view – great crab”

Favorite hotel: Marriott Sawgrass, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. “serene setting overlooking some great TPC holes”

Randall Mell excerpted from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 17, 2006:

MEDINAH, ILL. – They call it Sergio Garcia’s tree around here.

The towering red oak under which Garcia hit that remarkable recovery shot in pursuit of Tiger Woods in the final round of the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah’s No. 3 Course has changed a lot.

Garcia noticed that when he couldn’t resist the urge to return to the foot of the tree in a practice round Tuesday for the 88th PGA Championship.

Countless members and guests over the past seven years haven’t been able to resist the urge to try the shot themselves, and they’ve scarred the base of the tree in bids to duplicate Garcia’s magic.

“They’ve had to overseed that little spot because everybody’s been hitting from it,” Garcia said.

At 19, Garcia was a shot behind Woods in the final round when he pushed his tee shot behind that oak tree. In a precarious spot, inches behind the tree and 189 yards from the hole, he took a wild slash, closing his eyes for fear the ball would ricochet back at him. His shot ran up onto the green, stopping 35 feet from the hole.

Q. Sergio’s tree – that’s beautiful. Does golf lend itself to better writing than other sports?

A. People in the business think of golf as a writer’s sport. Part of that is just the beautiful setting the game is played in – picturesque settings like Augusta National and Pebble Beach. It’s not limited to a 100-yard grid or between baselines. It’s a sport played against God’s great creations – historic backdrops – with ghosts like Jones and Nelson and Snead. There’s historic significance and it helps to have certain writing skills to bring that to life – to paint some pictures. Fred Turner, my former sports editor, would say, “Take me there as a reader.” He was a great editor because he was the quintessential reader.

That’s really the challenge. Just weaving the settings, histories, personalities and drama into a good tight meaningful story. The nature of the game is solitary – every round is a journey, but a solitary journey – more than any other sport. You have a kicker out there to kick a game-winning field goal but he has the snapper and holder. Golf is intensely focused on this one man or woman – the battle really isn’t against a cornerback or a pitcher – it’s against yourself – and against all your demons and doubts and fear and shame – all those internal obstacles. What’s appealing to me as a writer is to see and tell that.

Q. Is golf the best beat?

A. You have writers who would kill for it, and writers who can’t understand why anybody would want to write it – they think it’s just so boring. I have a great job. I get to write about golf and college football – a nice combination – they’re so different. My time covering Miami was one of the most fascinating runs in college football. There were great personalities – Jimmy Johnson, Michael Irvin, Cortez Kennedy – and lots of controversies – an NCAA investigation, a murder – everything you could possibly cover was on that beat. But it did wear me out. I had the Coral Gables Police Department on speed dial. I called the Police Chief by his first name.

So golf was almost a perfect reward for me. I got it in ’97 – my first Masters was Tiger’s runaway 12-shot victory. I came on the beat and the game completely changed with Tiger aboard. Covering golf I’ve only had to call the police over one incident.

Q. What’s your game plan when you cover a major?

A. First are the relevant themes – the story lines or issues that have to be addressed. What makes it more interesting to me is finding something nobody else has – which is hard to do at the majors. I was covering the U.S. Open at Shinnecock and there was a guy from California who had been in jail and was an alcoholic but had gotten his life back together and qualified. I was one of two writers who wrote about him – he was a classic U.S. Open ‘everyman’ story. It truly is an open tournament – you can qualify if you’ve got the game. That to me is a bonus story that makes it a better week.

Q. Are you a golfer?

A. Yes. I do play but not very good. The game fascinates me because you are battling yourself the whole way. You can hit a bad shot before you take the club back if your alignment is off. To me the best stories are trying to understand behavior and human nature. What shapes people and inspires them, what corrupts them or trips them up, and what saves or redeems people. We’re all flawed. That’s what makes us human and more interesting. Golf is all about overcoming your flaws. Hogan said something, “It’s not a game about hitting good shots – it’s about managing bad shots.” That’s why golf appeals to me. There are those life-type lessons that relate beyond the game.

Q. Do you need to play golf to cover it?

A. I don’t think you have to. It helps, but you don’t have to. Good writers can cover anything. The really good stories aren’t about why somebody used a five-iron instead of a six-iron. It’s those other things I said. How is somebody overcoming his flaws? What has shaped him to be a champion or prevented him from being a champion?

Q. Are golfers better interviews because of the nature of the game?

A. Not necessarily. It depends on the person. The sport has a different culture than other sports – it’s not as combative or adversarial. It’s a smaller world – there aren’t as many beat reporters they have daily contact with. It’s a more intimate surrounding. Golf writers get criticized because maybe they’re not as hard or as combative or adversarial as other writers. There may be some truth to that on a small scale. But you have writers like John Hawkins (Golf World), Len Shapiro (Washington Post), Ed Sherman (Chicago Tribune), Jim McCabe (Boston Globe) and Doug Ferguson (Associated Press) who ask tough questions and would thrive in any sport. Yet it clearly isn’t as combative and you can understand why other writers think that. The nature of the game is just different. There’s this notion that golf is a gentleman’s game and you have to police yourself and it’s more honorable. I think that is true – it does shape the culture of the sport. But whenever a lot of money is at stake and people compete intensely there’s always a dark side of human nature at work, and some corruption.

Q. Do golf writers have a watchdog function?

A. Yes. Definitely. I wrote a story at Doral last year, at the Ford championship. Ford, the sponsor, was trying to get the top players back to Doral – it had lost some of its luster – so it started a Monday corporate outing. They invited Sergio, Vijay Singh, Retief Goosen, and Padraig Harrington – and they were all paid six-figure sums. It didn’t technically violate PGA Tour rules, but it went into a gray area – it was very much a backdoor appearance fee – and they’re not supposed to have appearance fees. The other players were upset about it and the Tour changed the rule because of my story – now the Tour reviews all corporate outings held by sponsors. You don’t have the corruption you might have in other sports but there still are issues that need to be watched.

Q. How much of the beat revolves around Tiger?

A. That’s an interesting aspect. Some people in the newsroom can’t get enough of Tiger and some are sick of him. I see that in my e-mails all the time – why are you writing about him again? Everything revolves around Tiger – this week there was a controversy because he pulled out of the Tour Championship, and Phil Mickelson already had pulled out.

Tiger is a magnificent player with a magnificent swing. But as a personality he is just dull and boring and not interesting at all. Rarely does he have anything to say in a news conference that is worth quoting. He does that purposefully – he’s very smart. He’s managing himself as a player and a corporate entity, too. He markets himself – that’s part of who he is – but it makes it kind of boring to cover him as a personality. Yet he ends up giving you so much copy as a dominant player. As he gets toward the end of his career I’ll be curious to see if he opens up and becomes a leader of opinion. Jack Nicklaus is one of the great interviews in the sport now – he’s so opinionated you can get eight or nine stories out of one interview. With Tiger you struggle to get a quote. Maybe he opened up a little more this year – I shouldn’t be as harsh. He’s had strong opinions about drug testing and shortening the season, but overall he’s still guarded.

Q. Do you cover local golfers?

A. The hardest part is covering local golf – we almost need another reporter. I don’t do enough of it. I try to go to the locals. We have Morgan Pressel from Boca Raton – she dominates my coverage on the local stuff. I get most of my complaints about not covering the locals – “Why didn’t you write about my son?” – but it’s difficult for me get to. That’s a reality.

Q. Do media get to play the great courses?

A. At some events. Augusta has the famous lottery – they pick 24 people out of 300 or 400. I got picked my first year, which enraged our columnist, Mike Mayo, who had been there 10 years and never was picked. He just glared at me.

Q. What was it like?

A. Spectacular, fun and intimidating. I never played on fairways that were mowed so tightly. I skulled shots and hit some heavy.

Q. Your score?

A. 108. You had to ask. The funny thing I remember was my caddy – you have to hire a caddy. I asked him his name and he said “Nineteen.” I asked how he got that name, and he said, “My mama had 19 kids and she just ran out of names.”

You need a caddy there. Everyone talks about the greens – how fast they are – putting is an optical illusion. I had an 8-foot putt and he told me it was a 3-foot break. I’m thinking it was a little break. Sure enough he was right – my ball veered away.

Course knowledge is so important. Playing the course gives you an appreciation of just how hard it is. But that doesn’t stop us from writing on deadline that someone choked.

Q. Did playing the course help you cover the Masters?

A. One of my qualities as a writer is my empathy – it works for and against me. I think of myself as an empathetic person. I tend to sympathize with people’s struggles and I tend to relate to it. So playing that course did help me.

Q. Is there a connection between golf and writing?

A. We don’t have a caddy. Although you could call a good copy editor a caddy.

Q. How did you get to Ft. Lauderdale?

A. I was at the Lake Geneva Regional News. The biggest thing I covered there was the state basketball tournament. I had to figure out how to get noticed so I came up with a resume that was radically different. I made it look like the old Inside Sports Magazine, which at the time had all the great writers. I used that type and titled it “Inside Randall Mell” and designed it like the magazine front. The second page looked like the Table of Contents and inside I laid out my clips to look like the magazine. I sent it out to 20 or 30 papers. One guy in Kankakee sent it back to me and said, “You’re an idiot – you’ll never make it.” Craig Stanke was down here – he said he just laughed but he had to see what kind of character would do this. He said I made him read it and he could see I had potential. It got me noticed so it served its purpose.

I started in the Sun-Sentinel’s west bureau – at the time they used it as a training ground for young reporters. I wrote shuffleboard stories, senior golf, and then they would send me to do sidebars on the Dolphins or University of Florida games. It was almost like an internship. The funny thing about that was that I went through old issues and Gene Wojciechowski had stories in there and Bill Plaschke wrote for it. I was inspired that those guys started there, too.

Q. Your assignments before golf?

A. I was in the bureau for a year and a half. Fred Turner liked what I was doing and he decided I would be the next University of Miami football writer. This was 1987 – the height of the Hurricanes phenomenon – after the Fiesta Bowl and the beginning of the renegade Bad Boys. It was daunting to be thrown into that – I had never had a beat before. Greg Cote was the Miami Herald’s reporter and he was in his 4^th or 5^th year covering the team. I learned more my first two years getting my ass waxed than I learned in four years of J-School or the previous five years in the business. Cote was very good – he discovered a Miami journalism student by the name of Dan LeBatard – Dan became Greg’s personal assistant and would fill in on Greg’s days off. He knew all the football players and he was talented even at that young age.

Those two were a formidable combination. I shouldn’t say this but I still have footprints on my butt from them. But I learned so much. I can say there are Herald beat writers who have my footprints on their butts because of the lessons I learned. I had a strong command and strong sources and learned from my early mistakes and did well there. I won an investigative reporting award in 1993 for a story on UM players Bennie Blades, Brian Blades, Michael Irvin and others receiving thousands of dollars in secret cash payments from agent Mel Levine while playing in the late 80s. In 1995 I won an APSE investigative reporting award for a story I co-wrote with Dave Hyde on the drug-testing failures at UM that led to Warren Sapp playing in the Orange Bowl despite failing four drug tests.

I learned from competing early and failing early – it made me a better reporter. Thank God I had an editor, Fred Turner, who stuck with me because the first two years were painful.

Q. I’m going to read one of your college football leads, from the Sun-Sentinel, September 15, 2006:

Kafka’s the quarterback.

That’s Mike, not Franz, but the famed novelist might have been moved by the depressing turn Northwestern’s football program has taken.

The Wildcats joined the growing ranks of Division I-A teams that have been stunned by I-AA underdogs this year.

Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka and his teammates know the existential angst the famed Czech writer once so skillfully explored.

The Wildcats’ 34-17 loss to New Hampshire came with NU fans there to see their first home game since coach Randy Walker’s death from a heart attack last summer. There was moment of silence in memory of Walker before kickoff, and his family members took part in the coin flip.

The rest of the game was Kafkaesque in its disappointment.

How do you come up with leads like that?

A. I wish I knew because then I could figure out how to do it more often. The fun of writing is when you surprise yourself like that and it just comes.

Anything that makes the story more fun – if you can grab someone’s attention immediately – it just helps. There’s so much out there with the Internet and blogs and message board. You have to catch readers early because they read the headlines and the lead and they move on.

(SMG thanks Randall Mell for his cooperation)

The first place for investigative reporting in the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) annual national contest was for 1995. I co-wrote with Dave Hyde. I was the University of Miami beat writer, he was our columnist. The story detailed the drug-testing failures at UM that led to Warren Sapp playing in the Orange Bowl despite failing four drug tests at Miami.

The first place for investigating reporting in the Florida Sportswriters Contest was for 1993. The story was about how former UM players Bennie Blades, Brian Blades, Michael Irvin and others received thousands of dollars in secret cash payments from agent Mel Levine while playing for the Hurricanes in the late ’80s. Bennie said he received between $30,000 and $40,000 from a student runner who worked for Levine.

One of my qualities as writer is my empathy – works for and against me – I thin kof mysaelf as empathetic person – tend to sympathize with peropls struggles and I tend to relate to it – so playing that course did help me

Concneetionc betweent he game and writing?

We don’t have a caddy although you could call a good copy e3ditor a caddy.

Randall Mell excerpted from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, September 15, 2006:

“Kafka’s the quarterback.

That’s Mike, not Franz, but the famed novelist might have been moved by the depressing turn Northwestern’s football program has taken.

The Wildcats joined the growing ranks of Division I-A teams that have been stunned by I-AA underdogs this year.

Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka and his teammates know the existential angst the famed Czech writer once so skillfully explored.

The Wildcats’ 34-17 loss to New Hampshire came with NU fans there to see their first home game since coach Randy Walker’s death from a heart attack last summer. There was moment of silence in memory of Walker before kickoff, and his family members took part in the coin flip.

The rest of the game was Kafkaesque in its disappointment.”

How did you come up with that?

Do you need to play it to cover it?

I don’t t hink you have to. It helps. But you don’t have to. There are good writers hwho can cover anytying. The realy good stories arounet about why a 5 iroin isntinead of 6. its other things I said. Whats a guy overcoimgin what he got. What has shaped hinm to be a hcmaoion or prevented him from being achampion.

Does the game make golfers better interviews?

Not necessarily. Depoendson the person. Sprot has diferenct culture than other spots. Not as combative or adversarial. Smaller world – areent as many beat wrproters they have daily contact with. More intimate surrounding. Golf writers get criticized because maybe therye nota s ahrd onwriters or as comb ative or adeversarial – may be some truth to that but not sw scale – you have john Hawkins, len Shapiro, ed Sherman, jim mccabe, guys who ask tough qutonns and wouls tghrive in any sport – doug ferguson – yet it clearly isn’t as combative – you can uderstand wh other writers think that – nature o f game is jusat different – notion that golf is gnentleman’s game – you have ot police yourself its more honorable – I think that is true – it does shape cutlreu of sprot – but wherever lot of money at satake and people com itnenslty – always dark sid eof human nature at work and some corruption –

Watchdog function in golf?

Yes. Defitniely. I wote a story at doral last year, ford champonship, ford the sponsor was trying to get the top players back to doral – it had lost some of its luster – started a modnay corporate outing invited Sergio, veejay, reteif, padraig Harrington, they all were paid six figure sums – but it didn’t technically violate pga tour rules- but wneet into gray area very much a backdoor appearance fee – not surprised ot have appearnac efees – but this served as one – other players were upset aout it – tour changed ruels ecausea of story – now tour reviews all corp outings held by sponsors –

But you don’t have corruption you might have in other sprots – still issues that need to be watched

Drug stesting?

Tiger has psoeken up about that – what he says hasimpact –

How myuch of beat revoleves around tiger?

Intterstsing aspect of it. Epopele cant get n3eough tiger in new sroom and people who are sick of tieger. I see that I nmy e-mails all the time. Why r eyou writing aobu thim again. Everything now revoels around tigert , tour champoisnhip this week controversy tiger backed out, phil had backed out –

Tiger is magnficient player – majestic swing – but as personatlity he is just dull and boring and not interesting at all – rarely does he have natying to say in news conf that is worth quting – he doesthat purposefully – very smart – he’s managing himself as a player and corp entity too – he markets himself – partowho he is – but it makes it kind of boring ot covcer him as personalty – he ends up giving you so much copy as domiant player – I thin kasha gets odler toward end ofcareer I’;l be curous to saee if he opens up and beomces leader of opinion – jack nicklaus is one of great interview in sport now – so opnionated – you cangget 8 9 stories out of interview – tiger you satruggle to get aq uote – maybe he oepened up a ltitle morethis year – he is getin gbetter I shouldn’t be as harsh – he had stsr opinon about drug testing changing shroterning the saeason – but overall he’s guard

How much for local gofflers?

Hardest part is covering local golf. Almost hneed antoher repoerter. I don’t do enough of it. I try to go to locals. We have morgan pressl – form boac raton – she dominates my coverage on local satuff. I et most complaints aobut that why didn’t you cover mys on – difficult – a reality

Three kids. Satepson 20, 7 and 9.

Married.

Bron, Madison, 1958.

Favorite restaurant home: 15^th Street Fisaheries, Ft. Lauderdale “you can dress informally but you get elegant treaament overlooking inter-coastal great food decent prices – they treat you like yourre wearing at tux”

Favorite restaurant road: crab catcher, la joya, at top of cliff, spec view, great crabs

Favorite hotel: Marriott sawgrass. Sererne setting overlooking great holes TPC.

Media days playing the course?

Some events. Guaust has famous lottery, I got picked the firstyear. 24 people out of 300 or 400. enraged columnist he had been there 10 years and never picked, mike mayo, he just glared at me.

What was it like?

Spectacular fun an dintimdating. Never played on fairways that were m owed so tightly. I skulled hosts and hit shots heavy. Kind of intimdating to play. 108. you had to ask. Funny becausae caddy – you hire caddie s- I said whatsyou name – he said 19 – how you dget that- my mama had 19 kids and she just ran out of name

You need a caddy there – everyone talks about greesn – how fast – optical lilusion I had 8 foot put he tells me thre foot break – I[m thinking gltitle break – sure enough he was right – ball veer saway – course knowledge so oimportant

Gives you appreicaiton of just how hard it is – doenst stop us on deadline from writing that someone chokes

ARCIA’S TREE TAKES A BEATING

By Randall Mell Staff Writer

1257 words

17 August 2006

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Broward Metro

8C

English

Copyright 2006, South Florida Sun-Sentinel. All Rights Reserved.

MEDINAH, ILL.

They call it Sergio Garcia’s tree around here.

The towering red oak under which Garcia hit that remarkable recovery shot in pursuit of Tiger Woods in the final round of the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah’s No. 3 Course has changed a lot.

Garcia noticed that when he couldn’t resist the urge to return to the foot of the tree in a practice round Tuesday for the 88th PGA Championship.

Countless members and guests over the past seven years haven’t been able to resist the urge to try the shot themselves, and they’ve scarred the base of the tree in bids to duplicate Garcia’s magic.

“They’ve had to overseed that little spot because everybody’s been hitting from it,” Garcia said.

At 19, Garcia was a shot behind Woods in the final round when he pushed his tee shot behind that oak tree. In a precarious spot inches behind the tree and 189 yards from the hole, he took a wild slash, closing his eyes for fear the ball would ricochet back at him. His shot ran up onto the green, stopping 35 feet from the hole.

Unable to see the ball on the elevated green, Garcia bolted up the fairway like a boy leaving school, doing a scissors kick to see where the shot landed. He just missed making birdie.

METAMORPHOSIS I-AA SCHOOLS ARE CUTTING I-A FOES DOWN TO SIZE. WHAT IN THE NAME OF KAFKA IS GOING ON?

By Staff Writer Randall Mell Information from other beat writers, wire services and other news organizations was used in compiling these reports.

1615 words

15 September 2006

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

.

Kafka’s the quarterback.

That’s Mike, not Franz, but the famed novelist might have been moved by the depressing turn Northwestern’s football program has taken.

The Wildcats joined the growing ranks of Division I-A teams that have been stunned by I-AA underdogs this year.

Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka and his teammates know the existential angst the famed Czech writer once so skillfully explored.

The Wildcats’ 34-17 loss to New Hampshire came with NU fans there to see their first home game since coach Randy Walker’s death from a heart attack last summer. There was moment of silence in memory of Walker before kickoff, and his family members took part in the coin flip.

The rest of the game was Kafkaesque in its disappointment.

An Interview with Jason McIntyre

“From 6 a.m. I hit the ground running – I go through the New York Times, LA Times, Miami Herald, USA Today, a lot of the big papers. I’ll sift through 50 to 100 e-mails from bloggers and readers, who send me stories from important papers or a neat story from Saskatchewan or a crazy story from Australia or a story about Mike Tyson doing something nutty in Cannes. E-mails drive the website and they continue throughout the day. Then I go to the entertainment sites to see what athlete hooked up with some celebrity last night. I peruse the political sites – I poke around the Internet basically – I know it can be an evil place but there’s just so much information. … I don’t want to give away my secret places – I’ll go to some of the more prominent college sports message boards – as much as people laugh at those sites there are nuggets to be learned. Then I’ll eat breakfast and prepare the posts. The next thing you know it’s 8 or 9 o’clock…”

Jason McIntyre: Interviewed on June 12, 2008

Position: co-creator, writer and editor, The Big Lead

Born: 1977, Queens, NY

Education: James Madison, 2000, BS

Career: The Herald News (NJ) 2000 -01, Bergen Record 2001-04, Star Magazine 04-05, US Weekly 05-07, The Big Lead 2006 –

Personal: married

Favorite restaurant (home): ”Curry in a Hurry”, New York; Woo Lae Oak, New York “great for dining with a large group of friends

Favorite restaurant (away): Madame Janette’s, Aruba

Favorite hotel: Grand Mayan Acapulco, “a hot tub on our deck”

Posted by The Big Lead, June 10, 2008, 9:57 a.m.:

In our frequent discussions with sports journalists, without question, they seem most embarrassed by Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times. He’s viewed by many as a coward who takes joy in lobbing knee-jerk grenades
throughout Chicago, but refuses to face those he disparages in print. At least every other week we get an email about how Mariotti sits isolated from other journalists at major sporting events, and wears a perpetual scowl as he forms his incendiary columns. Some view him as a glorified blogger – a strictly opinion-based Negative Nancy who has the access to ask pointed questions, but never does because he’s allergic to locker rooms. He might as well opine from his sofa.

According to Teddy Greenstein of the rival Tribune
, writers at Mariotti’s paper – in particular, columnist Rick Telander – seem to be disgusted by Mariotti’s hack tactics. Back in 2003, Telander and Mariotti nearly went to blows in the Wrigley Field press box
, and last week, a similar incident played out in the offices of the Sun-Times “after [the paper’s] editors refused to run columns Telander filed for the Wednesday and Friday papers.” Telander was reacting to yet another idiotic Mariotti column, but was censored.

Why the paper’s editors continue to protect one of the biggest jokes in sports journalism is beyond us. Does anyone else think that maybe Around the Horn would become watchable if Mariotti were no longer on the show
? We’ve had many folks ask us to interview Mariotti, since it’s wrong for us to go after him without giving him a chance to respond. But he won’t do it. If a guy won’t face athletes, why do you think he’d face a big, bad, blogger?

Q. You wrote that you were amazed at the “venom” directed at your blog. Who and why?

A. I guess on the Internet it’s a lot easier to hate something and not like it and be mean than is to enjoy something or say it’s great. Buzz Bissinger – you saw his HBO rant – and a lot of people have echoed that and said the Internet is mean and nasty and vile. To some extent that’s true. A prominent member of the media said to me once – he had seen some of the heat blogs were taking – and he said ‘Jason, some of these journalists who hate blogs are just mad that you and other blogs are pissing on their hydrant – they don’t like somebody else coming into their territory’. I didn’t see it as that – I saw it as just offering our thoughts on sports – guys with opinions.

Let me ask you, when you dislike something do you normally go out and slam it or do you avoid it?

Q. Avoid.

A. Yeah. Jay Mariotti – every week he writes something mean and off the wall and knee-jerk and somebody will send it to me. If you know that, why bother to read the guy? Why get all worked up about Jay Mariotti or Scoop Jackson – why not ignore them?

Q. Emily Gould recently wrote in New York Times Sunday Magazine about her addiction to personal blogging. Why don’t you reveal much of yourself in your blog?

A. I’m not the story. I’m just a guy with a blog. I don’t think people care that much about me. There have been times when I reveal some things but the blog’s never been about me. I wanted to create a brand that could resonate – The Big Lead. I don’t want people thinking Jason McIntyre, so when somebody else takes over it will be a seamless transition. One reason I don’t use the word I is that people would think of an online journal – I don’t want it to read like a high school journal.

I have zero aspirations of that. Maybe you’ll see a couple of posts about my experiences in the celebrity world, or about the time Albert Pujols brushed me off.

Q. What happened?

A. I was with the Bergen Record. They threw me a bone and I went to a Mets game. I’m a young aggressive writer and I bumped into Pujols and Renteria in the bowels of the stadium – it was just me and those two guys, who were sitting there. I started to talk – they looked at me and at each other and pretended like I wasn’t there.

I covered the baseball All-Star Game. You ask Derek Jeter a question and he tunes you out like you don’t exist. Seeing that, I would almost rather be a blogger than put up with that every day.

Q. Why did you give up anonymity?

A. I had been writing the blog as a hobby for two years and I had turned down some media interviews – one with NPR – after the Colin Cowherd thing – and a bunch of middle-of-the-pack newspapers came after me. But they couldn’t mention my name, which was a deal breaker, and that kind of stunk. It came to the point where some people said being anonymous held back the website. I had quit my job and we were preparing to move out of the area. SI asked me and I said all right.

Q. Why were you anonymous in the first place?

A. I had a job – I was doing this as a hobby after hours with a friend and had gained a following. I had read stories about people getting canned for having a blog and I didn’t want to take a chance. I wasn’t making any money off of it – it was a fun after-hours thing, a way to unwind.

Q. Who is intern Bill and why do you need him?

A. He’s a guy who is a fan of the website and blogs and sports – one of these guys who sits at his desk at work and surfs the web and newspapers and obscure websites and must send me 20 links a day. I said ‘this guy is too good and too passionate to just be sending me links – let’s get him on as an intern’. I’m giving the fan a voice. A lot of people want to start a blog but figure ‘who’s going to read it?’. So I’m giving sports fans a chance to get their message out to a broader audience. Obviously some can write and some can’t and I have to edit them. But it’s an opportunity to let their voices be heard and it’s good to get a different perspective. Who wants to read 12 or 15 posts a day from one guy?

Q. How many posts do you write?

A. It varies. The most we’ve done in one day is 18 or 19. Neil Best at Newsday sets the blog crossbar pretty high with 25 or 30 posts on his record days. It depends on the news and it depends on my life. Do I have to take my wife to the airport? Do I have to take in the car for an oil change? These things cut into the amount of posts. I would say it runs from six to 12 to 15.

Q. Describe your typical workday?

A. I set the alarm for 5:58 a.m. and I wake up to the Howard Stern Show – which is sad but I have to be honest. That’s on in the background. From 6 a.m. I hit the ground running – I go through the New York Times, LA Times, Miami Herald, USA Today, a lot of the big papers. I’ll sift through 50 to 100 e-mails from bloggers and readers, who send me stories from important papers or a neat story from Saskatchewan or a crazy story from Australia or a story about Mike Tyson doing something nutty in Cannes. E-mails drive the website and they continue throughout the day.

Then I go to the entertainment sites to see what athlete hooked up with some celebrity last night. I peruse the political sites – I poke around the Internet basically – I know it can be an evil place but there’s just so much information. I’ll go the Mac Rumors site and veer off and do non-sports. I’ve been following real estate for a while. I don’t want to give away my secret places – I’ll go to some of the more prominent college sports message boards – as much as people laugh at those sites there are nuggets to be learned.

Then I’ll eat breakfast and prepare the posts. The next thing you know it’s 8 or 9 o’clock. Basically you are at your computer from 6 onward – you break for breakfast and go for a run – and most of the traffic picks up around 9 in the east and by 10 in most of the rest of the country. I’ve got on ‘Mike and Mike in the Morning’ – muted because those guys are awful but they have some headlines. They had Schilling taking shots at Kobe – I went to the Globe for that and typed up a post. After that show I watch some morning shows – you can’t watch sports all the time. If you consume sports that many hours a day you’ll kill yourself. I can’t stomach that – I need diversity. I need to get on my personal accounts, like Facebook, and maybe I’ll go out to lunch. The great thing is that you can post-date items – by 9 I might have items post-dated until 1 – it’s like being on autopilot for a few hours. I can run errands and go out to lunch. Then in the afternoon I’ll get a couple of posts ready and I try to sign off by 4 o’clock.

This week I happened to check an e-mail – it was about Tyler Hansbrough partying with a UNC cheerleader – so I instantly jumped back on and jammed the post in. One of the problems is that you never know when these things will come in – you’re constantly checking your e-mail. Every once in a while we want to bring the readers original stuff.

After dinner I hop on the computer and start to prepare the shells for posting the next day – that’s the formatting. That’s usually a good 45 minutes. Then I’ll turn on the NBA finals – if I don’t watch the game what can I say about the game the next day? We went away Memorial Day weekend and I missed three games. I said ‘I missed three games but from what I’ve read…’ – that’s how I had to phrase it.

I can’t be everywhere and I can’t be totally tied to the website – I can’t let it consume my life. I’m still going to go on vacations and have fun. I went to the Grand Canyon in February – my wife let me bring my computer. We got off the plane and in the airport I saw that Shaq got traded. You’re kidding me. At the hotel we were dressing to meet some people but I had to get on the computer and formulate some quick thoughts on the trade. That’s how on top of the website I am.

The toughest time for me was when I got married and we went on our honeymoon to Hawaii for two weeks. I obviously wasn’t allowed to bring a computer to that for two weeks, and I didn’t bring a phone either. Faced with that option I said I won’t watch sports. It should be noted that I made sure my wedding day did not coincide with the NFL draft.

A friend of mine got married in 2003 on the day Pedro and Zimmer got into that fight. There was some down time between the ceremony and reception and I went back to my room and saw it. What do you think everybody was talking about at the reception? I told my wife ‘let’s get our vacations out of the way now, or just wait until December when the NFL season is over’.

Q. Do you break news?

A. Depends on what you call news. Is that Tyler Hansbrough thing news? Is my interview with Tony Kornheiser news? We had an item about Hannah Storm’s new partner – is that technically news? In the world of sports media I guess you could qualify it as news.

Q. Why your interest in sports media as opposed to sports?

A. Take Mike Wilbon. He’s on PTI, NBA Live, and other stuff, and he’s more known than 50 percent of the players in the NFL. You can’t name a starter on the San Diego Chargers offensive line but you know Mike Wilbon – that’s the case with most sports fans. These guys have gone from being behind a byline to being on TV every day – every sports fan watches these shows and knows the writers – whether they want to or not they have become celebrities – when you see Mike Wilbon and J.A. Adande walking down the red carpet at the Super Bowl party. Rick Reilly is getting paid more than 98 percent of the players in MLS, and maybe more than 80 percent of the NHL players – he got a four year deal at $17 million – isn’t that more than the NBA minimum? It’s not just money but fame and notoriety, and not in a negative way.

Q. How big is your staff, including stringers and contributors?

A. I’m always trying to build to take the pressure off of them. There are great writers out there – the soccer guy who contributes is good – he’s going to get snatched up by a larger entity. I like the idea of new voices – ideally I’ll have four different voices on any given day. Anybody likes to think their voice is the greatest but people can take only so much from one guy. I don’t have an opinion on hockey – I can’t pretend to follow every team in every league. I’ve got a guy who writes hockey who is a free lancer for newspapers. I don’t know about the NFL but hopefully I’ll find someone. I’ve got a free lancer who breathes college football. Somebody is always pitching ideas – it helps to have different eyeballs everywhere to expand this site. One thing we try not to do is have items that are on the front page of SI and ESPN. That stuff is already out there. You try to go for obscure and random stories that people might not have seen.

Q. Is there a major league of sports blogs?

A. Probably not. If you look at size and traffic there’s probably some separation but that’s based on who’s been around the longest. You’re not going to jump in overnight and have 8 million readers.

Q. Do you read all the commenters?

A No. I would get nothing done if I read all the commenters. Some posts have 250 comments and I don’t read 10. If somebody is going in the comment section with something that is unruly somebody will e-mail me to check it out. People get hold of me if things get out of hand on the comments…we’ve tried to clean things up. People are going to curse – that’s fine – but we’re trying to do away with personal attacks or the racist and sexist stuff. Some people come on and try to start shit with other people – there’s no place for that – it doesn’t add value.

Q. Do you do your interviews by e-mail or phone?

A. Kornheiser was over the phone – he doesn’t do e-mail. I prefer e-mail.

I started doing it by e-mail because I was anonymous at the time and didn’t feel like I could call a major journalist like TJ Simer. Why would he take the time to talk to an anonymous blogger. I started out by e-mailing eight or ten questions.

People are more comfortable with e-mail because they know they won’t be misquoted. They can be far more eloquent explaining themselves in e-mail. Some people aren’t wordy but they might be wordsmiths on e-mail. I much prefer doing e-mail interviews. That was a sticking point with Richard Dietch (SI). He said no.

Q. How do you know if you’ve had a good day?

A. Good question. (long pause) Can we come back to this?

Q. What’s the latest on the blog wars – who is attacking who?

A. I try not to get caught up in that stuff. Which is weird, because I report on the media and that Jay Mariotti and Rick Telander hate each other, and Norman Chad and Tony Kornheiser had a beef. I feel like the folks in mainstream media would like that to happen – right now they feel it’s eight thousand bloggers against ESPN – but I don’t know that it’s necessarily like that. Certainly there are some people out there who don’t like my blog or don’t like me but I don’t know that there’s a blog war going on. Certainly there are bloggers who don’t like other bloggers – that’s just the nature of the beast.

Q. Why don’t blogs scrutinize other blogs the way they do mainstream media?

A. One reason is that a lot of bloggers are doing it as a hobby. Are you supposed to come after a guy blogging in his spare time as a hobby? A lot of the guys don’t have a ton of readership or writing experience. Are you going to hammer some guy who has 50 people coming to his website and destroy him – that’s kind of mean. There’s no intent to take anybody down. Some writers have the potential to have impact – they’re speaking to large audiences and sometimes people take umbrage and disagree with some of their stances. There’s no intent on my behalf to destroy anyone or be super mean to anybody

I get tons of e-mail every day with stuff being very harsh on athletes and people have said you gotta be careful what you write. If you link someone to something that is unconfirmed the blood is on your hands. I have to be cautious on what I read and link.

Q. You screen sources?

A. When we started we got crazy tips and ran with them because there were not a lot of people looking at us. As we’ve grown and earned respect we’ve had to clean up our act considerably.

Q. Posts you regret?

A. Yeah. Matt Leinart. It was off base and wrong. We took it down but it should have never gone up.

Q. Most mainstream sports media now have blogs? Are they co-opting the territory staked out by independent sports blogs?

A. Interesting topic. I recently talked to a newspaper that is doing a story about this exact topic. A Miami Herald writer (Armando Salguero) wrote a blog post on his Miami Herald site as if he were a blogger with no accountability – he used some choice language and the ombudsman wrote him up – you can ‘t do that and you can’t write like that. When people write for a blog the idea is that I can be free and loosey-goosey. Well, you can’t do that with a newspaper – yet. But there are plenty of good newspaper blogs, such as Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post, who get blogging now. It’s just an natural progression – eventually newspapers will hire bloggers or create their own on staff. I pitched one to my last paper in 2002 – a page 2 entertainment one-day-a-week thing. The newspaper shot it down and it became my blog.

Q. What’s the difference between Deadspin and Big Lead?

A One thing is that I started Big Lead and I also wear many hats since it’s mine and I’m not part of a larger company. I have to deal with everything, running it as a small business as opposed to being an employee, which is why I’m here from 6 to 5 every day. If something goes wrong with the server I call up and spend 30 minutes getting it fixed. I don’t have a marketing guy to reach out and lure advertisers. Luckily I have an understanding wife who is cool with me investing so much time in this.

I guess we veer more toward entertainment than they do, things like movies, stuff I think is fun that is not as serious and sportsy. They’ve been around much longer – Deadspin always will be the No. 1 sports blog. It’s in the Gawker family – the Gawker empire is phenomenal. I did a test sports blog for them in ‘02 or ‘03. I met with Nick Denton – he’s brilliant and he just gets it. They know what they want and they make it happen. I’m surprised there’s not more copycats.

Q. Any interest in replacing Will Leitch at Deadspin?

A. I don’t think they would put it to me.

Q. If they did?

A. I don’t think so. I’m having fun doing my little site here.

I’ve got an answer to how I know if I’ve had a good day.

Q. Go ahead.

A. I’ve had a good day If I’ve been fair to the people I’ve written about, be it athletes, journalists, coaches, other bloggers, whoever. If I’ve been fair and accurate I’ve had a good day.

Posted by The Big Lead, Sept. 20, 2007, 3:47 p.m.:

You’ll be seeing a lot more of Reggie Bush’s girlfriend, Kim Kardashian, this holiday season. Specifically, in the pages of Playboy
, according to Us Weekly. Mike Wilbon’s favorite piece of ass will be featured in 12 pages of magazine, making for a great stocking stuffer. As for Bush and Kardashian, a Chicago reader spotted Kardashian in the Windy City Friday, and according to our tipster’s dog’s, sister’s, boyfriend’s gerbil, Bush’s girlfriend jetted to Tampa to watch the Saints get hammered on Sunday. Perhaps she’ll be mugging for airtime in the Superdome this weekend?

(SMG thanks Jason McIntyre for his cooperation)

Posted: Wednesday March 12, 2008 5:32PM; Updated: Friday March 21, 2008 5:23PM

Jason McIntyre started The Big Lead in February 2006.

In the ever-evolving sports blogosphere, where truth and rumor-mongering collide daily and often on the same Web site, TheBigLead.com has found an unlikely ally: the mainstream sports writer. The site has gained traction among the sports media thanks to a near-daily dose of gossipy items about its practitioners and interviews
with some of the power hitters of sports journalism, all the while remaining anonymous to its readers and subjects.

Until now.

The person behind The Big Lead
is a 31-year-old former sportswriter who runs the Web site from his home in Brooklyn. He recently left his job as an assistant news editor at US Weekly and has been working full time on The Big Lead since January. That month, according to Google Analytics, TheBigLead.com had 2.07 million page views and 429,949 unique visitors. “At the blog’s best, it would strive to be The Colbert Report meets Drudge Report,” says Jason McIntyre, the co-creator and principal writer and editor of The Big Lead.

McIntyre decided to reveal his identity following a number of conversations with me. “It never really crossed my mind until now,” he says. “I had opportunities. NPR asked me to come on, and I’ve done some interviews anonymously.”

His decision to go public comes five weeks after the writers of another popular anonymous sports site — the entertaining and snarky FireJoeMorgan.com
— came out of the blogging closet to their readers. “The arguments against anonymity were overwhelming,” says Michael Schur, one of FJM’s founders and a writer and producer for NBC’s The Office.

“The arguments for, at the time we started the blog, were simple: We didn’t want people conflating our professional lives with our blogger lives. But once the site gained a substantial readership, and given its content, it became clear to us that it was more important to stand publicly behind what we write. The accused have a right to face their accusers, should they care to. The only reason we didn’t do it earlier was laziness.”

Should sites such as The Big Lead put a face or byline behind their opinions and reporting? It’s a question that will continue to percolate as more sports bloggers extend into reportage. “When you get into the business of gathering information and reporting news, I’d like to see someone accountable with a byline,” says Yahoo! Sports columnist Adrian Wojnarowski. “If it’s just a site or a blogger throwing out general sports opinions and jokes and whatever it is they do on their own private site, then who really cares? That said, if bloggers are gaining access as contributors to serious mainstream sports journalism sites, the rules should change. It’s no longer the free-for-all of posting that they had in cyberspace. They’re going to be a reflection on the sites they’re writing for. If they’re going to be reckless here, there are bigger consequences for everyone.”

Unlike the FJM crew, McIntyre has a background in sports journalism. He interned at the Greensboro News & Record after graduating from James Madison University in 2000 and then moved to New Jersey, where he held sportswriting jobs at the Herald News and Bergen Record. McIntyre freelanced for ESPN.com’s Page 3 and ESPN the Magazine and had a tryout for Gawker’s sports blog, the precursor to what is now Deadspin.com. He left the Bergen Record for Star magazine in 2004 and went to work at US Weekly in 2005 as a reporter. He has also freelanced for a number of papers, from The Boston Globe to Metro, a free daily newspaper published in New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

McIntyre updates the site 10 to 15 times a day, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., and usually answers upward of 75 e-mails daily. He has aggressively courted media members as sources. He says writers forward him stories — often their own — on a daily basis. “I think they e-mail us because we are fair,” he says. “We call it like we see it.”

Why would a major sports columnist agree to an interview with an anonymous sports blogger such as The Big Lead? The New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro said he spoke with the site because he thought it might be helpful for anyone who wanted to work for a New York tabloid. “I read, and had read, TBL occasionally, and it always struck me as relatively harmless at worst and kind of funny at best,” Vaccaro says. “After a few e-mail exchanges, I was fairly certain they were trustworthy, and they proved to be.”

Added Wojnarowski, who also agreed to an interview
: “I spend most of my days interviewing people for columns and stories, so I’ve always felt that the least I can do is honor the request of someone who asks that of me.”

Unlike traditional media outlets, The Big Lead has no written code of ethics. McIntyre says he and the site’s co-founder, David Lessa, a friend from college, have often debated adding one to the site. Does McIntyre consider himself a journalist? Is The Big Lead journalism? “I looked up the definition of journalism and it said something like the occupation of writing, reporting and editing,” he says. “So in the broader sense, in its traditional sense, I would say, yes, The Big Lead is journalism. We have some original reporting and other times we will just riff on a sporting event or a news story. But in the sense we don’t have anyone looking over our shoulders — we don’t have any editors and there is no one to answer to — that is not traditional journalism. Sports Illustrated has standards where you will have to vet a story with two or three sources. We don’t have that, and blogs don’t have that.”

BL was born quietly in February 2006 as a long e-mail chain between three college friends. It soon morphed into a blog with a core of 200 readers, mostly friends and family. McIntyre would post before and after work, and Lessa, a 31-year-old from Annandale, Va., who sells software to the government, would fill in during the day. (Lessa still handles the site’s technical side.) That August, McIntyre read a column from the syndicated columnist and ESPN poker commentator Norman Chad. “I had read him religiously in the Washington Post when I was growing up,” McIntyre says. “So I decided to e-mail him. I wrote, ‘Hey, we’re a blog. Nobody knows who we are, but can I send you some questions?’ He said sure. I was like, wow, that’s surprising. We sent him some questions, and he answered them.”

McIntyre and Lessa posted the interview
. The feedback was strong. Over the next three weeks they went hunting for other well-known sports media members. Bill Sheft
, then the humorist at Sports Illustrated, Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers
, and Chris Jones
of Esquire all agreed to interviews. “At this point we realized the more we wrote about the media, the more the media would pay attention,” McIntyre says. “They liked reading about their colleagues and their peers.” Readers e-mailed suggestions for other sports journalists. One name stood out: Jason Whitlock. “Overwhelmingly, our readers wanted Whitlock,” McIntyre says. “He was writing for ESPN.com’s Page 2 and appeared on The Sports Reporters. But I thought he would be a long shot.”

Not so. The provocative columnist, a multimedia player in the sportswriting world, held nothing back in an interview posted on Sept. 22, 2006. Whitlock trashed his then ESPN colleagues
Scoop Jackson and Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, a regular on The Sports Reporters. The interview was picked up in USA Today and the New York Post, among others publications. ESPN quickly announced that Whitlock was persona non grata on its airwaves, saying his personal attacks went too far. Whitlock responded with a column critical of ESPN’s inability to tolerate criticism. (The network says Whitlock had quit his dot-com job with ESPN prior to his interview with The Big Lead.)

“Doing the interview was no big deal,” Whitlock says. “Norman Chad and T.J. Simers had already done interviews with the site. I never gave it much thought in terms of responding to their e-mails.” Whitlock says the site’s anonymity was not an issue for him. “I felt like it would be difficult to misquote or fabricate what was written in an e-mail,” he said. “I had a record of what was said and they had a record. Hard to screw that up.”

If the Whitlock interview caused a small ripple in the sports blogosphere, ESPN Radio host Colin Cowherd created a tsunami. Last April, while hosting his national radio show, Cowherd urged his listeners to flood the Web site, an act that is commonly known in the 2.0 world as a denial-of-service attack. The added traffic was too much for The Big Lead’s server, and the site was forced offline for a couple of days.

“At the time I didn’t know much about The Big Lead,” Cowherd says. “I remember at one point just laughing and saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could just blow up a Web site?’ How did I know in four seconds that I would knock it down for a weekend?”

Cowherd’s act put The Big Lead on the map. ESPN’s ombudsman forcefully wrote that suspensions
should occur for Cowherd-like acts in the future. NPR, Slate, USA Today and a host of other publications discussed the attack. It made TBL a sympathetic figure in the sports blogosphere — which covered it like D-Day — especially among those with an anti-ESPN bias. “I’m sure he felt like Mike Tyson knocking out a tomato can, but it didn’t take that much to knock us offline,” McIntyre says.

Not so, says Cowherd. “I’ve been on the air for more than a decade in radio, and the only thing I’ve ever regretted in my life is The Big Lead thing,” he says. “My dad was a small-business owner, and I would never in a million years inhibit a small-business owner’s ability to operate. It was very off-the-cuff. … I regret it. I felt terrible about it.”

In a next-gen twist of irony, Cowherd says he hears from sports blogs more than ever these days. “I have had hundreds of bloggers e-mail me and say, ‘Please blow up our site!'” he says. “Literally, it is a running joke on the show.”

Asked if he targets ESPN because of Cowherd’s attack or because ESPN the Magazine did not offer him a job when he interviewed there a couple of years ago, McIntyre says, “We don’t intentionally target anyone. … We are sitting here objectively covering the sports media.”

The Big Lead generates a small amount of income from ads on the site; McIntyre’s wife also works full time. Like many Web sites that traffic partly in gossip, The Big Lead’s information is not always correct. It has shown questionable judgement on occasion by linking to items based on suspect information at best. McIntyre says his biggest regret was running what he termed an “insensitive” and “irresponsible” post regarding Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart and fatherhood. He says he took it off the site after 45 minutes.

It’s unclear how going public will affect McIntyre. He is actively seeking work as a freelance writer and is now able to channel his energies full time into The Big Lead. The site’s interviews keep coming, including a Q&A last week
with New York Times reporter Karen Crouse. McIntyre says that he hears biweekly from sportswriters asking to be Q&A subjects. (Last year TBL approached me to do an interview; I politely declined.) “We’ll still do obscure stories and wonder aloud why USA Today gives a full-page feature to Doug Gottlieb,” he says, referring to the ESPN college basketball analyst. “We’re going to try to solve blind-item riddles in columns. Nothing is going to change.”

Or everything will change. There is now a face and a name behind the items. The problem with losing your anonymity, as the wise philosopher Marla Maples once noted, is that you can never go back. “I wish TBL would make his name known because ultimately, a site is only as credible as the credibility its readers ascribe to it, and over time I think it’ll be hard to sustain that,” Vaccaro said.

“And it’s not just so we can know whom to rip when something bad happens on TBL. I would suspect it’s a lot of work maintaining a site like that; you would think someone would want some kind of recognition for those labors. Wouldn’t you?”

EMOGRAPHICS

(source: Internal Survey Data)

Age

Under 18 4%

19-25 28%

26-34 45%

35-44 20%

45+ 3%

Gender

Male 90%

Female 10%

Education

High School Education 1%

College Education 84%

Post-Graduate Degree 15%

An Interview with Pete McEntegart

“I don’t have training as a comedy writer but I have trained myself a bit. Even when I was younger, before J school, I was writing Seinfeld scripts on my own…and I’ve dabbled with stand-up in the last few years. I’m not a professional like Bill Scheft. I’m not a comedy writer in sports – I’m more a sportswriter doing comedy.”

“I share an office with two other writers, but they’re not there all that often. I’m sure I could write from home if I wanted to…I like to go into the office – otherwise I might not shower and dress. Also, to see people, since I don’t really do reporting anymore. I just read a lot of things and try to think of funny things to say. I’m very much in my own head – which is isolating. So I like to go to the office.”

Pete McEntegart: Interviewed on April 18, 2008

Position: senior writer of 10 Spot blog, SI.com

Born: 1969, Carle Place, Long Island

Education: Williams, 1991, B.A. (history), Columbia, 1996 MJ

Career: Goldman Sachs 91-94; Journal Messenger (Manassas, Va.) 1996- 97; Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, La.) 97-99, Sports Illustrated 2000-2004, si.com 2004 –

Personal: single.

Favorite restaurant (home): Molly Pitcher’s Ale House, Upper East Side, Manhattan “my neighborhood tavern”

Favorite hotel: Four Seasons, Houston. ‘I was in the oil and gas group with Goldman – that’s where we stayed”

Favorite restaurant (road): “I don’t travel enough to have one – they don’t send me anywhere anymore, which is a point of contention. If si.com would send me to a few places I’d have a few. When I took the position I said I’d like to go to major events. They said yes and it did in the beginning but now much less. I do think there is a benefit to being on the scene for a big event if it’s part of the national conversation.”

Pete McEntegart’s 10 Spot on ‘How to Write a 10 Spot’, an original post for Sports Media Guide, April 23, 2008:

1. Arrive at office by 8:15 a.m. Eat bowl of Fiber One cereal. Brain must be regular.

2. Roll through rotation of Web sites, printing out top stories. Create neat pile for false sense of accomplishment.

3. By 9:30, kick myself for not coming up with innovative idea for morning post last night. How about when I wrote a spoof of CBS announcers describing Tyler Hansbrough getting out of bed? (“It seemed he just willed his feet onto the ground. He simply was not going to be denied.”) I liked that one. Read it again to waste more time.

4. With specter of 10:30 morning meeting looming, it’s now or never. Pick best (or only) idea I have and run with it. Top 10 lists are always a nice choice. Write, edit, bold the names, hit “publish” by 10:29.

5. At morning meeting, learn what actual sports journalists are doing while I’ve been concocting list of Eli Manning wedding highlights. (“1. Intimate ceremony held in gap of Michael Strahan’s teeth.”)

6. Start monitoring comments from morning post. Jump into any conversational thread I find amusing. Watch out for double-entendres run amok. Wish I’d thought of many of the commenters’ lines. Make note to steal in future.

7. Eat lunch at desk. Pick up morning story-pile and begin to write “Lunchtime Laughs,” a list of jokes in old-fashioned form (factual set-up off the sports news plus made-up punch line) that’s basically extinct except for late-show monologues and the 10 Spot. Wonder anew whether there’s good argument for extinction. Try to post by 1:30-1:45 p.m. because the natives get restless, commenting on my tardiness. Tell them off.

8. If it’s a Caption This day (twice a week), tear myself away from the comments section to search for a photo that lends itself to funny captions. Double-check that it doesn’t lend itself too easily to obscene ones. Post.

9. That night at home, select and post about a dozen favorites among the reader-submitted captions. Stress once again that it’s not a competition and there are no winners, just “happy participants.” Soothe the feelings of those who still insist they “lost.”

10. Hop in and out of comments among “night crew.” Say good night and ask them not to trash the place while I’m gone. Wake up and repeat.

Q. Are you a sportswriter or a comedy writer?

A. I was a sportswriter. I worked at newspapers and at the magazine for a while. I don’t have training as a comedy writer but I have trained myself a bit. Even when I was younger, before J school, I was writing Seinfeld scripts on my own. I had an interest in comedy and I’ve dabbled with stand-up in the last few years. I’m not a professional like Bill Scheft. I’m not a comedy writer in sports – I’m more a sportswriter doing comedy.

Q. Do sportswriters have to be wise guys?

A. Lots of writers I enjoy have that in their arsenal and can get some laughs – there are some funny guys writing sports. Gary Smith doesn’t need to play for laughs – he should just be Gary Smith. Sport lends itself to comedy – one of the things I like about sports is that traditionally it’s been a refuge from the real world.

Q. How hard was it to do a 10 Spot on Pope Benedict?

A. That was pretty easy. The pope is guaranteed humor – I noticed a lot of the late night shows getting a lot out of his visit. His visit to New York has been huge news for weeks. I went to Catholic school and was raised on Pope-ology. Obviously you have to be careful when making light of religious topics.

Q. What is it about the Pope that tickles people?

A. Good question. I don’t know that he’s inherently funny. It’s a common topic. Even non-Catholics are aware of the rituals and that he has a giant hat. There’s a lot of history there. If you’re going to write topical humor to a mass audience you need to know that a fair amount of people will get the punch lines, even if it’s a non-sports topic, like the Spitzer scandal.

For what I do, the Pope coming to Yankee Stadium offers a lot of possibilities. You’ve got one of the great religious leaders and you put him in the context of baseball – it’s sort of a natural formula for humor – juxtaposing things that are different. Contrast is the basis of a lot of humor – not that I know that much about comedy theory.

Q. Isn’t comedy instinctive?

A. Yes and no. I took a class for comedy writing and I read books about it. There are no strict formulas, but there certainly are techniques. Monologue jokes often have a factual set-up before the punch line.

Q. Do you watch Letterman for ideas?

A. I don’t’ stay up that late anymore. I go to Sports Business Daily every day for a transcript of Letterman’s and Leno’s monologues. They do a fair amount on sports, which is good – I get to see how someone else takes a crack at it. They do things that are hard for me to do because they can use a non-sports set-up and then make fun of the Knicks with an easy punch line. I can’t do that. It’s cheating to use a non-sports set-up in my world. But I will have a sports set-up and use Elliot Spitzer as the punch line, or whoever is in the news.

Q. Describe your job.

A. Now that it’s a blog it’s different than it used to be. I have more interaction with readers who are on all day commenting. It’s a very different dynamic – one that I like. There’s more instant feedback – I’m not just beating my head against a desk trying to craft a joke that I send out and don’t hear much back on it. Whereas now any riff I write people come right back at it and I can come back with comments in real time.

In general I’m supposed to riff on the lighter side of sports and on people that deserve to be mocked. Certainly the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens types are manna to me. Our site has the news stories and people taking a more serious look at sports. Those things are important and have a place but 10 Spot is more for laughs.

Q. What is your workday like?

A. I used to file overnight when it was just 10 items per day and I posted once a day. For awhile I would write it overnight because sports happens at night and you want to reflect on everything that happened the night before. So I stayed up late but got up early to actually file it.

Since it’s become a blog I’ve gone to a regular Working Joe schedule. Monday through Friday I’m in the office at 8:15 and I try to get my first post up by 10:30, when there’s a meeting. Originally when we went to the blog format I thought I would stop the old-fashioned joke approach. But the audience rebelled and I decided I’m good at it and not a lot of other people do it. I started doing something at lunchtime called Lunchtime Laughs, which is up by 1:30. A few days a week we do a caption contest where we put up a picture and the readers write captions. Once a month we have a write-your-own-joke contest, where I give them set-ups from the news and let them write the punch lines.

As much as possible I try to get the readers to work so that I can coast on their coat tails.

Throughout the day I’m jumping in and out of comments while trying to write my next post. For material I read all the headlines and main stories of the day. I print out a bunch of stories as raw material and read through them and hope things click in my brain. It doesn’t always happen as timely as I would like – it’s catch as catch can. I sort of write out all the headlines and look them over and over until things occur to me. It’s not very scientific.

Q. Do you read other blogs?

A. People use ‘blog’ to mean so many things. I do read sites that are aggregators, like fark.com. Whether that’s a blog I don’t know. I just go to see every kind of whacky story they link to – that’s huge for me. Sports Business Daily is good. Even the minor stories, like a team having a promotion, can be funny. I need to see as much as I can.

I don’t read Deadspin anymore. I’m writing at the same time and I don’t want to see their riff on something before I do it. I look at The Big Lead in the morning – he does a bunch of links I’ll read. I don’t do too many bloggers per se – while I find them funny I just don’t have the time. I’m not going to read a 500-word riff on Kissing Suzy Kolber. I’m trying to come up with my own material.

Q. Who has time to read blogs?

A. Some people obviously are reading some of them. During the day while I’m writing I’m pretty much on the treadmill – I keep going to the main sites to see what is posted. From 8 to 12 I’m going all the time.

Q. Are you always on?

A. I work Monday to Friday basically. Now that it’s a blog I will jump in at other times. I didn’t expect this, but the readers are still there even when I’m not. I took a Friday off in February to visit my brother in California and they put up 1300 comments, talking to each other, wondering where I was. Somebody did a top 10 list of what I was doing in San Francisco. I’ll jump in sometimes on weekends. Our readership like most sports websites is mostly guys in offices. Business hours are our peak time – that’s when I’m at the controls. But I will jump in on some weekends and evenings.

Q. Do you gather material when you’re off?

A. To some extent. On weekends I try not to think about it. When it gets to Sunday I have to start thinking of how I am going to spin this or that. I’m not like some sportswriters who say the last thing they want to do when they’re off is watch sports. I still love sports – I watched the Masters and March Madness. In doing that I might see something I can make fun of on Monday. I don’t consider that work.

Q. Do you watch how many hits you get?

A. In the general sense, yes. There are times when I figure out how I can actually monitor it and then I get obsessed with checking in. Then they change the access and I go months without any idea. For awhile when I was on Fan Nation they had the number of views on top of each post and I looked at each one. Now it’s not and I’m just as happy. The hits are not really up to me. If they link me to a prominent post on the front page I get more hits regardless of what I write. It is what it is. If they put me on the front with photos f women in bikinis it gets a ton more hits.

Q. Does the number of comments indicate which posts are stronger?

A. Not really. At first they would be only so many comments. They didn’t have pagination in the comment section – you couldn’t jump from one page to the next. Once they changed that suddenly it was easier to post and read them all. Basically I have a loyal band of commenters. Some people are online all day posting, which is impressive unless you’re their employer. The first few pages will be on topic my post and they’ll add their own lines. If it’s a top 10 they’ll write 11, 12, and 13. The regulars know each other in a virtual sense. They might bring up their own topics or they might riff on posts from weeks ago. Ultimately the number of comments has to do with how interesting the conversation was on that post. It had less to do with the post itself. Commenting has a life of its own.

Q. Do you write from a couch in your office?

A. No. I share an office with two other writers, but they’re not there all that often. I’m sure I could write from home if I wanted to. Until I went to a blog I did half and half. I like to go into the office – otherwise I might not shower and dress. Also, to see people, since I don’t really do reporting anymore. I just read a lot of things and try to think of funny things to say. I’m very much in my own head – which is isolating. So I like to go to the office.

Beat writers are with their teams – they have sort of an office environment with other writers and athletes, and may not want to go to a regular office. This is it for me. If I just wrote from home every day – I’m single and live alone – I wouldn’t see anyone.

Q. Do bloggers feel isolated?

A. I would think they would. One reason I like the blog better is that even though I don’t really know these people I feel like I do because I deal with them so much. It’s nice to go back and forth. My job isn’t as isolating as it once was. Since I don’t cover events and do traditional reporting it’s nice to see humans.

Q. Is it journalism?

A. Well, I get paid. Probably not. It’s some sort of hybrid. It’s not what I learned at Columbia. It’s a living. Most days it’s a fairly entertaining way to make a living. When you come up with a funny joke it’s nice to get a few laughs. Then there’s the days when some poster decides to post something that crosses the line and you’re dealing with over-heated comments.

Q. Do you have interest in writing a traditional long form story?

A. If my goal job was to be a traditional columnist I think would play for laughs more often than not. Obviously there are some serious columns out there but that’s not what my bosses here want from me. Within the 10 Spot occasionally I will do some things that aren’t necessarily serious but might be a rant or reminiscence. I like to mix it up a bit.

Yes, I do have interest in doing other kinds of writing. But my experience is that it doesn’t fit that well in 10 Spot. Readers come there for laughs and conversation and a light tone – they don’t like it when I don’t do that. I guess I can look for things outside of the 10 Spot to do other sorts of writing. I’ve written magazine stories in the past. The 10 Spot is pretty much a full time job. I would be doing anything else on my time off. I’m trying to write a novel now – it’s a very different thing. I do occasionally write things for other parts of the site, but not often because 10 Spot wears me out.

Q. What’s your novel about?

A. It’s a sardonic thriller set on Wall Street.

Q. When will we see it?

A. I have to finish it and sell it. You don’t want to look like a chump and talk about it unless it happens.

Posted by Pete McEntegart, 10 Spot blog, si.com, April 15, 2008:

Pope Benedict XVI makes his first visit to the United States this week. One highlight of his trip will come Sunday when he celebrates mass for some 60,000 worshippers at Yankee Stadium. The Pontiff will also officiate a mass on Thursday at the Nationals’ new stadium, but since that isn’t happening in New York, it’s less important by definition. (OK, it’s really that Yankee Stadium lends itself to more wisecracks.)

Here’s what to look for when the Pope comes to the House That Ruth Built:

10. Crowd issues Bronx cheer when Pontiff admits love for Cardinals

9. Cheekily buries “Pope hat” in new stadium’s concrete

8. Absolves sin of trading away Jay Buhner

7. Hitches ride from bullpen to altar in Popemobile

6. Wiseacre removed after bellowing, “You’re no Benedict XV!”

5. Miraculously heals Carl Pavano

4. Delights crowd by multiplying hot dogs and buns

3. Draws wild cheers by declaring that it’s easier for Big Papi to go through the eye of a needle than for a Red Sock to enter into the kingdom of God

2. Communion wine jacked up to $8 a sip

1. Canonizes Derek Jeter– finally!

(SMG thanks Pete McEntegart for his cooperation)

 

Wendell Maxey Jr.: Interviewed on December 1, 2006

Position: New York-based NBA reporter, Basketball News Services; shipping/receiving manager, Pottery Barn

Born: 1974, Osmond, Nebraska

Education: Portland State, 2003, liberal studies, black studies

Career: shoe salesman, 1995; Nordstrom salesman, 96; used car salesman, 97; Pottery Barn 98 – ; Basketball News Services (Hoopsworld.com and Swish Magazine), 2004 –

Personal: married, one daughter (Piper, born November 27, 2006)

Favorite restaurant (home): Sushi a Go Go, Manhattan “never enough but always so good – being from Nebraska I’m a meat and potatoes type guy and sushi doesn’t fill me up – I have to order a lot”

Favorite restaurant (road): Baja Fresh, Portland, Oregon “Mexican fresh -missionary style – I crave it”

From the Basketball News Services website:

Basketball News Services is a full service basketball specific news resource. From first hand interviews and game reviews to back-end content and content services, Basketball News Services provides a full range of professional, collegiate and amateur news products to print, radio, interactive and television media outlets.

Q. You’re a new father – congratulations.

A. Thank you. It’s amazing how things look different – stepping outside even the sunset looked a little different last night.

Q. How does a kid from Osmond, Nebraska get to New York?

A. I’m the youngest of 11 kids. My family moved to Corvalis, Oregon in 1976 and my siblings began to head out on their own. When I was 16 my Dad lost his job and moved us back to Beemer, Nebraska, where my older brother was living and working. I went to high school in Beemer (population 600) and junior college in Norfolk for a year. In ‘95 I moved back out to Portland – where I met my future wife – and we moved to the city a couple of years ago.

Q. How did you get into this line of work?

A. My girlfriend suggested I go back to school – I didn’t want to but she made me – and I started taking classes at Portland State – as a history major before I switched to liberal studies with a minor in black studies. When I finished I didn’t know what I wanted – but I loved writing. I figured if I could do a 13-page history paper what could I do writing about something I was passionate about. Being a country boy from Nebraska sports is part of growing up – especially with 11 kids. I always loved basketball – but I really wanted to write baseball. I’m a diehard Sox fan – one of the first games I remember was Game Six of the 86 Series. I fell in love with the Sox out of sympathy. When we moved to New York in 2004 they had clinched against the Yankees – my wife was crying because we were leaving Portland and I was crying because the Sox were in the Series.

My first thought was writing for a website. I didn’t think I was equipped enough to look at papers. There’s a lot of websites out there – anybody is going to shoot the moon and go for espn.com – but realistically you have to look for smaller websites. First I got connected with collegehoopsnet.com after I sent them a couple of pieces and they liked what I had to say – I did something on Sebastian Telfair. Then I came across hoopsworld.com at Basketball News Services – that’s where I’ve been for the last two years.

I thought it might be a steppingstone to get me in the direction of a newspaper or magazine or quarterly publication – I lacked the knowledge of what they’re looking for from newspaper reporters – and I thought of it as a resume builder to get where I eventually wanted to go.

Q. What do you want to be doing?

A. I think I’ve found it – I’m really excited about where I’m at now – to see how the site has grown with Basketball News Services – putting out a quarterly magazine – and now its getting advertisers. It’s a growing company.

I’m like any writer – I want to write as much and as often as I can for whomever I wish. The beauty of being a writer or sportswriter is not punching the clock, per se, but just moving in that direction – which led me to Hoopsworld. I’ve been rewarded with being credentialed and covering the Knicks the last two seasons, and contributing to Swish Magazine.

Q. Your take on the regular Knicks reporters?

A. I get envious in the media room when I see Marc Berman of the Post or Frank Isola of the News – the beat writers. Maybe it’s like a lockerroom where you have a clique – they see each other more than they see their families – it’s a community. They’re at early shoot-around every day, on the beat, and here I come trying to get my feet wet.

My editor is telling me I have credentials for the Knicks and Nets – but what background do I have? How do I go about it – they don’t tell you – they pretty much throw you into the fire – which is great.

Experience may be the best way to learn rather than J-School – so I feel I have a leg up. But I look around and see guys who have been doing it for 10 years and I’m thinking I want to do that – for the long haul. To have the satisfaction of doing a job and loving it and swapping stories and schmoozing at the arena about away games – I miss out when they’re on the road.

When they’re at home I feel like I’m in there with the beat writers when they’re trying to make their deadline at 11:30. I write after the game – so they can see we’re working toward the same thing – I want to show them I’m not just writing for the website. I want to experience what they are – it’s a kind of osmosis – that’s why I write after the game – I could go home and write. I’m looking to go home to my wife, but when these guys are sitting there writing it’s just so motivating. I want to sit there and hear them sigh or mumble or drop an f-bomb about somebody and be in that element. That’s where the fuel for the passion comes – to be there and hear the keys going – it’s motivating.

Q. So you look at beat reporting as a desireable fraternity?

A. It’s always part of sports. Loving sports as much as I do you love the things that surround it – as a kid you watch the post-game coverage and see the guys in the lockeroom and you wonder how they got there.

Have you seen the trailer for Will Smith’s new film, “The Pursuit of Happyness”, where he says to the guy with the fancy car, “What do you do and how do you do it?” Same thing I think about these guys – watching them covering the games – I’d love to do that. I’d love to be at the arena and feel in the moment – like you’re part of it.

I’m not even in the first four rows. At the Garden sometimes they stick you up in Row 300 with Joe Public. When I covered the Nets and Heat last year in the playoffs I was seventh row baseline. I felt more a part of it.

Q. You have a day job?

A. Yes. I’m a shipping and receiving manager at Pottery Barn. Have been for nine years – 40 hours a week – 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. That’s my regular job.

It’s a company that is people first – they want you to have family outside of work – everybody has side jobs and things they’re aspiring to do. Some love the work. It involves lifting 400-pound dining tables and schlepping to get boxes out – it’s a grind. You have a lot of time to think about what it is you really want to do. Listening to customer is one thing but listening to your heart is more important.

Q. How much time do you spend covering basketball?

A. More than my wife wants me to – I get up at 5. We’re assigned teams to cover and do game coverage – I have the Knicks. Being from Portland I still do a team report on Portland on Saturday mornings and the Cleveland Cavaliers are assigned to me Monday and Thursday.

My first year I covered on a game-by-game basis and I established a relationship with the Knicks. I used the summer to work my tail off and write as much as possible and make contacts and I earned myself a credential for every home game. If the Knicks are at the Garden Monday, Wednesday and Saturday that’s an additional three stories. My editor also likes a one-on-one interview. We work on a daily deadline usually so I have to have something up seven times a week – maybe five or six if the Knicks are on a road trip – but never less than four. You really have to be hungry for it and work for it – that’s what I used the summer for.

Q. What’s a typical game like for you?

A. I might get to the Garden and do a pre-game interview – it might be an exclusive with Jamaal Crawford or Nate Robinson and I might put it up before the game. I always get there at 5:30 for the pre-game shoot-around and grab somebody coming off the court – they’re eager to get out but they’ll take five or six questions before heading to the lockerroom. I try not to run with the pack – if six guys are talking to Marbury I’ll go to David Lee in the corner – to get something unique or exclusive. We talk while they’re walking to the lockerroom.

Then I’m required to do a game-time story – setting the tone beforehand – or I might do it afterward and give the rundown. Do I need to write after the game? – no – but that’s the difference between Bob Ryan and the guy who left as soon as he got his audio and was out the door. One night I stayed late and a week later NBA TV contacted me and interviewed me before the Knicks-Rockets game – 10 minutes. I felt like it was a godsend – if I hadn’t stuck around to write that story they wouldn’t have asked me.

They wanted me to elaborate on Isaiah getting tossed. I took one year of broadcasting at a community college in Nebraska 10 years ago – I looked at what I did and picked it apart – I shouldn’t have said this and I rambled here and needed to be tighter there.

Q. When do you write at home?

A. Usually early in the morning – from 5 to 6. Then I work from 7 to 4, and on game nights I come home, shower – I want to look good and feel good – and get to the Garden by 5:30. On days I’m home I’m researching and constantly checking my e-mail – I feel I have to continually write because you’re only as good as your next story. Why wait for a deadline – there’s so much to write about – especially here.

I’m good with four or five hours of sleep – I don’t know if it’s been God’s way of saying you’ve got a baby coming – but it’s worked for me.

Q. You get by on four to five hours of sleep?

A. I have to. And I want to. I pray about it all the time and that definitely helps. My Dad – Wendell Maxey Sr. – passed away a couple of years ago. He worked non-stop – with 11 kids you don’t have any choice. He worked at a paper mill for years and years, and he worked putting up irrigation systems in Nebraska. He worked construction. He was always at work – when I think about him not being here I think he had to do that – he couldn’t say I want to be a writer – he loved working with wood and crafting but he had to support a family and he was gone all the time – he had to grind it out. It was mixed blessing for me – he passed down his work ethic but he also made me consider going after something I’m passionate about – maybe he wanted to but he never had a chance.

Q. You minored in black studies – does that help you cover the NBA?

A. It definitely does. Different cultural upbringings and lifestyles don’t faze me. Hey, I’m a product of my environment just like African-American people are. I grew up listening to rap – to Public Enemy. I read Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Why not try to understand where somebody else is coming from? I take everything I learned in black studies – it makes me value people more – and I try to see where people are coming from. The idea is to be tolerant and find common ground – so it does help.

Q. Writers you admire?

A. Early on it was Bob Ryan. Most of my impressions of reporters came from “All the President’s Men”, and “Shadow Box” by George Plympton, and “48 Minutes” by Bob Ryan. Those are books you cling to – I always go back to those see how Mr. Ryan turns a phrase or describes details at the Garden. Now that I’m at the Garden more I read the beat writers – Frank Isola just doesn’t pull any punches but he knows not to bite the hand that feeds him. He’s entertaining and candid on his blog – he shoots from the hip and I love that. I read Howard Beck (NY Times) – he does a good job of representing the Times, which I view as a prestigious side of journalism.

The Post and Daily News might be considered rags – they do tabloid journalism – but when I’m at games I see these guys working and I just have to admire them.

Why wouldn’t I want to stay late and work beside these guys and see their work ethic and what they get in their papers. First thing in the morning I look at their stuff to see how they did it versus how I would have approached it. I use their stuff as a training tool – what did they see and hear that I didn’t. When I’m in the lockerroom I observe them to see how they go about it.

Opening night when the Knicks hosted the Pacers I walked into the media room and there was Bob Ryan – Boston was in Washington, what was he doing here – but it’s always great to see these guys.

(SMG thanks Wendell Maxey Jr. for his cooperation)

 

Based in New York, Wendell serves as a NBA Reporter for Basketball News Services. Wendell has covered the NBA as media for the past season. Wendell is available for radio and television appearances.

About Us

By Basketball News Services

Jan 18, 2004, 12:20

Basketball News Services is a full service basketball specific news resource. From first hand interviews and game reviews to back-end content and content services, Basketball News Services provides a full range of professional, collegiate and amateur news products to print, radio, interactive and television media outlets.

Basketball News Services offers its clients access they generally can not afford to provide in a reasonable manner, with more than 56 contributing writers and editors on staff, Basketball News Services powers notable websites like HOOPSWORLD.com, provides content and feature materials to print outlets like Swish Magazine, and articles and audio content to sports radio stations, like WNTS in Baltimore and ESPN Florida in Tampa, Orlando and Melbourne, as well as website content management services as provided to Drewgooden.net and 20 other major NBA athletes.

From HOOPSWORLD.com, a Basketball News Services property, BNS content reaches over 500,000 unique visitors per month from more than 26 countries. Articles from HOOPSWORLD are part of the Google News Service (news.google.com), Yahoo News (news.yahoo.com) and more than 14,000 sport specific webfeeds via Moreover’s Connected Intelligence Network. Combined HOOPSWORLD headlines are visible to 34 million web users each day.

Basketball News Services produces a syndicated radio show entitles ESPN’s The Game for Genesis Broadcasting, heard across Central Florida on 1470am in Tampa, 1060am in Brevard, and 1080am in Orlando.

Basketball News Services personalities have been featured guests on NBATV’s The Insiders, as well as on radio stations throughout the US and Canada

Basketball News Services offers a clipping product which tracks over 4000 news sources and identifies content by key words, these results are verified by human content editors for validity and packaged in an easy to read format that can be transmitted digitally via e-mail, PDA or Web enabled cell phones, as well as traditional fax and web based delivery methods.

Whether it’s print, radio or broadcast Basketball News Services has a product designed to insure accuracy, timely delivery of information and unmatched insight anywhere in the industry.

Products and services are negotiated on a per market price, and services are shaped to meet the needs of each client.

For details on how Basketball News Services can help you, call us at (866) 439-3640.

•

An Interview with Rick Maese

“I’m one of those people obsessed with the business and who views it as a lifestyle more than a job. When I sit down to write a story I will pull a book off the bookshelf. Usually anthologies. Jim Murray, Red Smith, Gary Smith, Ralph Wiley, Dave Kindred. I’ll look through a book for inspiration before I write.”

“As long as you’ve got friends getting laid off or forced out of newsrooms, it makes you question the business. It’s shitty to face some of the realities. Maybe I clung too tightly to the romantic notion planted in me at 14. It’s scary, not for myself, but for the institution of newspapers and the friends who depend on it for a livelihood.”

“Whenever I read the histories it makes me wish I were a sportswriter in a different time. I feel any time other than now was the golden age for sportswriting – not just the history but the access and relationships.”

Rick Maese: Interviewed on September 26, 2007

Position: Columnist, Baltimore Sun

Born: 1979, Albuquerque

Education: University of New Mexico, 2002, university studies

Career: Albuquerque Tribune (part-time); Orlando Sentinel 2002-05; Baltimore Sun 05 –

Personal: single

Favorite restaurant (home): Yin Yankee Café, Annapolis “the closest sushi to my home and you gotta appreciate the ability of the staff to emanate the same friendly-funky vibe as the restaurant décor”, Middleton’s Tavern, Annapolis “the oldest bar in Maryland

Favorite restaurant (road): Sadie’s, Albuquerque “Mexican – every dish is smothered with green chili, tomatoes and seasoned lettuce and underneath is the best Mexican food you can find”

Favorite hotel: any Marriott property

Rick Maese, excerpted from the Baltimore Sun, February 7, 2007:

Good morning and welcome to the most hollow day on the sports calendar, when glitter is computer-generated and celebrity cultivated in a basement, when consequences don’t exist and when we grade our children like sides of beef.

I hope you bought a new mouse for your computer and took the day off work because National Signing Day has arrived. We’ve been sleep-deprived for weeks in anticipation, but it’s finally time; the nation’s top football players show off that fancy education by writing their name on a slip of paper. There aren’t enough exclamation points at the punctuation factory to express what this day means to some. And it’s completely insane.

The day actually illustrates the dark side of high school and college sports. It’s disgusting the way Internet sites that turn a buck off tagging high school athletes with stars have made such strides toward obliterating any innocence still attached to high school sports. The “new media” fan sites inflate kids’ egos, steal fans’ money and make the job of the high school and college coach much tougher.

The Internet recruiting site is a cottage industry suddenly housed in a virtual mansion. The sites wouldn’t exist, of course, if there weren’t a demand, so do we blame the college fans who are so thirsty to hear the future might be bright for their favored team?

On the contrary, I feel bad for the fan who’s paying money and getting little in return. To see how successful these sites are, I dug up Rivals.com’s list of the top 100 recruits from 2002. It includes such stars as Vince Young and Haloti Ngata
, as well as such troublemakers as Maurice Clarett and Marcus Vick.

Of Rivals’ top 100 players that year, 44 fell far short of expectations – including 18 of the 38 highly acclaimed “five-star” players. While one in five managed to eventually earn first-team all-conference honors, one in four managed to either transfer or quit his team.

While you don’t blame Web sites for a talented teenager failing to achieve his potential, you can certainly hold them responsible for building up unrealistic expectations for fans and players.

And you can bet college coaches are sick of three-, four- and five-star players setting foot on campus, thinking they’ve already accomplished something. Today’s football coach juggles more egos than a Hollywood super-agent…

Q. What was reaction to your National Signing Day column?

A. Most of it was negative. A column like that is posted on the message boards I referred to, and the regular visitors of those message boards are going to come to their defense. It doesn’t take much effort for them to send an e-mail. For a piece like that, or some of the reacion we saw this week to the Jenni Carlson column, it illustrates the growing disconnect between the sports media and sports fan. I don’t pretend this is a new observation, but more and more we’re viewed as the enemy, at least that’s the opinion fostered by coaches and players. The people we’re trying to reach and build a bridge of information toward largely despise us.

It’s only getting worse with the message boards and Rivals and Scouts sites. It’s not hard to find hypocrisy with college sports, but the NCAA has to do a better job of regulating those sites that are essentially unofficial branches of the university. The site operators or reporters or whatever they call themselves are allowed to call recruits as much as they want. They’re fans, not trained journalists. We cover Maryland here, and the site operators have written books with coaches they cover. People purporting to be journalists have financial arrangements with coaches and universities. They’re able to call recruits without any kind of oversight.

Q. Do readers grasp the distinction between new media and traditional media?

A. Depends. Readers of new media do. They’re part of the new media – they operate a blog or visit blogs. They feel they’re part of something new and better and more interactive and they feel a sense of ownership over it. They don’t appreciate everything the old media has to offer. I’m not sure a lot of the old media appreciate what it has to offer. We’re a business now run by focus groups and industry workshops and we’re getting away from the things we do best, which is writing and reporting and telling stories.

Suddenly we’re faced with the task of competing at somebody else’s game – we’re told to take video and blog and do audio – all of these things we’re not necessarily trained to do, and told to do it without training of course. Nobody is selling the paper for what it is or highlighting what we can do that a blog can’t. Instead they want us to compete with the blog head to head. We can create our own blogs but it shouldn’t come at the expense of things only newspapers can do.

Q. Who do you read?

A. Everybody. I’m one of those people obsessed with the business and who views it as a lifestyle more than a job. When I sit down to write a story I will pull a book off the bookshelf. Usually anthologies. Jim Murray, Red Smith, Gary Smith, Ralph Wiley, Dave Kindred. I’ll look through a book for inspiration before I write. Every day I’m reading writers all over the country – the list would take up too much time.

Q. You study the craft?

A. I like to think so. I walked into a newsroom when I was 14 and never really left. I started at the Albuquerque Tribune and last month they announced that paper will be closed. It was one of the most devastating things I’ve heard in my life. I was raised in that newsroom around some of the best writers and editors you could imagine. That’s where I fell in love with the business. I stayed at home to go to school so I could continue to work at the Tribune.

Albuquerque is the kind of place where a lot of good writers and editors choose never to leave. I had the pleasure and honor of being around some of the best editors and writers alive. Unfortunately some will be unemployed in the next couple of months. I’m praying they land on their feet out there.

I feel like I’m in a crisis state. This conversation is taking place every day at some point. As long as you’ve got friends getting laid off or forced out of newsrooms, it makes you question the business. It’s shitty to face some of the realities. Maybe I clung too tightly to the romantic notion planted in me at 14. It’s scary, not for myself, but for the institution of newspapers and the friends who depend on it for a livelihood.

Q. What should a good column do?

A. That’s tough to answer. I’ve only been doing it for two years. When I started columns I talked to everyone around who had been doing it longer. I was worried because I wasn’t comfortable doing it after a few months. I surveyed older columnists. They said you might never get comfortable – that’s just a reality of doing it. I can’t necessarily say what makes a good column because what makes it good today might not a week or a month from today.

I know what I like to see does not always match what the reader wants. I don’t enjoy ripping people or clamoring for somebody’s head, though I know readers expect that. I like sharing stories with a unique voice, my voice. It doesn’t have to be a strong opinion but something only I could tell from my seat in front of the laptop.

Q. How do you approach writing about a team as bad as the Orioles?

A. It’s difficult. Just because the team is bad doesn’t mean the passion wavers. The Orioles have had a losing record for 10 straight seasons now. I’m not sure the apathy is as strong as I would have suspected – there is still a large audience of Orioles fans. But it makes my job tougher. You’ve got to find new ways of telling the story or addressing the topic. You’re not going to write about a game in mid-September that has no meaning. Fortunately the Orioles are inventive and creative in the ways they lose. When they lose 30-3 it’s much easier to write about. It mostly means you have to report more and find new ways to tell the story. My last Orioles column I lead with the team chaplain, and in the 30-run game I led with the official scorer who was charged with keeping track of the monstrosity of a scorecard. You’ve got to try harder.

Q. Does it open the door for more humor?

A. I think it does. The team pains the fans more that somebody in the pressbox. Certainly there’s a point in the futility when you’ve got to sit back and chuckle at it. Even the players and coaches and manager do. Journalists reach that point more quickly because we’re not as emotionally involved. You wonder what more can you say critically – do you write every week that the owner is a bad owner? At some point you’re just throwing cotton into the wind – what’s accomplished by repeating it over and over, about an organization that makes the same mistakes over and over. I’m writing the same columns Ken Rosenthal wrote a decade ago.

That’s the challenge only the old media tries to step up to. I don’t know that the new media steps up to that. It’s because we have access. I can find the team chaplain or bullshit with the official scorer. The blogger is sitting at home writing his gut reaction.

Q. What’s with the Ravens defense?

A. If I knew the answer I’d be making a lot more money. There’s something funny in the leadership of the defense we haven’t put a finger on yet. The whole aura of Ray – is it diminished or not, is he the true leader or by name and appointment only – that’s something we have to look into a bit more. SL Price (Sports Illustrated) wrote a piece last year that showed the many faces of Ray Lewis – part of him looks like a phony and part like a true honest-to-goodness believer. I don’t know if anybody but Ray knows what he truly is. Price is amazing. I grew up in the generation idolizing Gary Smith (Sports Illustrated). Other writers who also read Gary are taking a step back and wondering if we appreciate Price enough.

Q. What did you know about Baltimore when you took the job?

A. I had never been here. I knew a bit about the rich sports history and the sports teams. It’s been an education from the moment I stepped foot in town, and it’s continuing today. I have books about the city’s history and the sports history and I have a job where you go out and talk to people every day – the best way to learn.

Whenever I read the histories it makes me wish I were a sportswriter in a different time. I feel any time other than now was the golden age for sportswriting – not just the history but the access and relationships. I only know of it through the stories or the movies – the Baltimore I wake up to every day is different.

Q. What’s in your future?

A. As a writer you want to be relevant. The question is, is a newspaper the most relevant medium to work in? The way my career has gone I don’t know from one year to the next. I never wanted to be a sports columnist – when I wake up every day I still don’t know.

The way I look at the column I’m honing skills I wouldn’t be working on otherwise. I could take it back to long form, which is my true passion and have a stronger voice and a more authoritative approach. In Orlando I did long form. I don’t think I appreciated how difficult the column would be – I’m not sure anybody who hasn’t written four columns a week can appreciate it.

Q. Four seems like a lot.

A. It’s amazing to think about guys who wrote five or six. I have to report a lot because I’m young and don’t have the historical perspective – I probably lean on reporting more than I should or others do, just because I’m not comfortable sitting back on the couch and reacting. Guys who go on TV and have opinions on everything every 30 seconds blow me away. I’m thirsty for three or four opinions a week. To have three or four every ten minutes seems impossible.

Q. Boxing is nearly dead –why write the Mazyck column?

A. I was wondering that yesterday at about 5 o’clock myself. Boxing was one of the first sports I covered. There’s still something romantic to me about covering boxing and horse racing. The boxing I knew early on was full of rich characters – part of me doesn’t want it to die when there are still so many stories to be told. If the sport is going to pass on part of the reason will be evidenced by newspapers or media choosing to stop covering it. Maybe a small part of me feels responsible to keep writing about it. There are still fans out there – a thousand fans will show up to a card in Baltimore tomorrow night. There’s still an audience though I don’t need that as an excuse to write about it.

Q. What’s more important – the intrinsic value of the story or the potential readership?

A. That’s the juggling act. That’s something that is changing a bit – one of the frustrations I have with my job. With the Internet we’re able to quantify the success of a story or column through web hits. Which is good, because it gives ad reps something to shop around to businesses. For editors or writers we can see what is successful, but not in the ways we traditionally judged a story – was it entertaining, informative and interesting to read. This boxing column isn’t going to have more hits than a Ravens piece. We can write anything about the Ravens – we can write about the lunch menu at the practice facility – and it will get more hits than almost anything else. So it’s a juggling act. We’ve got to pursue stories we want to tell, and we have to have faith the audience will be out there.

I try to pick one a week readers aren’t necessarily expecting but is a good story. It can be anything – last week I golfed with an 87-year-old man. Nobody expected that in the paper – and maybe when they finished reading they still wished it wasn’t in the paper. All of them aren’t going to fly but you have to keep swinging. The biggest anxiety I feel on my job is nailing down the right topic. I’m like a drug addict always trying to recreate that first high – looking for a special topic readers don’t expect and as a writer you don’t know what to expect.

Rich Maese, excerpted from the Baltimore Sun, September 26, 2007:

Out of a small boombox, James Brown is preaching about shaking your moneymaker, getting up and staying on the scene, while the Giant’s size 18 feet bounce in steady rhythm on the mat. Way, way up above, the boxer’s meaty hands, each the size of a catcher’s mitt, punch holes in the humid air.

This isn’t a place where a champion tries to get to — it’s the kind of place you want to be from. But if someone were to go looking, we’re in the no-frills boxing gym housed in the basement of a suburban Washington strip mall, as far away from fame and glory as you can imagine. Down the concrete steps and to the left. Under a shoe repair shop and a beauty salon, to be exact. This is fertile soil in the boxing world.

What’s happening in the ring at the far end of the room speaks to either the dearth of talent in the heavyweight ranks, the Giant’s immense potential or maybe both.

“I’m the future heavyweight champion of the world,” says Ernest Mazyck, whom everyone calls Zeus. “There’s not a doubt in my mind.”

Mazyck (pronounced muh-ZEEK) fights tomorrow on a Ballroom Boxing card at Michael’s Eighth Avenue in Glen Burnie. It’s only his seventh professional bout. Mazyck is listed as 7 feet, 325 pounds, which makes him one of three things in a boxing world starved for heavyweights — an oddity, a novelty or a future contender.

For right now, at the very least, it makes Mazyck intriguing. Not only has the sport lost fans to mixed martial arts, but it has lost athletes, too. If you can find a boxing gym — look quickly, because they’re disappearing — you won’t spot many big guys. At the highest level, all four heavyweight champions are foreign-born…

(SMG thanks Rick Maese for his cooperation)

An Interview with Greg Logan

“But basically I am the only one with the Islanders on a daily basis. Even though you would think that would be an ideal situation for a beat writer…In some ways there’s an even greater pressure on me – I have to ask all the tough questions. I don’t get to share that with anybody…”

“I never played the game, so I take extra care talking to people about strategy and what they’re trying to accomplish and really listen to what they’re saying and their opinions. I normally value athletes’ opinions over writers’ opinions in any sport because they are playing but even more so in hockey.”

“Scoops are important. But is it a scoop if it’s wrong? If you’re going to have a scoop you better be right about it. If somebody can prove it’s wrong then all you’ve done is get a headline and stir up discussion and controversy but ultimately you were wrong.

“There’s a guy on the Flyers named Afanasenkov. Afinogenov in Buffalo is fine. But Afanasenkov in Philly throws me…Always use their first name. In this case – Dmitry.”

Greg Logan: Interviewed on January 24, 2007

Position: Islanders beat reporter, Newsday

Born: 1951, Albuquerque

Education: Missouri, 1973, Journalism

Career: Norman Transcript 1973-74; Arizona Republic 1974-77; Trenton Times, 1977-79; Bergen Record 1979-82; Newsday 1982 –

Personal: married, three daughters

Favorite restaurants (home): Paula Jean’s Supper Club, East Setauket, NY “good Cajun food and live rhythm and blues to match”

Favorite restaurant (road): Sweet Georgia Brown’s, Washington DC “down home southern style cooking – superb”; Wild Ginger, Seattle “late night gourmet Chinese”; Nick and Sam’s, Dallas “great steak” : Ojeda’s, Dallas “authentic Tex-Mex with great pour-your-own salsa on the tables”; Columbia Seafood Restaurant, Tampa “seafood with a Latin flavor and I love the ambience of the original restaurant in Ybor City”; Sassafraz, Toronto “a jazz lounge in the Bloor-Yorkville area for music and cocktails”

Favorite hotel: The Renaissance Seattle, “the personal treatment you received there was high-end luxury treatment for a bargain price and beautiful city”;

Greg Logan’s “15-Year Concept” excerpted from Newsday.com, November 6, 2006:

There’s no mistaking the concern of Islanders fans about the 15-year contract signed by goaltender Rick DiPietro this season, and it came through loud and clear Saturday night when the Nassau Coliseum crowd called for backup Mike Dunham after DiPietro gave up three first-period goals in a 4-1 loss to Atlanta.

Every goaltender has off nights, but it’s as though signing that landmark deal has raised the bar of expectations for DiPietro. As he said after the game, the contract didn’t gift him with “superpowers,” and if the fans are looking for nightly perfection, “It isn’t going to happen.”

Excuse DiPietro if he was agitated after a rough outing. He simply was saying that he’s human and mistakes are inevitable.

And that’s at the root of the problems a 15-year deal creates. Anyone would have signed for the security represented by such a $67.5 million deal. But athletes are human, and their performance is subject to fluctuations on a daily basis, never mind over a 15-year term.

Take DiPietro out of the equation. It would have been a huge risk to sign Hank Aaron or Babe Ruth to a 15-year deal (Okay, maybe not Wayne Gretzky, whose 21-year deal with former Edmonton owner Peter Pocklington was a personal services contract that obviously didn’t make it impossible for the Oilers to trade him).

Too much is subject to chance. Isles owner Charles Wang might have fixed the price of his top goaltender at $4.5 million per year, but a goalie is not an inanimate commodity like porkbellies whose value can be fixed forever at point of purchase.

Hot streaks alternate with rough spells and bouts of confidence on a regular basis. You need look no further for proof than the early travails this season of the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist, who has given way lately to Kevin Weekes as the starter. No doubt, Lundqvist will regain his touch and his job at some point.

But that speaks to the other major problem posed by a 15-year deal. How does it handcuff a coach in the decision-making process?

If his top goaltender had just signed, say, a five-year deal, would Ted Nolan have hesitated to pull him after a bad first period? Hard to say. Maybe, as Nolan said after the game, it was best to allow the goaltender to fight through a tough situation. There’s plenty of merit to that argument, and Nolan’s decision turned out well.

But did it cross the coach’s mind that he might be viewed as showing up the owner if he pulled the goaltender in that spot? It’s a fair question.

… you wonder if a coach’s control is undermined by a deal of that length in the sense that he has little leverage with a player destined to be around much longer than he is. The same goes for a general manager. If a top goaltending prospect is available in the draft, does Garth Snow take a pass because the franchise only has room for backup types?

The list of “what ifs” goes on and on. Even DiPietro is affected in the sense that he’s keenly aware of the reaction to his contract and, as a competitor, is likely to feel more internal pressure to perform and justify the deal.

There’s simply no escaping the fact that every move the Islanders’ goaltender makes this season — and maybe for many to come – will be judged in the context of his 15-year contract. It’s going to take some getting used for everyone, fans included.

Q. Any touchy moments this season?

A. Rick DiPietro signed a landmark 15-year contract and that’s been a sensitive issue because of some of the negative fan reaction to that kind of long-term obligation by the club. I tried to divorce contract issues from personalities by writing a blog – entitled “The 15 Year Concept” – in which I questioned the whole idea of a 15-year contract for anyone in sports, whether it’s Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron or Rick DiPietro. It creates so many difficult situations for coaches and managers that don’t seem to make sense to me. But because it’s Rick’s contract and fans reacted negatively to him early in the year he took it very personally.

We talked about it and things have been ironed out since then and we’re getting along just fine.

Q. Who can you go to in the lockerroom?

A. Everybody I talk to is highly cooperative. That seems to be the nature of hockey players. Some are a bit more outspoken than others – obviously the captains and alternate captains are very good. Mike Sillinger and Brendan Witt are the alternate captains and Alexei Yashin is the captain – he’s been very cooperative – he sought me out at training camp to ask about my background. Jason Blake and Rick DiPietro are some of the better talkers in the lockerroom and a lot of guys up and down the roster beyond them.

Q. How would you describe the Islanders beat?

A. Like any other beat – it’s covering games and practices and all the news generated by the beat. It has a couple of differences. One, because the profile of the team and the team’s attendance has gone way down since the Stanley Cup years in the early 80s I am the only beat writer who travels with the team on the road. Newsday and the Daily News both staff home games, and occasionally the Post and Times will send someone to cover home games.

But basically I am the only one with the Islanders on a daily basis. Even though you would think that would be an ideal situation for a beat writer to have a minimal amount of competition only at home I still feel the responsibility to cover the news in the same competitive way I would on another beat with several competing reporters. I’m still always trying to focus on the heart of the story and any controversial angles that might come up.

In some ways there’s an even greater pressure on me – I have to ask all the tough questions. I don’t get to share that with anybody – even the radio and TV people wait for me to ask the questions, and they feed off those because they don’t want to be in a position of challenging anyone.

Q. What’s the upside to being the only full-time reporter on the beat?

A. Obviously it’s very important to the club to get their side of the story out, so naturally you have a lot of access at almost all times to people you need to talk to in the organization. Also the players – you’re their source of news, so I think it actually helps the relationships because you both need each other equally to get the message out.

Q. Has access in the NHL improved after the lockout?

A. The NHL has always been good for access and cooperation. Even at the height of its popularity in the 80s and into the 90s it was still at best No. 4 among the major sports in America. It’s always been very media friendly and accessible. I don’t know if the lockout has helped that or not. If they’re not desperate for coverage they should be. You see it in attendance problems all over – particularly in the U.S. teams – and the traditionally strong teams are way down. They have to do whatever they can to raise their profiles.

Q. How would you describe Newsday’s hockey readership?

A. A very vocal group of hard-core Islanders fans who care intensely about the team and are upset about they consider years of mismanagement under a variety of owners since John O. Pickett sold the club 15 years ago or so. They’ve been upset with the decline in performance and the increase in ticket prices so you hear a lot from them. However, the numbers on our website show it goes well beyond that and the Islanders are actually very competitive with other winter sports – primarily with the Knicks – readership runs fairly even with basketball during the winter. So there’s widespread readership and because it’s the only pro franchise on Long Island – unless you count Jets training camp – there’s very strong interest here.

Q. What’s your history covering hockey?

A. When I first moved from Phoenix, my first East Coast job was with the Trenton Times, and my first beat was the Philadelphia Flyers – I covered them for two seasons from 1977 to 1979. When I moved to the Bergen Record in the spring of 1979 I found myself covering a number of Islander games and all through the early stages of their first run to the Stanley Cup because they were a big story at that time. Even though we didn’t staff Islander games we attended a lot of them, and covered all the home games on their playoff runs. I traveled to Boston in 80 and saw Clark Gillies pummel Terry O’Reilly, which was a signature moment of their first Cup run. After covering the NFL for 10 years I covered the New York Rangers in 92-93 when they finished last one year before winning the Cup, and then again in 2000-2001 in the middle of a long seven-year absence from the playoffs.

Q. Some American-born writers are not comfortable with the game – what about you?

A. Yes. Surprisingly so in terms of being comfortable recognizing who is doing well and what’s working and what’s not working. I don’t consider myself an absolute expert because I never played the game, so I take extra care talking to people about strategy and what they’re trying to accomplish and really listen to what they’re saying and their opinions. I normally value athletes’ opinions over writers’ opinions in any sport because they are playing but even more so in hockey.

Q. Where do you go for hockey information?

A. I subscribe to TSN hockey report. Every day I go to the headlinehockey.com website for a compilation of hockey stories around the country. Occasionally I like to go to some of the Canadian websites.

Because he’s been around for so long and he’s the gray eminence of hockey writers, I’ve always checked out what Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette has to say. I’ve always loved reading Michael Farber of Sports Illustrated. Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun is an excellent writer I’d forgotten about until recently when I cam across one of his columns – because he left Toronto. Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has been around forever and probably knows more than any U.S.-based hockey writer and is a very helpful and nice guy. I also read Eric Duhatschek of the Toronto Globe & Mail and E.J. Hradek of espn.com.

Q. Favorite hockey cities on the road?

A. All the Canadian cities. I love being there because it’s the one place a hockey writer can go and be immersed in hockey as the number one sport and nothing else comes first. But some American cities are fun to cover hockey in, including Pittsburgh, and people really care about it in Buffalo. And San Jose, the Shark Tank, is a raucous place. I haven’t been to Detroit this season and won’t get there, but in the past obviously Hockeytown was a good place to see a game. Those are the ones that stick out – and Minnesota – the Wild arena in St. Paul – is a fun place to cover hockey.

Q. What’s more important – being first or being right?

A. Scoops are important. But is it a scoop if it’s wrong? If you’re going to have a scoop you better be right about it. If somebody can prove it’s wrong then all you’ve done is get a headline and stir up discussion and controversy but ultimately you were wrong.

This generally comes up at trade time because general managers have hundreds of conversations with one another and a few of them get out. Sometimes you might be right about a conversation taking place – so I consider that a scoop even if the trade doesn’t go through, because you’re on the right track and have the right principals. But I’ve also been in a situation talking to opposing club officials who knew for certain a particular deal wasn’t going to happen and I wrote it, and that doesn’t get as much attention as the original story saying something might happen. That’s what generate most of the talk – saying something might happen – and why there’s such an emphasis on getting that story. When you get one shooting it down it doesn’t generate as much attention even though it’s correct. I’ve been in situations where I had it correctly before others got off the trade and it just didn’t generate as much attention.

Q. Advice to youngsters trying to break into the business?

A. Any technological expertise you can bring to the business and incorporate into your blogging undoubtedly will help with your exposure. And speaking Spanish would be an excellent tool to have if you want to be a baseball writer. But don’t expect the kind of long careers that my generation has enjoyed because the field is changing at an accelerating pace into something unrecognizable from when I began.

Q. Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin?

A. The one time the Islanders played Washington I took off – so I haven’t seen Ovechkin. But I can’t imagine anyone better than Crosby. In all the years I’ve covered hockey he may be the best skater I’ve ever seen – not a pure scorer but a skater – and creative and clearly the best in the game right now from my perspective.

Q. Toughest NHL player’s name to pronounce?

A. (lol) There’s a guy on the Flyers named Afanasenkov. Afinogenov in Buffalo is fine. But Afanasenkov in Philly throws me.

Q. What do you do in that case?

A. I know their first name. Always use their first name. In this case – Dmitry.

Q. Is Miroslav Satan evil?

A. It’s Sa-TAN. (rhymes with baton). Like Franken-STEEN!

He’s very nice.

Greg Logan excerpted from Newsday.com, January 9. 2007:

GOALTENDER FOR LIFE: As much as Rick DiPietro might argue otherwise, it appeared to take some time for him to get used to the attention generated by his 15-year contract. Two of his three starts were rough on the opening road trip as he tried to play through a groin injury, and he was booed at home for a series of giveaways in a home loss to Atlanta. But he has gotten better and better, and for the most part, the communication between DiPietro and the defense has improved. His back-to-back shutouts against Columbus and the Rangers around Christmas were the high point, and he pretty much got robbed in the shutout losses that followed at Ottawa and home against the Devils.

When DiPietro minimizes the distractions – that is to say, when he doesn’t get caught fighting for the puck behind the net, doesn’t get caught up arguing with the referees and doesn’t get upset with the defensive breakdowns in front of him – he’s tough to beat. If his emotions sometimes get the best of him, they also are the source of the resilience he’s shown on a number of occasions this season.

But just as backup goaltender Mike Dunham stole two points at Anaheim on that opening trip and steadied the ship until DiPietro recovered from his injury, the Islanders need DiPietro to steady them now and maybe steal a game or two until they start finding the net again. If DiPietro maintains the same consistency he’s achieved lately and Snow can add a little more scoring to the lineup, they may yet finish this season in surprising fashion.

(SMG thanks Greg Logan for his cooperation)

An Interview with Robert Lipsyte

“I’ve come to realize that most jocks are really sissies – they roll over so quickly for uber-alpha males, they’re thin-skinned and they like to beat on weaker people, including the women in their lives. Most of them don’t grow up until their playing days are over. Even considering them as role models for anything but hard work and peak performance is hilarious.”

“I liked hardcore sports writing most covering hockey and Nascar where people were interested in explaining what they did and why, the gritty joy of digging the puck out of a corner or pancaking someone into the Plexiglas…Most of the rest is speculation and blah-blah to fill time and space.”

“Did tanking on the steroids story, which is sports writing’s shameful equivalent of the weapons of mass destruction story, come out of denial, laziness, lack of chops? The current catch-up, blaming editors or mild mea culpas or trashing A-Rod and fellow users, is even more pathetic.”

Position: Free-lance writer, Young Adult fiction author, TV host.

Born: 1938, New York City

Education: Columbia College, ‘57, Columbia Journalism School ‘59

Career: New York Times 1957-71 and 91-2003; CBS 82-86; NBC: 86-88; WNET 88-90; Twin Cities TV 2008 –

Personal: Married to the writer, Lois B. Morris; two children, Sam and Susannah, two grandchildren, Alfred and Sylvia (Squidge).

Favorite restaurant (home): Home-cooking, including mine.

Favorite restaurant (away): Room service.

Favorite hotel: St. Paul Hotel, St. Paul, Mn. “Casually elegant”

Website: http://robertlipsyte.com/disc.htm

Robert Lipsyte, excerpted from USA Today, April 10, 2008:

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/04/jock-culture-pe.html

If you’ve been listening to political candidates, you probably think that America is fragmented by religion, gender, race and ethnicity, as well as wealth, class, age and manual dexterity — do you text-message or are you all thumbs?

No wonder sports can seem comforting. In what I call Jock Culture, there are only two kinds of Americans — winners and losers.

The political season will be over in a few months (with its winners and losers), but the sports seasons will roll on, one after another, often concurrently, and the messages will be drilled into our minds: First place is the only place. Win or die a little. Losers slink home.

In sports, the pressure of those messages to win has given us recruiting scandals, academic cheating, helmet-spearing, bean balls, steroids and industrial espionage — the New England Patriots used video cameras to gain an edge. In real life, those messages about winning have been performance-enhanced to bring us dishonesty in banking, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, energy and foreign policy.

There’s a connection between cutting corners to win a football game and to start a war. For many Americans, certainly for the majority American boys, the most vivid and lasting lessons are learned in the sports they play and watch. Jock Culture is the incubator of most definitions of manly success.

Lessons about the rewards of discipline, playing fair and working hard compete against lessons about the punishment-free payoffs of cheating. Dads pour illegal additives into the quarter-midget race cars of their 7-years-olds. A Little League pitcher lies about his age. A coach winks when a teenage basketball star fabricates an address to join an out-of-town team. Kids who grow up seeing grown- ups shrug, if not actually pulling the strings behind the scenes, come to think it’s the way of the world…

Q. Why is disillusionment with Jock Culture a regular theme in your writing?

A. That’s an interesting thought since I never considered myself illusioned. Are you romanticizing my career? I was not an engaged fan as a kid and at 19 when I landed in the NYTimes sports dept as a copyboy I stayed because it looked like a terrific career move – lots of good stories and the freedom to write them.

I covered boxing early on and there was no way to avoid the hypocrisy, corruption and bullshit if you considered yourself a journalist instead of a Superfan with a license to score free tickets and jock-sniff. I fed off the response, positive and negative. I wasn’t the only one, it was a golden era for terrific young sportswriters – Larry Merchant, Stan Isaacs, Ira Berkow, Pete Axthelm, Pete Bonventre, Neil Amdur, Jerry Izenberg, Sandy Padwe, among others – but the pulpit of the Times was a great advantage.

In those days the Times didn’t care that much about sports so the pressure from Madison Square Garden or the Mets or the Tennis establishment to dump me didn’t have the impact it would have had at some other paper.

Q. How would you describe your sports media niche and your objectives?

A. I’ve begun writing my memoirs, so I am slowly figuring out that I did have a niche, or at least a pattern. I was interested in the nick between sports and the surrounding society more than in the games or even the personalities, particularly racial, political, health and pop cultural issues, most particularly how sports’ definitions of manhood have often become the larger society’s definitions. I think that’s why I’ve had a fascination with gay athletes, women athletes and the split between jocks and pukes (as one Columbia crew coach called non-jocks on campus).

I’ve come to realize that most jocks are really sissies – they roll over so quickly for uber-alpha males, they’re thin-skinned and they like to beat on weaker people, including the women in their lives. Most of them don’t grow up until their playing days are over. Even considering them as role models for anything but hard work and peak performance is hilarious.

Q.Tell us something of your emotional life as a writer and TV personage.

A. I’ve had a great time and a charmed life. I loved the travel and excitement of daily journalism back when newspapers were healthy and then when the TV networks still used limos, and now I love the combination of the solitude writing young adult fiction and the sociality in TV, especially my current gig as host of a PBS show on aging with the chance to interview the likes of Mike Huckabee and Martha Stewart, who are simply more interesting than A-Rod and Mannings.

I liked hardcore sportswriting most covering hockey and Nascar where people were interested in explaining what they did and why, the gritty joy of digging the puck out of a corner or pancaking someone into the Plexiglas, the romance of floating out of the corners or punching holes in restrictor plates. Most of the rest is speculation and blah-blah to fill time and space.

Q. What has the widening gap between sports media and its subjects meant to the product?

A. It’s totally changed the tone. When I started in 1957, writers and athletes tended to trust and protect each other. It made for an easy life, entertaining stories and bad journalism. The gap, which includes the racial and economic gulf as well as the lack of access, has probably improved the product but not quite as much as one would think.

Did tanking on the steroids story, which is sports writing’s shameful equivalent of the weapons of mass destruction story, come out of denial, laziness, lack of chops? The current catch-up, blaming editors or mild mea culpas or trashing A-Rod and fellow users, is even more pathetic.

Q. Sports media has increased in sheer volume from the time you broke in. What has this meant to the consumer?

A. As a consumer, I love it. More games to watch, more commentaries on them. Sports is entertainment. Who wouldn’t want more entertainment choices. And the surrounding babble is part of that entertainment.

Q. If you were named Czar of Sports Media, with unlimited power, what would you change?

A. I don’t know. I do believe that journalism is a calling and disseminating information in any form entails responsibility. I wish a lot of people were more responsible, but I wouldn’t want any rules in place to limit their freedom. Sports is important, though, as a definer of values and people need and deserve honest reporting here as surely as in arts, politics, business.

Q. Who and what do you read and watch in sports media? What non-sports media do you consume?

A. I watch and read everything, promiscuously and haphazardly, mostly on line. I don’t listen to much talk radio. There are only a few places I seek out, looking for a line of thought I’d never come to on my own. Dave Zirin’s Edge of Sports column on line is a must. Jason Whitlock always has something to say. Bryan Curtis when he deigns to say something. Bill Simmons because I think he has the pulse of the fan. Deadspin. ESPN.COM.

Non-sports? Again, mostly on line. NYTimes, Tomdispatch.com, The Daily Beast, MediaBistro, Romanesko, AlterNet, and various right-wing and left-wing blogs to keep my blood moving.

Q. Who were your sports media influences?

A. Starting out, I thought Jimmy Cannon was fun to read, over the top, had a social conscience. Gay Talese (I was his copyboy) was an enormous influence – he approached sports as a writer, a journalist, never as a “sportswriter.” My biggest influence as a young writer was John Steinbeck.

Q. What are your interview tactics or techniques? How do you approach a hostile subject as opposed to a friendly one?

A. I’m pretty matter-of-fact, neither bully nor waif, and if the subject thinks you’re open to giving him/her a fair shake you’re halfway home. It’s easier these days because people are media savvy and think they can maneuver the interview. They tend to forget you have the last edit. Even on TV, which I do more and more of lately.

Q. Red Smith in retrospect, warts and all?

A. Red replaced me as Times columnist when I left the first time in 1971 and when he won the Pulitzer, I told him I would have left earlier had I known. He was simply the most elegant writer I ever read on the sports page. His early years were spent using that incredible talent to spout the conventional wisdom – his attacks on Cassius Clay were embarrassing. But unlike almost anyone in the field, he just got better with age. Without losing his stylishness he put it into the service of smart, clear-eyed commentary. In his later years, he was the best.

Q. Next project?

A. I’m hosting a weekly PBS show, LIFE(Part2) about the aging of the boomer generation. It starts airing in September 2009.

I’m also writing my memoirs for Ecco (HarperCollins) called “Lessons from the Locker-Room: The Education of an Accidental Sportswriter.”

I want to come back here after you’ve read it.

Robert Lipsyte, excerpted from Columbia Journalism Review, July 1, 2006:

In 1938, the year I was horn, Paul Gallico published his valedictory Farewell to Sport, a thoughtful meditation on the “wildest, maddest, and most glamorous period in all the history of sport,” which just happened to coincide with his fourteen years as a New York Daily News sportswriter. Gallico was no mere pressbox pundit. Long before the late George Plimpton’s showy turns as quarterback, pitcher, and boxer, Gallico pioneered participatory sports journalism. He swam with Johnny Weismuller, golfed with Bobby Jones, and lasted less than two minutes in the ring with Jack Dempsey.

I was about fifteen when I first read the book and readily absorbed its Galliconian pronouncements, such as “like all people who spring from what we call low origins, [Babe] Ruth never had any inhibitions”; Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias became one of the greatest athletes of the century “simply because she would not or could not compete with women at their own and best game – mansnatching. It was an escape, a compensation. She would beat them at everything else they tried to do”; and the reason basketball “appeals to the Hebrew … is that the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind and flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart aleckness.”

Even as a Hebrew without much game, I was swept along by Gallico’s confidence. He had a cool and cocky style leavened with just enough Great Books references to connect a young 1950s smart-aleck to the elitism, sexism, and faux macho of the 1930s sportswriters who had dipped their noses as well as their pens in other men’s testosterone. I felt manlier through his access to the Manassa Mauler, the Brown Bomber, the Iron Horse. And his dismissal of women athletes was reassuring; if a girl did manage to whip you, it was only because she was likely not truly female. Boys in my day were labeled “girls” and “fags” if they didn’t at least pay lip service to the emerging values of what I now call Jock Culture, that stew of honor, self-absorption, generosity, greed, bravery, emotional constriction, tenderness, domination, and defiance that commands so much of our national life.

I was, however, slightly uncomfortable with Gallico’s remarks about the “colored brother” who is “… not nearly so sensible to pain as his white brother. He has a thick, hard skull and good hands.” It smacked of racism; my parents worked in black neighborhoods and I knew better. But I was willing to give Gallico the same pass that most of my textbooks gave the slave-owning Thomas Jefferson. Gallico, too, was a man of his times. After all, he had written Farewell a decade before Jackie Robinson.

Four years after I read the hook, still a teenager, I landed in the sports department of the New York Times; I’d answered an ad for what I considered would he only a summer job before heading West to write hooks and movies, just like Gallico. But as much as I hated being a copyboy, I stayed on past that summer because I dreamed that someday, I, too, might be “at the tennis tournament at Forest Hills . . . drinking an ice tea . . . surrounded by beautifully dressed women and soft-spoken men in summer flannels,” and the next day be “in a frowsy, ribald tight camp, gagging over a glass of needle beer,” where I’d find “doubtful blondes . . . and blondes about whom there was no doubt.”

Eventually I got to both places, and they were as good as Gallico had promised, especially the fight camps. As a young boxing reporter, I kept two books handy, Gallico’s Farewell and AJ. liebling’s The Sweet Science, which was No. 1 on Sports Illustrated’s 2002 top 100 sports books of all time (Farewell was No. 82). Liebling was ultimately discouraging; no one else could eat and drink so much and still write so well, not to mention come up with eloquent quotes from grizzled corner men who were all but mute for me….

I was around thirty-five when I read Farewell to Sport cover to cover for the second time, as research for my own 1975 valedictory, SportsWorld: An American Dreamland. (Sports Illustrated made it No. 97, calling it “an angry screed.”) Now I saw Gallico as a prime example of what had been and was still wrong with sports writing: the jock-sniffing, the intellectual laziness, the moral cowardice.

What an old whore he was, always begging Babe Ruth or Gene Tunney to show up at some event he was promoting. How did that affect his coverage? His line about your circulation falling off if you destroy too many illusions began to sound like a justification of all those years he spent, to borrow a phrase of the great Herald Tribune sports editor Stanley Woodward, “Godding up the ball-players.”

Gallico wasn’t bashful about Godding up himself either. Take his line about Babe Didrikson honing her championship hurdling and jump-shooting skills to compensate for her man-snatching defeats. In his autobiography, The Tumult and the Shouting, the sportswriter and sportscaster Grantland Rice describes a little joke he played on his pal Gallico. During a golf match, he talked Gallico into a foot race with Didrikson, and she left him for dead. Babe tells the same story in her autobiography, This Life I’ve Led. After that race, Gallico suddenly noticed Babe’s Adam’s apple. Of course, if a woman beats you, she can’t really be a woman…

But I couldn’t stay away from Gallico’s Farewell. What drew me back to it for the third read was the steroids story, particularly the anguished cries of the baseball wonks that Barry Bonds’s chemically aided statistics had made a mockery of the game’s history and should be erased or footnoted. Who cares! I thought. (Unless you want to asterisk Babe Ruth’s records: *Never batted against colored brothers.) What matters is the discrete joy of tonight’s game, pitch by pitch, inning by inning. I remembered how touched I’d been at fifteen by Gallico’s lyrical passages on baseball as theater, the beautiful geometry of it, the small dramas, the looming threat of a home run, the liberation from everyday life.

And so it was Farewell again, from the beginning.

This time I laughed out loud when Gallico described international figure skating as “joyously crooked” and the judges as “scamps and vote-peddlers.” He knew this even before the French judge sold out to the Russians at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. I was thrilled by his paean to cars at speed and to the auto racer as athlete. In the closest I’d come to Gallico’s participatory journalism, I’d driven a stock car at 130 miles an hour while covering NASCAR in 2001. Drivers were certainly as athletic as “the stick-and-ballers.” Gallico and I also agreed that horse racing was basically gambling, and that “college football today is one of the last great strongholds of genuine old-fashioned American hypocrisy.” Gallico was railing about Yale selling its broadcast rights for $20,000.

One of the areas I reread with interest and trepidation was about women. I winced when Gallico wrote, “No matter how good they are, they can never be good enough, quite, to matter,” but in a way he was right. How else explain why women’s records, accomplishments, and attendance figures are always measured against men’s? Why does Billie Jean King beating that old clown Bobby Riggs, or Michelle Wie, the Tigress Woods inching her way into the men’s game, get so much more coverage than the revolution that Title IX has wrought in the everyday lives of girls and their families?

I think Gallico, if he were around, could have some fun in his column with the vulnerable veneer of our macho heroes – if it didn’t interfere with booking them for his TV and radio shows. He’d have to deal with jock girls calling each other “fag” for intimidation or motivation. He’d also have to explain why male pro athletes are terrified of having open gays in their locker rooms lest their relatives, friends, and fans think they are gay, too.

Gallico would have flourished in today’s atmosphere, been a multiplatform star like Mike Lupica, Stephen A. Smith, Sally Jenkins, Frank Deford, Tony Kornheiser, Christine Brennan, Jason Whitlock, and John Feinstein. Gallico would know the territory, be smart enough to navigate Jock Culture and snipe at it, be enough of a believer to never attack it systemically. While the new diversity of the current press box has sensitized coverage, the biggest problem remains the widening distance between reporter and subject – except where ex-jocks playing reporters on TV manage to straddle the gap. I have no doubt that Gallico would find a way to walk the line with style, confidence, and residuals.

I probably won’t read Farewell again cover to cover, but the presence of Gallico’s papers at Columbia University teases me. Maybe I should write about him since, after all, this piece was about me. But then I’d have to deal with Gallico’s best piece of advice: Your circulation begins to fall off if you destroy too many illusions, especially if you yourself have created them.

(SMG thanks Robert Lipsyte for his cooperation)

An Interview with Bob Ley

“We do OTL because we fill an important part of the ESPN equation – which is asking people to take their brains out for a walk. We do it in a way that respects people – it’s not a top 10 list or a highlights show – those things are entertaining but this is different. We do substance…”

“We have frank and animated debates internally about who to bring on. That guy’s a big name but that guy’s a better speaker. What captivates an audience? I’m a firm believer that in 20 seconds you either establish credibility with an audience or you don’t.”

“There are perceived issues, different philosophies between ESPN’s entertainment side and journalism side, and between the business side and journalism side. But there is a Berlin Wall that is not coming down. Business interests do not dictate our news operation. Which is not to say the news side is not aware that our network has business partners.”

“You want to make sure you know your material and know where you want to go to get this done. Fatigue can be more of a question, particularly on Sunday morning when I’m up at 4 a.m., and I’ve got SportsCenter and Outside the Lines. The twin orbs of my brain are swirling in opposite directions at the same time.”

Bob Ley: Interviewed on December 18, 2006

Position: host, Outside the Lines; anchor, SportsCenter, ESPN

Born: 1955, Perth Amboy, NJ

Education: Seton Hall, 1976, communications

Career: WOR Radio, NY, 1976; Suburban Cablevision, East Orange, NJ, 77-79; New York Cosmos p.a. announcer 1979; ESPN 79 –

Personal: married, (Barbara), two daughters

Favorite restaurant (home): Landing Zone, Harwinton, Ct. “a little hole in the wall near the airstrip – noveau American eclectic cuisine – biker guys sitting at the bar – 212s sitting at tables”

Favorite restaurant (away): Tuscany, Bridgeport, Ct. “white lace Italian – if you have an outstanding warrant sit with your back to the door”

Favorite hotel: Mandarin Oriental, NYC “stayed there for ESPN’s 25^th anniversary– plasma HD in the rooms – you gotta love it”

Q. You are known for being an artful interviewer – is there an art to asking a tough question?

A. ESPN brought in a guy – John Sawatsky – who was hired to do nothing but teach people how to conduct interviews and ask questions. I was in the first group – a four-day 40-hour seminar. Go to the NPR website – they did a story on “All Things Considered” about him.

I learned a number of things. The problem is learning the classic precepts and applying them on live TV. Most one-on-one interviews are not longer than four minutes – you want to follow up but not slow the show down. It requires adaptation. Even sideline reporters – the art is in asking a direct question to provoke a good answer – you’ve got to move right into it. You’ve got to ask it in a neutral sense in such a way that it moves the answer in the right direction. “Why did you warn him about going into the paint?” Why and how are the easy questions that hopefully can provoke an illuminating answer. The problem is that the world has become such a media-schooled place. People coming on (air) have been prepped – everybody has their force field on.

Q. You interviewed the elder President Bush a year after Katrina – one account said you asked him if his son deserved blame for the aftermath?

A. The Bush 41 question I recall was, “For leaders of the country, at all levels, what is the great lesson of Katrina?”

I’ve spent a lot of time with 41 in the past and with 43 and I know that 41 does not like to talk about 43 for a variety of reasons. There had been $100 million appropriated for Katrina relief and I was down there and didn’t see a lot of it at work – where the hell is that money going? If you read Doug Brinkley’s book – for a historian it’s full of anger but it’s factual too and you can weed out the opinion and fact. The book kills (New Orleans mayor Ray) Nagin and (Louisiana Governor Kathleen) Blanco doesn’t come out well, nor does (Homeland Security Secretary) Michael Chertoff.

Q. Sawatsky talks about asking “open-ended” rather than “close-ended” questions – and asking questions to elicit information rather than to prove a point – and persisting when necessary.

A. John is a tremendously intelligent man, a gifted reporter in his own right, and he’s raised the bar on interviewing no doubt. (His point about) persisting is interesting – because the demands and realities of live TV – and not just time, but the concerns of losing an audience in a 500 channel world – make that a calculated risk in any format except (Tim) Russert’s or Charlie Rose’s.

Q. Any memorably tough interviews?

A. I do recall interviewing David Stern live during the 2001 All-Star break, when the issues of NBA players disrespecting the game/image were paramount – those were the pre-Lebron and Carmelo days. Our piece included Nate McMillan, then coach of Seattle, basically calling out young players, as well as a veteran player. Stern was, to borrow from Queen Victoria, not amused – and I’ve known David for years. I’d like to think there is a good reservoir of mutual respect there. And as he criticized the report I simply asked him, “Commissioner, what specifically is inaccurate about that report?”

Q. Why does ESPN do Outside the Lines?

A. Do you mean why does it still, or why does it do it? That’s a question many people feel the need to ask. I know why originally – there was nothing like it since Sports Beat had moved on. It started in 1990 as an episodic hourly show, then it became a monthly through the 90s and then in April 200 it became a weekly show to the not inconsiderable amount of skepticism internally about its chance of survival. It became a nightly in May 2003 and a daily show in July 2006.

We do OTL because we fill an important part of the ESPN equation – which is asking people to take their brains out for a walk. We do it in a way that respects people – it’s not a top 10 list or a highlights show – those things are entertaining but this is different. We do substance – good journalism – we find good stories and macro issues and present them well because nobody is going to watch if we don’t. In the hyper-competitive environment of 500 channels you better give somebody a compelling reason not to hit the clicker, which is part of the male chromosome and I think our network has more high-testosterone males watching than anybody else. So it’s a challenge to hold those viewers. We’ve figured out a proven form to present a good story and hold our audience.

Q. Does ESPN do OTL to satisfy a journalistic obligation?

A. Inherent in that question is an inference – and I’m not saying you are, but one might say there is a lot of that going on elsewhere, and I would not necessarily agree with anybody who would say that.

I remember when we were building this place and we were the young Engine That Could and everybody loved us – we were the network everybody gravitated to because we were the new kids on the block. Now we get to the top of the mountain – we are acquired by Disney – and we’re not so much a network as a brand. We’re an international entertainment brand and we have more viewers around the world than domestically. So now that you’re on top what’s the natural American inclination – you take shots at the guy on top – it’s a chic thing to do.

Inherent in that question is a criticism that we don’t do journalism, and that’s simply not the case. Yesterday morning on ESPN News (correspondent) Chris Sheridan was being interviewed on the Knicks fight and he gave a tidbit about (Knicks coach) Isaiah (Thomas) talking to ‘Melo (Carmelo Anthony) before the foul – saying ‘I wouldn’t go into the paint – it’s not a good idea’. That’s now the focus of the league investigation and we had it yesterday morning.

There’s a pretty good body of journalism being done on the network. Some of the longer-form features being produced are evocative and telling. SportsCenter, in its 60 or 90 minutes, does a good job of encapsulating and highlighting the news and our anchors do their jobs extremely well.

That said, there is an obligation on all the shows here, and incumbent upon us, to deliver a number. Ted Koppel said this in the Times about ABC, “It’s not a public interest corporation – it’s publicly owned.” Nightline had to turn a profit. His biggest rating was a show with Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker, which generated the coin to allow him to go to Israel to do a town meeting – that’s the tradeoff.

Outside the Lines as a corporate entity must carry its own weight. Incumbent on us is doing shows that appeal to people – it’s no different than the New York Times watching its circulation numbers.

Q. Do you worry about OTL ratings?

A. Do we sit in the corner and whimper and ring our hands – no. Are we cognizant of the need to present an appealing show – yes. How do we tell the story of Marvin Harrison? How do we get inside this enigmatic spectacular somewhat reclusive Hall of Fame quality receiver? Maybe it’s not necessary to do that show a day before the Bengals play the Colts on Monday night, but if it’s a good story we’re going to mention that. We are accused of being over-promotional – and I take the fifth on that – but that’s what keeps us going.

The very success of the whole network allows OTL to continue and be a showcase. Sunday morning at 9:30 is the Rodeo Drive of network time slots, and I don’t want to say that too loud because there’s not a lot of competition for what we do. It’s Sports Reporters and us, and if we do our job well we’ve got 300 million Americans all to ourselves.

The afternoon show, by comparison, is at a hyper-competitive time.

Q. Are OTL ratings adequate?

A. Absolutely. Between SportsCenter and Sports Reporters on Sunday morning it more than holds its own. Weekdays it’s not nearly as large a number, but more often than not it raises the ratings of the show that precedes it.

This is not charity. We’re not some Ford Foundation show on PBS.

Q. What was the highest rated OTL show?

A. I believe it was on the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry – it happened to be on the day that Don Zimmer got into it with Pedro – that was a huge number for obvious reasons.

We’ve done shows on thorny topics like race – race is the great elephant in the living room, especially in sports. We’ve done some thoughtful shows on race that have done very well, and that’s encouraging. There’s a body of thought that while American’s demographic is changing white Americans still predominate and white Americans don’t want to have this uncomfortable conversation about race. But our shows have done well because sport presents a unique opportunity to have this conversation that resonates to other parts of America.

LZ Granderson wrote a piece for Page 2, about the HBO show ‘The Wire’ being a huge hit among black athletes – because it unstintingly presents a certain slice of black life in honest and human terms. The point is that when you work in sports you’ve got to understand the concept of diversity in your soul – and that applies to when you are thinking about stories who to talk to and how to make develop a story cognizant of this. We’ve got a term – ‘Rolladex suspects – meaning round up the usual suspects. Sometimes you have to say, wait a second, how can we do better?

There’s a constant dynamic on TV – we have frank and animated debates internally about who to bring on. That guys a big name but that guy’s a better speaker. What captivates an audience? I’m a firm believer that in 20 seconds you either establish credibility with an audience or you don’t. Either you know what you’re saying or you don’t. Putting together a good panel is a chemistry class – it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes thought. Live shows are even more difficult because you can’t edit. When you sit somebody down in front of a camera, with lights in his face, and ask him questions – it doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people. It’s an acquired skill.

Q. Granderson’s piece also was about homosexuality – about when a gay male athlete in a team sport will come out.

A. We have done a number of shows over the years on gay athletes, as far back as when we were only a monthly show. I’d estimate at least five shows, between a monthly, and some Sunday and daily/nightly shows. The great question has been – when will a male team athlete come out in the pros? And the reporting seems to be stuck there. I did a story with a young high school kid in a small Pennsylvania town who was basically run out of town for coming out. Wrenching.

Q. How large is the OTL staff?

A. That’s tough – I’m not sure I can conjure up a number. There’s a core group of about 15 and some rotate in and out. We also have freelance reporters and producers and we also utilize the resources of SportsCenter and they use our material. In some instances we take their features and repurpose it for our needs. And of course our research department is top of the line – they’ll research any number of concepts or fact-check something usually in 20 minutes.

Q. George Solomon, the ESPN ombudsman, has criticized the news operation in several general areas – that it overplays and over-covers sensational stories and that interviews need to be sharper and with tougher questions. Are those fair?

A. George was hired to do his column and I don’t disagree with a lot of things he says. But we do so much as a network and speak to so many different people in so many way – anybody who sits there as a parent or consumer and agrees with everything they see – you’d have to be on Kool-Aid. I don’t run the place – a lot of smart people do, some of whom are my friends, and they’re all very open about what we do. We hired George to do that column – I had him on my show to discuss the Bobby Knight ‘chin’ thing. Everybody is very open to dialogue on why we do certain things and why we should do some things differently – it’s a collaborative process.

Not that it’s a democracy nor should it be – it’s a business. In terms of dialogue the top guys listened to complaints about the ‘Bonds on Bonds’ show – which I was totally against. It all came out during a talent symposium in March at Bradley Airport. We had an honest, open and frank dialogue about the propriety of doing this – they didn’t shrink from it – they asked questions and considered all the viewpoints. It wasn’t like ‘We’re doing it this way and screw you.’ And ultimately they responded to our concerns.

Q. Is there tension between the entertainment and journalism sides at ESPN?

Sometimes questions arise. There are perceived issues, different philosophies between ESPN’s entertainment side and journalism side, and between the business side and journalism side. But there is a Berlin Wall that is not coming down. Business interests do not dictate our news operation. Which is not to say the news side is not aware that our network has business partners. We did a story developed by espn.com about NFL research into concussions – it was Peter Keating’s story. If you read it you know it raises serious questions about the NFL policy, but there was never a suggestion that we don’t do the story. We do vital business with the NFL. You let folks know it’s coming out on Sunday – if they want to let their folks know it’s their business. We just don’t want a colleague blind-sided at 10 a.m. Sunday morning. I’m not saying folks internally are always happy that the guys at OTL have done a particular story, but there’s never a suggestion it’s not something we should be doing.

Please understand that on a regular basis, at story conferences and management meetings, the boys upstairs are constantly updated on stories in development from all areas of the company – for reasons of editorial content, insuring an economy of labor, etc., – and in that mix is the education of all to any particularly sensitive story. So I can’t specifically say for sure how Peter’s story was brought to the attention of upper management – my boss is Vince Doria – but it was probably in the normal course of business. No badge of courage need be presented to anyone here.

Q. Didn’t the NFL exert pressure to cancel the “Playmakers” series?

A. It took a fair amount of stones to put that on to begin with. My understanding is that there were indications the NFL wasn’t happy about it before it went on, and even so it went on and lasted a full year. I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve read it in other media, that the company was approached by other entities to sell the rights of Playmakers – we could have made a lot of money and believe me we’re about making money – and we chose not to. You can take the contrarian view that ESPN folded like a bunch of lackeys, but it took something to put that on. By the way Tank Johnson, what’s fact and what’s fiction?

Q. ESPN’s impact on the sports culture is said to be negative – is that fair?

A. It started with the highlight phenomenon – and this goes back ten years now – the wallpapering of highlights contributed to the “me first – look at me” attitude. Maybe ten or twelve years ago there might have been some validity on that issue, but I can tell you first hand a lot of thought goes on about what goes on the air. We are the 800-pound sports gorilla that defines the daily discourse on sports, and I said this to Chris (Berman) on our 25^th special – with being a leader goes a great amount of responsibility. It is one we take seriously. I can speak for myself and the people I work with on a daily basis – we do take it seriously. I think parenthood helps you understand, and answering e-mails and phone calls helps you understand just how much responsibility we have.

The flip side is they give us a great forum. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves these are the jobs we wanted all of our lives. It gives us a podium.

You can positively affect things – if somebody doesn’t run out a ground ball and you report it – sometimes the facts alone are damning. I’m very happy we were the first to report this Isaiah thing. If somebody sent somebody out to commit a hard foul on one of the best players in the game that should be reported.

To assume our impact is always negative is somewhat unfair.

Q. Are you a sportscaster or a broadcaster?

A. I guess I’m a broadcaster. A sportscaster would be the Red Blazer in the white world of sports.

Q. Pardon?

A. That’s from the old Cheech and Chong song, “Basketball Jones.” A song on which, by the way, George Harrison and Carly Simon played in the band, and Michelle Phillips was a backup singer.

Q. Ever experience stage fright?

A. No, but you’re always on edge. You’re always driven by a fear of failure. One of the funniest things that happened to me was when we were doing a town meeting on ‘sportsmanship’ at Disney World, in 1997, before a live audience. We spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on this and put in a lot of work. With two minutes to air, I’m standing on my mark, my boss, Howard Katz, calls me over. He says, “Bob, don’t bleep it up.” I said, “Thanks Howard, I’ll try not to.” That was his way of loosening me up.

Stage fright is a Ralph Kramden thing. You want to make sure you know your material and know where you want to go to get this done. Fatigue can be more of a question, particularly on Sunday morning when I’m up at 4 a.m., and I’ve got SportsCenter and Outside the Lines. The twin orbs of my brain are swirling in opposite directions at the same time. Sometimes I’ll introduce a live piece on the SportsCenter set, and then turn to my computer and work on the 9:30 show. Even on the afternoon show I can be juggling two shows, or taking care of e-mails during a commercial.

Q. Who do you read?

A. Peggy Noonan – I wish I could write like her. Tom Friedman – though I don’t always agree with him, but he is a master of synthesizing the complex to the conversational. John LeCarre – he can construct such marvelous plots. I’m reading Dave Kindred’s “Sound and Fury” – we had Dave on for the anniversary of John Lennon’s death – he gave us the behind-the-scenes story of how Monday Night Football reported it. James Lee Burke – the novelist – who is painfully poetic.

Q. Who do you read in sports?

A. We get a daily clipping service. I don’t have a favorite columnist – I’m always driven to read out of necessity. The usual suspects – (Mike) Lupica (NY Daily News), Mike Penner (LA Times) – whether he writes a column or a story you know you’re getting good stuff. One of the troubles with the afternoon show is by the time I open the Wall Street Journal or USA Today it’s 8 p.m.

My day starts at 6. I open e-mail and click on live links and by the time you come up for air it’s dinner. I’m up at 6 to check the night note and see if the world has exploded. There’s a meeting at 8 and 10 a.m. and we’re on the air at 3:30. I come home and I’m working on the next day’s show. There’s always a piece to polish or something an associate producer has prepared. Right now I’m off for two weeks and my PDA is buzzing away and I’m fighting the Pavlovian urge to check it. I really don’t have a sense of an off day because of the need to stay current.

Q. On-air personalities you admire?

A. Bob Costas – I always enjoy him. I watched his Sportsman of the Year show – he’s always thoughtful. The world has changed – I used to watch the Voice of God at 6:30 – Cronkite or Brokaw or Jennings. We’re in a new media age – it’s interesting to watch Katie (Couric) try to establish herself. I like to watch my good friend Robin Roberts on Good Morning America.

Q. How did you get to ESPN?

A. I sent a tape after I got a call out of the blue from Scotty Connal – the original No. 2 guy in our company, with Chet Simmons. I’m not sure of Scotty’s exact title but he was a prince, and an icon in the industry. He offered me a job and at the same time I had an offer from New Jersey Public TV. I had 18 hours to choose. It was a tough call – like one of those countdown clocks to the NFL draft we put on. I was 24 when I had the offer from ESPN, and I took it.

Q. Good decision?

A. I think it worked out okay.

Q. Ever consider working elsewhere?

A. I’ve had a number of feelers over the year. The most serious was 10 years ago when CNN SI was beginning operations, and my contract was coming up at ESPN. We had very substantial conversations, but – like my choice between job openings in 1979 – I think I opted correctly.

(SMG thanks Bob Ley for his cooperation)

Q.The Atlanta Journal-Constitution criticized an OTL show about Braves first baseman Adam LaRoche using medication for ADD. The paper said OTL failed to point out that LaRoche’s improved hitting coincided with becoming a regular in the Braves lineup, and that it failed to point out that other major leaguers are using the medication. Your reaction?

A. The AJC’s reaction was rather surprising. My recollection is that we did mention other major leaguers using ADD drugs. I do recall we were startled at the volume of the criticism, and that the central issue of the LaRoche show was this: he was using a drug otherwise banned by baseball. We contrasted that, in our presentation, with the OTL exclusive earlier in the summer in which retired major leaguer David Segui said he used HgH with a doctor’s prescription, late in his career – and Segui ascribed incredble recuperative qualities to the drug.