Like the Army, baseball is filled with Hurry Up & Wait situations. That’s especially true for writers, who arrive hours before gametime in an often-frustrating effort to pin down players or managers for interviews.<\/p>\n
There’s competition for each player, with the biggest stars commanding the most attention from media types, and a pecking order that players follow. The bigger the publication, the sooner they respond. And broadcast types, with their instant access, always outrank everyone else.<\/p>\n
In Tuesday night’s Phillies-Braves game at ESPN Wide World of Sports, there was actually a delay in starting an inning because Chipper Jones, who had just left the game, was doing a live interview — on the field — for MLB Network.<\/p>\n
All the standing around gives writers a chance to schmooze, often with each other and with the various broadcasters who tour the camps. Here’s some of the gossip this writer picked up in just a few days:<\/p>\n
On that note, gotta get back to the ballpark.<\/p>\n
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg is the author of 35 baseball books, including this year’s The 300 Club, and managing editor of BallTalk Radio. He covers the majors from his base in the New York area.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like the Army, baseball is filled with Hurry Up & Wait situations. That’s especially true for writers, who arrive hours before gametime in an often-frustrating effort to pin down players or managers for interviews. There’s competition for each player, with the biggest stars commanding the most attention from media types, and a pecking order that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":729,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[796,3663,3641,473,4445,4442,57,461,594,4459,4452,457,896,4446,784,470,291,4456,4447,4460],"class_list":["post-3198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-albert-pujols","tag-andruw-jones","tag-chase-utley","tag-chipper-jones","tag-gametime","tag-grapefruit-league","tag-hank-aaron","tag-jason-heyward","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-johann-santana","tag-live-interview","tag-nl-east","tag-nl-rookie-of-the-year","tag-pecking-order","tag-placido-polanco","tag-ryan-howard","tag-third-baseman","tag-tom-verducci","tag-wide-world-of-sports","tag-yanks-and-sox"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t