February 27, 2003
Spring Training Reporting
As Popeye the Sailor would often say, “I’ve had all I can stands; I can’t stands no more!” Just as we have salary caps in various sports, I want the newspapers and the electronic media outlets to establish a cap on the number of people who are allowed to go to Florida or Arizona to cover Spring Training. And after that cap is established and enforced, I would ask them to establish the rule that these people can only report once a week. The problem is that there are too many people reporting and too many outlets relaying those reports when compared to anything of any consequence happening. The vast majority of this stuff is recycled balderdash with the names changed – and not to protect the innocent.
Do you still get excited when you read that Joe Flabeetz showed up in camp this year with another 15 pounds that he gained so that he won’t wear down in the dog days of August? How many times have you read that article/column? I’ll tell you how many; it’s the same number of times as you read the column about Hugh Jass showing up for camp 15 pounds lighter this year so that he will improve his stamina by not carrying around the extra lard. When you have to resort to concocting stories and pretending there is some cosmic importance contained in the weigh-ins at Spring Training camps, then you are in a situation where there is not enough news to report. And in that situation, the best thing you could do for sports fans is to stuff a sock in it!
Trust me, there are other “stock stories” that come out of Spring Training every year. Fill in your own team names and player/manager names because you saw them in the papers that cover your favorite team sometime this year – or you soon will. I promise you that the player on your team who was a giant pain in the fanny last year – and maybe the year before that too – will have shown up this spring with a new mellowness and a more open attitude. That will last until the first game of the season in which he strikes out with two men in scoring position in the eighth inning of a loss. Someone will ask him what kind of pitch got him out and Mount Vesuvius will reappear. So why do we have to read something now that fills space and portends nothing?
Naturally, you will get to read in depth reporting on the intra-squad game in which Coach Buttmunch’s Red Team edged out Coach Snaggletooth’s Gold Team by a score of 4-3. In that game, no pitcher went for more than 2 innings and 60% of the players on the field for more than three innings will never see a major league park this year unless they buy a ticket. Trees are being felled in forests to provide the newsprint to bring these vitally important facts to you. Newspaper editors should be ashamed.
In just about every spring training venue, there is some guy who has made spring training his hobby for the past umpty-squat years. Either he lives in the town and goes to every game or he and his wife drive south in a Winnebago to attend games every year and have done so ever since George Washington was a sergeant. Guess what? This joker becomes “news” and you’ll get to read about him and hear about him. Guess what else? His entire life story does not have enough interest to fill the void in a gnat’s rectum.
Oh yeah. I don’t think I need to be reminded on any random day in February that the Cubs and the Red Sox have not won a World Series since the League of Nations was thought to be a good idea. Just let your team travel to play either the Cubs or the Red Sox and that could be the “space/time filler du jour”. Close your eyes and it will not be difficult for you to envision the talking hair-do that does sports for your local station standing on a sunny field in an open collar shirt telling you about the long championship droughts in Chicago and Boston. I’m sure you will be taping that report so that you can share that vital info with everyone at work the next day.
And what spring training can go by without the tugging at the heartstrings story about the crafty vet who is giving his all to scratch out one more season. Out come the references to his past glory and there are clarion calls about his dedication to the game that he loves and to his leadership skills. You can almost cue The Battle Hymn of the Republic as the background music here. Did you ever read or hear that the reason the old guy is coming back is that he stands to make $3M as his guaranteed deal if he can do well enough in Florida for six weeks so that he makes the trip north with the team? Do you think that might be the motivation in just one of these cases? What else do you think this guy is going to do to pull down $3M a year? For a lot of these guys, attending an autograph show stretches the limits of their mental prowess. After all, they have to spell their name right so many times in a row…
And of course there will be stories about players in contract disputes. The club will say how much they want Joe Flabeetz in camp because he such an integral part of the team chemistry; the agent will say that Ol’ Beetzy is chomping at the bit to be with his “comrades-in-arms” and has been working out like a maniac to be sure that he will hit the ground running as soon as these final few details on the contract can be ironed out. Of course the agent will also say that he and Beetzy have given in on so many of the terms already that they just can’t yield another inch. And that inch always seems to translate to “dollars” doesn’t it? This report will always have an upbeat and “feelgood” tone. But you know how the story is going to end. Ultimately, Joe Flabeetz will sign and report. He will be fat and not ready to play before June 1st; he will become an anchor the team has to drag and all of a sudden his “comrades-in-arms” will find ways to ignore him.
The moratorium on Spring Training reporting is not going to happen voluntarily. So maybe what I need to wish for is for Popeye the Sailor to chug down some spinach and pay an angry visit to a few newspaper editors and TV station program directors. And if Popeye the Sailor is not sufficient to get them to see the light, maybe Luca Brasi could explain things to them?
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…
