Turning the tables on an MLB beat writer

Bob Dutton, the Royals beat writer for the KC Star, has been interviewing various Royals and their opponents for years. He was gracious enough to allow me to turn the tables on him. I picked his brain about his job, about the future, and about the Royals. I hope you enjoy.

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Garth Sears (GS): First of all, thanks for talking with me. We’ll start off with a softball: what is your favorite and least favorite part of beat writing?

Bob Dutton (BD): It’ll sound cheesy but, really, I get paid to go to games. It’s hard to complain about too much. It really is a great job for a seamhead. Sure, there are small irritants that crop up such as travel snafus or deadline-busting slow games, etc. But that really is small stuff. When something like that happens, I just ask myself: What else would you rather be doing? I can’t ever come up with anything. (Not that I’m particularly qualified to do much else.)

What bugs me more than anything, in fact, is people in my profession who gripe all of the time about the job. I have no time for that. Hey, if you don’t want to do it, do something else. There are loads of people who would kill to do what I do.

GS: So what is different about a Royals beat writer, compared to say a bigger-market beat writer, in terms of the readership, the job’s pressures and requirements, the deadlines, the style of writing expected from you and so forth? My guess would be that a New York writer would be expected to put out more sensational, rumor-based writing, but I really don’t know. Any thoughts here?

BD: The only thing that matters, I think, is you have to remember to write for your audience. And, yes, that can vary some throughout the country. But, really, every story should be written from the point of view of what the person reading the paper is interested in. That’s a Journalism 101 cliche, sure, but it’s true. At least, that’s how I try to break it down.

That’s why I read, and try to answer, all of my email. It’s why I’ll surf fan sites, etc. Now, a lot of stuff on those sites is ill-informed, but it’s usually passionate. That passion, those people who care so much—that’s the reason I have a job covering baseball.

Now, I’ll admit I have to remind myself of that at times when I get calls and emails ripping me. But that goes with the turf, too. We expect players and club officials to handle criticism. A reporter needs to be able to do it, too. From fans and players.

GS: What are some popular misconceptions among Royals fans and even national writers about the team?

BD: The biggest is that David Glass doesn’t care about winning. It’s just not true unless you base your belief on the view that an owner must be willing to lose tens of millions each year to prove he wants to win.

Good teams can be put together on a budget. There are several examples. That’s the model Glass wants to follow. Remember this is the guy who oversaw Wal-Mart’s rise to a global power. Of course, he wants to win.

Another thing, Glass has always said he planned to operate the club on a break-even basis over the long haul. That’s not something he ever tried to keep from people. Also, he has an open offer to anyone who thinks he’s raking in big money: They can buy into the club as a minority owner and share those profits. No takers so far.

Yes, the financial limitations are real and create a handicap. But the Royals’ problems over the last decade, to me, boil down to this: They have been poorly run and plagued by a mountain of bad decisions. Glass has been part of that, certainly. He deserves blame for allowing that to happen.

GS: Spending several months away from home has to be extremely tough. How do you cope? How do other writers cope?

BD: It’s not that tough on me. I’m staying in great hotels and flying around the country to cover games and report on the club. So I have it pretty good.

It’s a monumental burden for my wife, though. It’s her understanding and willingness to allow me this lifestyle that makes it work. It takes a rare spouse to handle the lifestyle—and covering baseball requires a complete lifestyle adjustment.

It’s unlike any other sport. Start with 50 days away from home for spring training. Add the whole month of October away from home for the postseason. Now, in-between are 162 games. That means, roughly, another 90 nights on the road. But it’s not just the road. Even when the club is at home, I usually leave for the ballpark around 2 p.m. to set up and be ready for when the clubhouses open at 3:30. It’s usually well after midnight when I get home.

Anyone married to a baseball beat writer puts up with a lot. I doubt I could handle it were our roles reversed.

GS: Does traveling around with the same team for 162 games make writing quality stuff about them consistently difficult? There’s only so many times you can say the same thing. Do you ever feel that way?

BD: I think you can make it too complicated. My approach is just tell what happened or what’s going on. When stuck, I just visualize myself going to a restaurant after the game to meet a friend, and he’s a fan who wants to know what happened tonight in the game, or what is so-and-so like, or what’s the deal with a certain situation.

What would I tell him? Then just write that.

GS: By traveling along with the same 30-40 guys every day, do you ever feel in danger of being biased, either overly for or against them? If so, how do you cope?

BD: I remember asking that question to a good friend of mine, Jack Etkin, who once worked at The Star but now works for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver.

Jack told me that he found he didn’t care that much about wins and losses for a team—and, actually, that most reporters generally root for themselves. (Example: Royals are down one run in the ninth and they get a couple of guys on. You don’t want extra innings because of deadline issues. So you’re rooting (to yourself) for the Royals to score none or two.)

But Jack did tell me that it’s hard not to root for or against individuals. That’s human nature. And he’s right about all of it.

Now, here’s where the professionalism has to kick in. The reader shouldn’t be able to tell. How good am I at hiding that? Hard to say.

Another point I emphasize whenever talking to young reporters: You’re not part of the club, and those in the clubhouse will never view you as one of them. So forget being friends. You can be friendly and cordial. Heck, that’s the goal. But that’s not the same as being friends. There’s a line there always. A wall. And there should be.

I’ll have friends say they’re sorry for me the Royals aren’t better. Or they’re sorry they lost last night. I used to try to explain that I don’t work for the Royals; that I work for The Star. Now, I usually just nod.

GS: Do you have any favorite writers in the business?

BD: I don’t know about favorites, but I have loads of friends. That includes that four guys who I’ve shared the beat with at The Star since switching fill-time to baseball: Dick Kaegel, Jeff Passan, David Boyce and Sam Mellinger.

I’m also fortunate to work with a columnist who really knows (and loves) baseball in Joe Posnanski.

More name-dropping: The guy who has helped me the most is Tracy Ringolsby of the Rocky Mountain News. Tracy was inducted last July into the writers’ wing of the Hall of Fame and remains unparalleled as a baseball beat reporter.

The best national guy is Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports. If Ken writes it or reports it, you can pretty well bank it. He’s not just a rumor-monger like a lot of folks.

GS: I’d like to get your take on the whole Barry Bonds and Mark Fainaru-Wada / Lance Williams thing. Two reporters are in prison for publishing leaked testimony, while the criminal himself is free to negotiate a multi-million dollar free agent contract. As a writer very much in the same position as Fainaru-Wada / Williams, what are your thoughts here?

BD: I am immensely impressed with the work that Mark and Lance did. Any reporter knows how tough it is to get the type of stuff they uncovered—and it’s been dead on. I also have tremendous respect for their willingness to risk prosecution to publish their findings. The fact remains, however, they did break the law. They did take that risk, and the risk turned out to be real. Civil disobedience is so admirable (on occasion) because it comes accompanied by that risk.

As for Bonds, yes, he’s been free to continue his career. But he’s not yet clear from prosecution, and he’s been damaged—illegally so, to some extent, under statutes of our legal system.

GS: Continuing that thought, what has you concerned about the future of your job? Reduced subscription rates, shield laws, something else?

BD: You can go crazy worrying about stuff like that. It’s not that I’m not interested. Far from it. But I just try to do the best I can in my little niche of the industry. If I do that, I feel I’m helping the paper and myself for whatever comes.

GS: Look 20 years into the future. What does the game of baseball look like? What does your job look like?

BD: I don’t know that the game ever changes that much. That’s a large part of its appeal. I guess there’s every reason to expect the game will continue to show greater influences from Asia and the Caribbean. That could lead, I suppose, to franchises in those areas. But the basics won’t change.

Newspapers seems to be evolving into a merged mix of other media. There is already a growing trend toward a 24-hour newspaper through the internet. There’s also an increasing use of video. Newspapers have always possessed the biggest labor force in terms of news gathering. We just now have to figure out how best to present what we have to the public.

GS: Now moving to some Royals-specific stuff. Talk about Justin Huber’s future, with the team and in the league.

BD: Justin Huber is a great kid who you’d love to see succeed. But his switch to first base was a disaster, which prompted a switch to the outfield. That hasn’t gone well either.

There is thought of moving him back to catcher. That’s probably his best position, but there were reasons why he was moved to first. He lacks the power desired in a corner position and lacks the speed to compensate for it.

He won the Texas League batting title in 2005 at Wichita, but his swing still has a small hitch that instructors have been unable to fix. Bottom line: It’s hard to see where he fits.

GS: Talk about Angel Berroa’s future.

BD: I voted for Angel Berroa in 2003 for Rookie of the Year and, since the vote was so close, that means I and everyone else who did so put him over the top. I thought he deserved the award. Still do. I also thought it was a great deal the following year when the Royals locked him up for a long-term contract.

I can still remember club officials saying that even if Berroa’s offense plateaued, his defense was good enough to justify the contract. It made sense.

The Royals, even then, realized he was likely to always be an aggressive hitter whose weaknesses could be exploited, although they never anticipated his lack of plate discipline to reach such bone-chilling depths. But his defensive decline has been a surprise.

Berroa has always had a tendency to get sloppy defensively. A lot of players do. By this, I mean to backhand a ball instead of taking the extra step to get in front of it, or slinging a throw instead of setting his feet properly. Watch closely and you’ll see a lot of infielders do this. Not doing so is one thing that makes Mark Grudzielanek so deserving of a Gold Glove.

Anyway, about Berroa. He does work hard and he does care. People who say otherwise don’t know him. And, remember, he would go for long stretches of bearing down and not making errors. His mistakes usually came in a cluster because he did care too much and would tend to get down on himself, which would only make things worse.

Last year was different, though. He became lead-footed almost overnight. He now backhanded balls not because of sloppiness but because he couldn’t move well enough to get in front of them. Etc. To use the players’ cliche, he got old in a hurry.

This winter, he chose to remain in Kansas City and work out with a physical trainer on specific drills to increase his quickness and flexibility. It’s his last chance. We should know fairly quickly next spring if it pays off. If so, and he returns to a solid defensive player, he can be an asset. If not, he could be out of the game within a year or two.

GS: Talk about Mike Sweeney’s future.

BD: People often ask me if Mike Sweeney is as nice as he seems or whether it’s an act. If it’s an act, it’s a good one because it never slips. At least I’ve never seen it slip. He truly is one of the game’s best people.

He has also been one of the AL’s best pure hitters for the better part of a decade when healthy. That’s the catch, of course. He has rarely been healthy in recent years.

Now, he’s getting older. I think his bat, inevitably, is slowing down a bit. I think he’s entering the phase of his career where he will begin to become more of a role player.

Oddly, that might not be immediately noticeable this year, if he stays healthy, because the Royals can bracket him with some pretty good hitters. And it’s not like Sweeney has slipped a lot. Not yet, anyway.

But this is probably his last year in Kansas City. His contract expires at the end of the year, and the Royals appear to have a ready-made DH in line to replace him in Billy Butler.

Sweeney is also in line for a big pay cut, and he knows it, but few players accept such a cut to remain with the same team. Bernie Williams is a big exception. My guess is Sweeney, if not traded this year, signs a short, incentive-heavy contract next year with a contending team on the West Coast.