A New Experience

By Craig Malveaux
So that’s what being a sports journalist is like? Coming from a relatively small university in New Orleans, everything is much different. Of course, in college baseball, especially at NAIA schools, there really isn’t a clubhouse like in professional baseball. That’s okay. I expect that. But what I experienced today is much different than the way our athletic director handles things. For one, the access is limited. At Loyola University New Orleans, we are allowed to watch practices but can’t speak to players, like a reporter normally would. And on game days, it’s mostly the same way with a few exceptions. There are no pre-game interviews and post-game interviews are limited to five minutes — if we’re lucky. Typically, reporters covering a baseball game must speak to the assistant athletic director after the game and let him know what players we need to speak to. Easy right? The catch is that he gives the players our phone numbers and tells them to call us when it is convenient for them. That could be that same day, a few days from then or even the night we go to press. The players have all the control and we have no choice but to wait for their call. Luckily, after 2 1/2 years of dealing with that, I turned in my reporter’s notebook, so to speak, and wrote columns this semester. Today though, I got a small taste of what it is like to cover professional sports. We came to the George M. Steinbrenner Field about three hours the game started. Once we arrived, the Tampa Yankees were generous enough to open up the clubhouse to all of us and allowed us time to chat with manager Luis Sojo and any player we wanted. Although we won’t be able to get any post-game interviews, the open access given to us more than sufficed. I must say, so far this is the life. It by far trumps any experience I’ve had at Loyola. I can really get used to something like this.