The Biz

(This is the first installment of what I'm hoping evolves into a running, periodic commentary on issues in the sports journalism business).

I love sportswriting. Always have, always will.

I've had well-meaning people ask me over the years "you write well ... why don't you do something beyond 'just' sportswriting?'"

But it is in my blood.

I started reading the Boston Globe and the Patriot Ledger every day when I was about seven. I grew up reading Will McDonough, Bob Ryan, Leigh Montville, and Jackie MacMullan.

As a teenager, taking the MBTA to school every day, I bought the Boston Herald specifically to read Gerry Callahan. Yes, Gerry Callahan. It is a shame Callahan feels the need to stick with his caveman radio schtick, because when he puts his mind to it, he's one of the best sportswriters around.

Another key moment in my sportswriting future was reading A Season on the Brink in high school. Don't let that horrible made-for-TV movie fool you(couldn't they at least have found someone who looked like Bobby Knight?), John Feinstein's book is a masterpiece. As is Feinstein's A Good Walk Spoiled. I was introduced to Feinstein at the NCAA tourney this year and I basically just nodded and kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to come off like a fawning fanboy. My leisure reading these days is as often as not the works of Red
Smith and Leonard Koppett as any other subject.

Could I write about other things? Sure. Sometimes I do. But I don't think I'll ever be able to shake sportswriting's lure.

Every once in awhile I hear someone dismiss what I do for a living and assume that anybody can be a sports writer.

No, you can't. Not everyone can put up with the hours involved, which can wreak havoc on family and social life. Few have the writing skills. Few have the interpersonal skills to get reliable contacts to impart reliable, trustworthy information. Few can deal with nightly deadline pressures. You have your name on top of your work in the sportswriting business for the general public to see, so you need a thick skin towards criticism. The pay ain't all that great. The most talented person certainly doesn't always get the best job. Mix all that into a blender, and you have the sports journalism business, something that isn't quite comparable to any other industry.

The flip side, of course, is that you're getting paid to write about sports. Some in the business try to seriously downplay the joy-of-sports aspect, but it is always there. I've gotten to see things and places I never would have imagined I'd stumble across had I not become a sports reporter. Places like Kamloops, B.C., where I did a feature out of the Western Hockey League finals; Vancouver, where I happened to be the night Marty McSorley clobbered Donald Brashear in the head; or little things like sitting behind the Syracuse bench in Worcester this March when the Orange played Vermont and watching the look of bewilderment on the players' faces every time they came back to the bench during a time-out.

It isn't just the big-time stuff that sticks, either. I'll never forget watching UMass Boston football punch home a touchdown on the last play of the game to beat MIT and snap a 16-game losing streak in 1995; watching a bunch of Boston area high school kids turn into national distance running champions running on a world-class track at the Reggie Lewis Center; or listening to a 17-year old football player pour out his heart as he explained what his deceased best friend meant to his tech school team. And I love the way things sometimes tie in -- a lineman from that UMB football team was an assistant coach on that tech high school team, which went on to win the school's first championship for their buddy.

The appeal of sportswriting is also about the people you meet in the business. You have what seems like a million acquaintances across the country. Then there's your few real friends with whom you play video games until 5 in the morning (or drink at the bar, or go on a road trip) while you laugh about the good times at work and gripe about the bad in a way no one outside the business would understand. Those people are worth their weight in gold.

Truth be told, there are a few real turds in the business, like any other line of work. Readers have a pretty canny sense of who they are. But for each one of them, there's a McDonough, Ryan, Montville, or MacMullan, who turn out to be everything you thought they'd be as human beings as you read them growing up.

So I unabashedly love the sportswriting business. Remember this when I occasionally use this space for pointed criticism.

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If my hit counters are accurate, I'm getting more people visiting the site daily than I have friends and family, which means some people have stumbled on the site and keep coming back (and if you are a newbie, feel free to drop me an email).

If you've started making a habit of checking in here, you've come upon a stream of conconsiousness that my friends and acquaintences understand, but might not make sense to someone who doesn't know me. Here's a couple things to keep in mind:

Where all the random baseball stuff comes from:
I work as a freelancer, with my main summer job a work-from-home gig in which I process a ton of baseball info. And on top of that, I have DirecTV with the MLB baseball package at home. So I'm immersed in baseball much of the time. Generally speaking, my order of preference of baseball watching is: 1. The Sox (obviously); 2. Yanks (the train wreck is a lot of fun to watch); 3. Mets (an interesting team that seems to be modeled like those Duquette Sox teams that were good enough to get into the playoffs but have some sort of fatal flaw); 4. Cubs (when playing at Wrigley); 5. Nats (I went to a bunch of Expos games in their dying days and have surprised myself by continuing to follow them); 6. The LAA of A (interesting team to watch, and you never know what CHOAN! Figgins is going to do next in the field); 7. Whatever else catches my eye.

Why I write so much about Boston if I'm in Seattle:
Why not? What am I supposed to write about -- the fact that Bret Boone's batting helmet seems to fit over his forehead better these days, completely coincidentally at the same time baseball started enforcing various rules this season? Seriously, since I moved out here, I've truly discovered how much smaller a world this has become. Other than the fact I do not literally see my friends and family, with the Sox on DirecTV, streaming audio, email, and instant messaging, it is like I've never left. And I think the fact I seem to be getting more feedback from writing my on own tiny little Web site while staring out at the Olympic Mountains than I ever did when I had position with a multibillion-dollar media behemoth back home suggests just how much the world has changed.

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