I'll keep this blog open and make an occasional post when the need moves me and I may continue daily reports when spring training begins in February, but for now I'm taking a break from the daily affairs of the Seattle Mariners.
And I'm ready to step back from the team for awhile. I'm tired, not physically, but attentively and not about the game...I am casually watching the playoffs and, depending on the contenders, plan to follow the World Series with real interest. But I'm tired of the 2019 Seattle Mariners.
Not that there isn't plenty to talk about. The team is still in the midst of a major rebuild and there's a lot left to do. My concluding batting and pitching summaries list what I think the Ms should attend to. I'm sure Dipoto has his own list and it's probably much longer than mine... let's hope so.
I do need, at the end of this run, to comment about the experience of doing this. My motivation for focusing on the Ms this season came from dual sources. First, I wanted to follow a single team through a full season, game by game. Informally I'd done this all my life, starting with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1958, through to the Mariners today. I wanted to try this with more focus, greater discipline.
My other motivation was to recreate, as much as I could, the life of a beat writer. I'd started out to be a journalist in high school. My career wandered into academia, but part of me still feels like a sportswriter. I wanted to see what it really felt like to do it as a job. Obviously there were many differences in the way I covered the Ms from my armchair than the stalwarts who really do this work professionally. But I got enough of s taste to understand what the full meal must be like.
So how was it? What did I learn? Any surprises?
The beat writer's experience first. It was work. No surprise there. I always known writing was work, but it something I've always enjoyed doing and l'm lucky it comes easily for me. Not necessarily well or gracefully written, but I can convert thoughts to words on paper quickly, efficiently. And it was never hard to find a subject. Indeed, there was plenty more for me to write about than I had time.
I think you could fairly criticize my coverage of team for jumping around, lacking focus. I wrote whatever came to my mind that morning... a player profile here, a game recap there, an occasional autobiographical piece, a few commentaries on the game. No real theme, not much focus, but I did keep it about the Ms. And I did discover, to my surprise, something of an editorial voice which increasingly came down against "bad baseball," which this team offered in abundance in 2019.
Paying close attention to the awful pitches, at bats, plays and games were the hardiest part of the job. During the worst stretch of the season I just couldn't write about it any more. To do continue to write about the poor play was boring to do and even more tedious to read. Worse it became truly depressing. Kathleen will tell you, much to her consternation, my mood will swing with Mariner and Seahawk games... up with a win, down with a loss. I simply could not separate my general state of mind from the success of the team.
Around mid-August I began to cheat on my roleplay. I stopped writing after every game. I simply lacked the appetite or interest in writing about something so badly flawed and unsatisfying. I could barely watch it, much less find any new to say about the mindless base-running or the pitching decisions that defied commonsense.
My admiration for everyone on the broadcast team only rose as the season slowly fell apart. Maybe all this poor play advanced Dipoto's process of reimagination, it certainly put to test the ability of Rizz, Sims, Blowers, Hill, Goldsmith and the ex-Ms who added color in the booth along with the folks in the studio and ballpark who handled pre and post game stuff. I marvelled how they keep me interested in something so fundamentally frustrating.
And I must admit, that I operated without some of the disadvantaged the media covering the team faced on a regular basis. My exercise lacked many of the unpleasant realities of being a real beat reporter. I wasn't on the road half the time, I had no pressure of a hard deadline, I didn't need to meet an editor’s stylistic or subject matter expectations.
I did learn that my regard for the folks who actually do this professionally is well placed. The labor of writing (or broadcasting) on a daily business wasn't that hard for me or, I suspect, for them. What is hard and what they do consummately well is survive the grind with the all-encompassing nature of the team and the endless stream of personal and team ups-and-downs the game presents.
As for my experience watching the game so closely... watch this space. I'll post my reflections in the next day or two.
My other motivation was to recreate, as much as I could, the life of a beat writer. I'd started out to be a journalist in high school. My career wandered into academia, but part of me still feels like a sportswriter. I wanted to see what it really felt like to do it as a job. Obviously there were many differences in the way I covered the Ms from my armchair than the stalwarts who really do this work professionally. But I got enough of s taste to understand what the full meal must be like.
So how was it? What did I learn? Any surprises?
The beat writer's experience first. It was work. No surprise there. I always known writing was work, but it something I've always enjoyed doing and l'm lucky it comes easily for me. Not necessarily well or gracefully written, but I can convert thoughts to words on paper quickly, efficiently. And it was never hard to find a subject. Indeed, there was plenty more for me to write about than I had time.
I think you could fairly criticize my coverage of team for jumping around, lacking focus. I wrote whatever came to my mind that morning... a player profile here, a game recap there, an occasional autobiographical piece, a few commentaries on the game. No real theme, not much focus, but I did keep it about the Ms. And I did discover, to my surprise, something of an editorial voice which increasingly came down against "bad baseball," which this team offered in abundance in 2019.
Paying close attention to the awful pitches, at bats, plays and games were the hardiest part of the job. During the worst stretch of the season I just couldn't write about it any more. To do continue to write about the poor play was boring to do and even more tedious to read. Worse it became truly depressing. Kathleen will tell you, much to her consternation, my mood will swing with Mariner and Seahawk games... up with a win, down with a loss. I simply could not separate my general state of mind from the success of the team.
Around mid-August I began to cheat on my roleplay. I stopped writing after every game. I simply lacked the appetite or interest in writing about something so badly flawed and unsatisfying. I could barely watch it, much less find any new to say about the mindless base-running or the pitching decisions that defied commonsense.
My admiration for everyone on the broadcast team only rose as the season slowly fell apart. Maybe all this poor play advanced Dipoto's process of reimagination, it certainly put to test the ability of Rizz, Sims, Blowers, Hill, Goldsmith and the ex-Ms who added color in the booth along with the folks in the studio and ballpark who handled pre and post game stuff. I marvelled how they keep me interested in something so fundamentally frustrating.
And I must admit, that I operated without some of the disadvantaged the media covering the team faced on a regular basis. My exercise lacked many of the unpleasant realities of being a real beat reporter. I wasn't on the road half the time, I had no pressure of a hard deadline, I didn't need to meet an editor’s stylistic or subject matter expectations.
I did learn that my regard for the folks who actually do this professionally is well placed. The labor of writing (or broadcasting) on a daily business wasn't that hard for me or, I suspect, for them. What is hard and what they do consummately well is survive the grind with the all-encompassing nature of the team and the endless stream of personal and team ups-and-downs the game presents.
As for my experience watching the game so closely... watch this space. I'll post my reflections in the next day or two.
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