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sports journalism
The Reporter: 'That's twice you get me. I'm gonna hit you, right now,
right now!'
by by Bill Plaschke
Bill Plaschke, pictured here in Dodger Stadium, has covered
sports for the Los Angeles Times since 1987, the last four years as a
columnist. Major league baseball was his beat for much of that time. He has
won numerous sportswriting awards.
I
strolled through the Los Angeles Dodger clubhouse toward
the outer door with a sigh. One hour until first pitch, and the hardest part
of my day was done. I had mingled with the players, pitched through their paranoia,
played catch with their insecurities, swung with their unusual humor, and gently
bunted around their fears. Now I could walk upstairs to the Dodger Stadium press
box and perform the absolutely easiest part of my job, which is writing about
them.
Then I heard a shout. It wasn't the voice of a player. It was worse. It was the voice of a public relations man, the kind who only comes between sportswriter and player when they need separating.
"Plaschke! Plaschke!" shouted the Dodgers's Derrick Hall. "Raul Mondesi wants to talk to you."
Five feet from the door, I stopped and tensed. The last thing the moody Dodger outfielder wanted to do was talk.
A day earlier I had written that, even though it was only August, the disappointing Dodger season was essentially finished. I had written that problems ranging from upper management to the clubhouse underbelly were too great to overcome.
I had also noted what many in my town felt, that Mondesi is "a centerfielder who is too worried that everyone thinks he parties too much, which he does." I had added that, "Raul Mondesi sometimes acts as if his brain is dead." Maybe so, but the rest of him seemed very much alive on this August evening as he stalked toward me.
As a columnist who spent ten years as a beat reporter, I live by the philosophy that you rarely make an issue of a player's off-field behavior unless it affects what happens on the field. While this might seem constricting, it actually gives me the freedom to write about matters of legality and character — drugs and crime always affect what happens on the field — while gaining the trust of sources who know I won't sweat the other stuff.
In other words, marital problems are relevant only if a player is late to a game because he's being chased around the block with a frying pan. And if a player wants to spend all night in a bar, it's only an issue if he sleeps through the next day's first pitch.
So why did I write about Raul Mondesi's partying? Because earlier in the year he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving the night before an afternoon game, and was subsequently held out of that game. He was eventually cleared of the charges, but not of the fact that thousands of fans who paid to see him play were deprived of that chance because he was partying when he might have been resting. I had chastised him in print once before, when he had been suspended from another game because he arrived late after another rough night.
As his glare broke the calm on this August afternoon, it was clear that he'd had enough.
"That's twice you get me!" he shouted as he approached me, his football physique stopping inches shy of my round middle-aged frame. "No more! No more!"
In the past when things like this have happened, I just stood there and said nothing, figuring that the best way to weather a storm is to let it pass. But experience has made me more brave, or self-righteous, or stupid.
"If you keep doing things off the field that stop you from playing on the field, I will keep writing about it," I said.
"You do this again, I'm gonna get you!" he replied.
"Just stay out of trouble," I answered.
"You want me to hit you now? I'm going to hit you now!" he shouted.
Mondesi stuck his right arm out, placed his right fist on my chest, and held it there.
"I'm gonna hit you, right now, right now!" he kept shouting.
Now I had been silenced. I wasn't moving. But I wasn't talking either. Friends always say I should not be worried if athletes hit me because I can sue them out of their signing bonuses. Easy for them to say. I wasn't just worried, I was scared.
I apparently wasn't the only one. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw sweat rolling down Derrick Hall's face as the publicity man started to plead. "Raul, please, please, don't do it, don't do it, we can work it out, we can work it out, please," Hall said.
Mondesi stood firm. I stood firm. Finally, the storm passed. Mondesi dropped his fist, shook his head, and walked back into a clubhouse filled with players who had been watching with glee.
"I thought you were dead," said Hall softly, wiping his face.
"It's still early," I said, wiping mine.
I t's the part of sportswriting that nobody understands except the sportswriters.
Not the editors who only watch the athletes on TV. Not the readers who wear their jerseys to church. Not even family members, who hear stories of a terrible day that sound so unlike conventional journalism. It's the part about working large-shoulder-to-puny-shoulder with the professional athletes.
They are like any other sources for any other sort of journalist with the possible exception of: they are generally rich, insecure, sometimes uneducated, and often crude national heroes who have no need for anyone who would portray them otherwise.
Not that there aren't pleasant, civilized creatures among them. For every baseball star like Gorman Thomas, who once called me "a pimple," there is an Orel Hershiser, who once called my terminally ill brother to congratulate him on his high school graduation.
For every quarterback like Jim McMahon, who once blew his nose on a colleague, there is a quarterback like Brett Favre, who once gave me thirty minutes of funny childhood stories while sitting in a cold Green Bay office in his underwear.
For every golfer like Payne Stewart, who several years ago yelled at me for daring to ask why his partner had just walked off the course in the middle of the U.S. Open, there is a golfer like Payne Stewart, who softened into a sensitive and helpful man before his death.
Not that I blame any of them for any of it. Athletes are at their most vulnerable when dealing with the media. We're everywhere; we surround them as they are preparing for a game; we barely give them room to dress afterwards; and we're not looking to make friends, but front pages. An aide often separates politicians and businessmen and police from their questioners. Athletes are separated only by a towel, and sometimes not even that.
I have interviewed former Dodger manager Tom Lasorda while he stood underneath a shower. Arriving early for an afternoon game, shortly after a big breakfast, I was once confronted by Lasorda, who promised to give me a scoop if I would only sit in his office and eat pizza with him. Lasorda loves to eat, but hates to eat alone.
"But Tommy, I'm full," I said.
"Then no scoop," he said.
"Pass the pepperoni," I said.
Five pieces later I waddled into the clubhouse. Kirk Gibson began cursing me for correctly writing he wanted to be traded. A few lockers over, Jay Howell was waiting to yell at me for writing that his character was being tested. As I walked through the dugout heading for the press box I was met by Fernando Valenzuela, who pulled out a toy rope and tried to lasso my leg. I stopped on the dugout bench to talk to another writer and realized the tassels of my shoes had been cut.
When I finally reached the press box, I called the boss and told him I was finally sitting down to write my story.
"Oh, so you just got there," he said.
With the proliferation of TV and radio and Internet reporters, pro athletes often need to be rude and pushy just to catch their breaths. Some players will start a chorus of, "Vulture, vulture" when a pack of journalists enters their locker room. The secret to mining an environment so rich in human stories and inspiration is to convince the pro athletes that you are not related to the vulture.
The secret will never be taught in journalism school until the professor shows up with snuff under his lip and a towel around his waist. Rule one: Look the part.
Your boss may want you to wear a tie to work. But most pro athletes don't wear ties. In baseball, it's jeans. In basketball, it's hip slacks and sweaters.
Your parents may have wanted you not to curse. But most pro athletes curse. The more conjugations you have for each bleep, the better. There are drawbacks. For one, cursing can be infectious. I once heard my wife on the phone with her mother: "That was a great [bleeping] meatloaf recipe," she said.
But the theory is simple. The athletes are more comfortable talking to someone who looks and talks like them. That's 90 percent of sports reporting — standing around batting cages and end zones and practice courts, just talking. The best sports reporters are the people who are best at hanging out.
One late September afternoon, I was sitting in the dugout with Matt McHale, an accomplished reporter with the Los Angeles Daily News. Up walked Dodger Mike Scioscia.
"So, Matt, where do you spend your winters?" he asked.
McHale and I howled. It was a question that a player would ask another player, as they frequently only live in their team's city during the season. But it was a question that meant, when it came to being perceived as one of the guys, McHale had hit a home run.
"I spend my winter, uh, covering high schools," McHale said with a smile.
Rule two: You catch more flies with honey.
Be pleasant. Save your anger and indignity for the newspaper. When you criticize a player, you want him to think that such criticism is in his best interest, which it often is. He won't think that if he thinks you're a jerk. And then he won't talk to you. And then where are your readers?
There was once a game where Spike Owen, then a Seattle Mariner shortstop, hit his first home run of the season in the fourth inning but committed a game-costing error in the ninth. Standing in front of several reporters afterward, my first question to Owen was about the home run.
"What are you doing?" whispered a colleague standing behind me.
"Just wait," I whispered back.
Relaxed after talking for a few minutes about the homer, Owen was revealing and insightful when answering my next question about the error. You don't have to be a tough guy with the players to be a tough guy for the people who really count, your readers.
Rule three: Never back down.
Once a player thinks he can run you out of a clubhouse, you'll never feel safe there again. In the visitors' clubhouse in Yankee Stadium once, Mariner outfielder Steve Henderson began screaming at me. As often happens, his teammates also began snickering and glaring. Never do you see a sports team as united as when the target is a reporter.
I wanted to leave, but I couldn't. I wanted to interview other players, but because of this pack mentality, I couldn't. So I walked over to the box of Bazooka bubble gum and grabbed a piece. And another piece. And another piece. Waiting for the furor to die, I stuffed myself with gum.
By the time I felt comfortable asking anyone else questions, I could barely open my mouth. By the time I ran upstairs, it was twenty minutes to deadline, and I had not written word one.
"Are you going to make it?" shouted a worried desk person from the other end of the phone.
"Bfltmglfltis," I said, which, translated without the gum, means, "piece of cake."
