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1. GotowarMissAgnes Posted: June 12, 2009 at 10:34 AM (#3215855)Maybe if baseball writers saw their job less as "hanging with the popular kids" and more like, oh, I don't know, investigating the use of PEDs or researching what really determines team wins, I'd give a #$@%, Jeff.
And man, Jeff Pearlman must be from like the nicest part of Canada, or Candyland or something. He has never in his life said something as 'rude' as "Not for you, bud?"
Ditto.
I didn't realize the clubhouses were open to reporters for that much time each day... it'd get on my nerves having several ( or more ) outsiders wandering about my workspace, pestering me and my co-workers with intrusive and all-too-often absurd questions.
While I have no doubt that many athletes have become world class jerks, I have little sympathy for Pearlman's point of view. I don't care a fig about athletes as people... I just wanna know what happened in the game and what's planned for the team. Stop the ridiculous celebritizing of athletes and tell me about the game, bud.
Matt Wieters only does the first.
I don't believe this, but if true, this is not at all flattering to journalists.
I would have thought the toughest parts are thinking up a new angle the editor won't spike, seeing your stuff turned into unrecognizable form by rewrites, and the editor's constant moaning about why you can't scoop the other guys. (Not that there are so many 'other guys' any more.)
But Pearlman's right to dislike the way he's treated, and I do have sympathy for him. The journalist basically has to ask someone for something they don't have to give. And once he gets it, he has to use in such a way that when he asks next time, the guy won't say 'not for you, bud'. It's a pretty demeaning job in the end. Why would anyone want to do it?
may want to lay off talking about people should interact with one another.
Moreover, I have no idea about mystery reporter's background, but talking to Jeff Pearlman can lead to disastrous results for many athletes. This isn't just the Rocker episode, look how he decides to take on Arthur Rhodes:
Literally, Rhodes didn’t need the chair at that moment—he just hated anyone unworthy sitting in it.
I presume this is known because Jeff politely asked Arthur Rhodes if he could sit in the chair for a few minutes, and Rhodes told him, "Dude you are not worthy to sit in my chair."
Otherwise an alternative explanation might be that Rhodes, who spends his life constantly having to share every minute of his time with others didn't want everyone that came along messing with his personal belongings. Another might have been that he just got up from his spot and wanted to return without having to look for an open space everytime he went to take a piss.
Additionally, he might not have been using the jock strap in his locker at the time either, but that doesn't mean he should be ok with you examining it or wearing it.
In TFA, because people think he gets to hang out with the cool kids.
And once he gets it, he has to use in such a way that when he asks next time, the guy won't say 'not for you, bud'.
He isn't having a great track record with this part of the job. His biggest commercial successes/imprints have been articles and books that show the foibles of athletes. Why would an athlete want to take the chance on that.
Y'know, if people didn't treat the cool kids like cool kids, they'd stop being cool.
In the olden days, public performers were viewed as being morally corrupt and corrupting. In this instance, the olden days were right.
The primary people doing this are the reporters. They build that aura, and if then if someone pisses them off they call them a "Lesser-weight." They try to use that same access as a means to make people "less cool" by comparing them to people they make super-cool, which in TFA is Ryan Howard and the Rolling Stones.
I agree with this entirely. What motivates the continued clubhouse presence of media? No useful information is imparted. Inane questions beget inane answers, doing little more than generating filler for television and radio. It's all just glorified fawning under the dubious rubric of journalism.
Clubhouse reporters are not far removed from Joan Rivers chasing down red carpet celebrities at the Academy Awards. These "journalists" get conferred with a street cred from personally knowing the celebrities, and we, as an addled public, lap up this one-degree removed celebrity access. Oooh, what's Derek Jeter really like? What, he gave you his old Maxim? Oooooh.
If you believe that...
...while it's more complex than outsiders perceive, my brief glimpses into this world tell me that the main drive for the 'coolification' of celebrities is from marketing departments and senior editors and managers. The reporters/writers, doing the 'grunt' work, would probably prefer to talk to people whom they think might have something interesting to say.
Of course, some reporters will enjoy their access to the Derek Jeters of this world, and make the most of it. But getting that access is hard work, and most people prefer the easier route, especially if it leads to more interesting, if less cool, people.
If it wasn't bad enough with papers folding like Mets teams in September <ducking>, sportwriters don't get any "action" -- just their images!
It depends what you mean by 'carried the day'. You also picked two of the more questionable examples to study!
Am I seeing things or is that a reference to the obscure 1974 TV movie, Bad Ronald, which scared the bejeezus out of me and my brother back in the day and of which I have not thought in over 30 years? If so, we may have evidence that Jeff Pearlman is Repoz.
Then that is what they should do, and we wouldn't have to worry about what "people believe" or extrapolating from "brief glimpses" or choosing the wrong periods to study.
It might be a lot better than actually writing "Get to hang out with the cool kids"
Indeed, but they also have to give the boss what he or she wants. And that may not be an interview with the bullpen coach.
This is my point - you are blaming the wrong level in the supply chain. It's like blaming writers for not writing the kinds of books you want to read. It's not up to them, it's up to what the publisher wants to print.
I suspect it is for a band named after said movie (due to the Rolling Stone reference). Which, if you watch on TV as an adult, you may admire for its unrealistic quirkiness though there really is no fear factor.
The movie is a great cult classic from the made-for-tv horror days of the 1970s.
Inspired by a book with a much darker tone.
Precisely why/when things changed I don't know.
So, this isn't remotely true. There absolutely are reporters who don't ask good questions, or enough of them, to make their clubhouse access work for them. There are also plenty who do, and whose analysis benefits from knowing in detail what a player is thinking. Having access to a player's thoughts generally can also help shape specific questions after a particular game. It just doesn't come close to the above description.
What I love about this is that it illustrates just how dumb he is. If it's "guaranteed to be answered in banal cliches," then why bother to ask the question?
Admittedly, people did want to know that A-Rod used steroids. But, even with a pretty huge story like that, their interest stopped there; they weren't gonna pay $20 to find out more about it. And I don't think they have any real interest at all in hearing Joe Shlabotnik saying he just works hard and tries to help the team. How about the ratings for postgame shows, which basically consist entirely of such interviews; how are those? I'm making a very strong guess that, other than Inside the NBA which is very well-done and has highly entertaining "reporters", they're all awful.
I really don't see the demand for a whole heck of a lot of the reporting that gets done.
Game of Shadows sold a decent number of books. Canseco's biography sold a ton.
EDIT: Moneyball essentially falls under this category too - a peek behind the mask.
Because they had already read the relevant chunks in excerpts, or had heard all the discussions on sports radio/TV. If the book was the first place that the claim was made, then sales would have been a lot higher. Instead, they gave away the most interesting bit for free in advance, and had nothing new when the book was actually released.
And yet there's still enough interest that ESPN and Fox can both support sports networks which consist primarily of people talking about what people said in these interviews, and be hugely profitable. There's a ton of interest in this sort of crap (even ignoring the entire entertainment press industry).
Which means you're just not part of the market for it. I don't like a whole lot of the reporting which gets done, but I do see the demand for it, even if I don't watch or read it myself.
"Takeout writer" what does that even mean? Is Pearlman saying this guy is a hack? If so, then one can excuse Werth for not wanting to talk to him.
Suppose one of us were a ballplayer and spotted T. J. Simers homing in on us? What then? Aside from the fact that Simers would hardly ask permission to talk to me, I wonder what I'd say?
Well, crap, yeah.
I've been reading this whole thread thinking this was Passan.
:)
I get confused because BBTF seems to loathe both guys in the same way.
Not me. I have no memory of anything Passan has ever written.
Although, I suppose it's possible that I do, but just think it was written by Pearlman.
I'm kind of the garbageman at my company. Random crap comes to me and that includes a lot of cold calling types ("we can save you 800% on cleaning services!!!") so I'm pretty good at brushing people off politely. If this exchange took place exactly as described by Pearlman (I get him and Passan confused too by the way) then I can see where Pearlman's coming from. It seems to me that there is more to it than that though. Even the specific language used "Not for you, bud" can have different implications depending on how it is said.
In Europe, during the middle ages, actors were looked at as little better than dogs. They were typically not eligible for church membership, which was a scarlett letter from which no one could survive.
A good modern comp for actors then, is the general attitude Americans have toward Carnival workers (Carneys) now, which tends to be less than ideal.
None of which makes it any less of an ####### move on Werth's part.
But it won't be a meme for me, because the popular kids here don't talk to me much. So:
Not for you, bud.
***
I admit curiosity as to why whomever transfers these people to you doesn't just hang up on them instead.
Wow. Just wow.
What is this?
Google gives me nothing (except, amazingly, this article...Google is ####### scary.)
when I was younger I read one of those books which was little known laws or something like that, and in at least one county the law was written that when a crime happened the police were empowered to pick up and question the usual suspects hobos, vagrants and ball players. (something like that)
Well, in this case it depends on what you consider their "work" to be. Seems to me a baseball player is a participant in a media-driven, entertainment industry, and so part of their work is to talk about the game to the media. Sportswriters are not invaders of their work environment, they're part of the work environment.
Never having studied it, I won't claim any expertise in the "history of entertainer perception." But I'll not the above is somewhat meaningless.
Matt's claim is basically this: yes, there are always those in the moral establishment who label entertainers as the scum of the earth. Not surprisingly, there are always those who find whatever is condemned by others alluring. His claim is that the latter group has always been sufficiently large that you can't claim that the negative view "carried the day."
After all, if nobody paid attention to actors in the middle ages then the Church wouldn't have bothered to condemn them. Well, maybe they would have, they had lots of time on their hands but nobody would have cared.
Anyway, I don't think it's a stretch to claim that one part of human nature is that we are curious about the forbidden. That's pretty much the first lesson of the Bible. (It's also one of the reasons why the Book of Leviticus is so funny).
As to carnies ... how's the Jim Rose freak show doing these days?
This is exactly right, although I think one of the ironies is that often it is the uncooperative baseball player who helps the newspaper writer find a subject that will sell papers.
Any chance the reporter looked like Selig?
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