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…i feel a bit foolish…also, i have been very naive…
…in some ways, i guess i just took it all for granted…you know, i turn on the television to watch a game, players hit and catch, articles come out the next day, and it all just is…it just happens…over and over again…like clockwork magic…
…the reality is that all of these people work very, very hard to make something so complicated seem so simple, from the reporters to the coaches to the players…
…actually, i came here hoping to reveal a bit of absurdity in a world that makes a business out of a kid’s game…
…but, it never happened…
…this may be why i initially perceived the beat writers as just ‘wandering around aimlessly’ in the locker room, as i wrote on Tuesday…the reality is that they work just as hard as the players…as a fan of their product, it’s actually quite fascinating to see them operate…again, i just sort of took they’re work for granted…i recently noticed a very successful, very popular columnist working on a single story over the course of a few days…he spent days and hours talking to people, observing others, taking notes, typing, making phone calls, etc…initially, it simply looked to me like drifting with small talk…it wasn’t…it was work…so, i guess what initially looked like ‘wandering,’ is actually strategic waiting, most all of which includes a specific plan, along with getting bits of information, forging relationships, keeping tabs and knowing when to react and when not to…
…also, what first looked to be a bizarre and awkward relationship between the players and writers, i now see as a sympathetic balance, in which each party has a necessary dependence on the other, whether they choose to accept that or not…and that’s good for you and i…
…i never would have realized all of this had i not seen it in person…which is why my initial remarks from my very first day – about how the locker room operates – were very innocent, but also very naive…in fact, i sort of feel bad, considering that a lot of MetsBlog’s success can be attributed to their hard work…i hope nobody was offended…i mean, i write what i see and what i feel…i’m not always right, but i’m always honest…
…additionally, i clearly have taken for granted how the players perform, and how people in the front office and on staff help insolate them so the work gets done…again, without really giving it much thought, it often feels like these guys just roll out of bed and hit a curve ball…which is clearly not the case…i mean, i turn on my television, watch the game, it all just sort of happens, i turn it off and go to bed, and i repeat it all the next day…but, in between that time, they work on everything – from lifting weights, to methodically tweaking their deliveries, to learning new pitches, struggling with grips and stances, doing fielding drills, while running the bases, over and over again, doing shuttle runs, hopping in and out of tires, sweating, stretching, being exhausted, and so on…it never ends…
…and that’s the thing, it never ends…it just repeats itself over and over again…just like i continue to watch and read it all, over and over again…every day…
…in some ways, looking behind the curtain may be a bad thing, because it broadens the frame of what i have always perceived to be just a game…i often fear that by doing so, baseball will stop feeling fun for me…on the other hand, i have gained a greater understanding for how it all works, be it the players playing or the writers writing…and because of that, i appreciate the game that much more, which is a good thing…
One of your best post ever!
I think Matt had a “Know your place rook!” sign on his hotel room door when he woke up. I guess some of these guys didn’t like his “no one is doing much, wandering around the lockerroom post”…LOL…nice patchwork, Matt…
lol, nice reference
post(s)
Like the Tom Hank’s character said in A League of Their Own,
“If it were easy, everyone would do it”.
The site is always interesting, but usually MORE interesting when there’s news going on.
I have to say lately it’s become interesting even when there isn’t any particular news item, and this post is a great example of that.
I’d still rather be a proffesional athlete any day of the week. Their day resembles mine. Doing the same thing over and over again – just in front of a computer.
The problem is you are now becoming one of them. And you are right you will now never be able to look at it as you once did. Your innocence as you call it is why you resonated with so many, you brought a fresh perspective that guys in the mix dont have once they have been there for a while.
BTW we repeat everything each day as well, so you doting on them does not strike a chord in my heart.
ridiculous, who is doting on them, you dont get booed at your job if you have a bad day,
yeah, I do.
some of us get fired! , without a buyout ! lol
Let’s not forget that these players make MILLIONS of bucks to play a game and will be retired at the age of 40 and sitting on a beach as we all work until we are 70. Let’s also not forget that baseball is a buisness and the players, owners and beat writters run it like that, it’s there job. We as fans enjoy the games, articles, blogs and othe fan related issues as entertainment. They are two different side of the same coin, one can not exist without the other. I am happy that Matt can provide us fans with an insight that we don;t get to see and for that I commen him. I just hope that he does not get jaded or take it all for granted and stop providing an honets oppinion and stays fresh. Kepp up the good work, dude. LETS GO METS !!!
sounds like the revelations I had when I got into the behind the scenes music business & learned to play music. It’s been very hard to go back and enjoy a show blissfully like I used to..every aspect of the production and the performance is no longer magic, but a painstaking process. After a while, the effect wore off a little, and now it actually enhances my enjoyment.
Bravo!!! Probably your best post since I’ve been reading this site.
Everyday this site gets better and better. Your dedication is commendable.
I kind of feel the same way about metsblog. I mean, this is basically all I do every single day. I come into work, go on metsblog, read every new post and every comment and occasionally comment myself. I then hit F5 or refresh every 10 minutes or check my RSS feed. I guess now that I see what it’s like behind the scenes for Matt, I too have gained a greater understanding of how it all works. Be it Matt or Regis or Ted Berg, I appreciate metsblog that much more, which is a good thing.
Matt, this can be said for any job that any person does. Whenever there are people who don’t do what someone else does, they can’t possibly have an understanding of how much time and energy go into it. It’s also human nature just to assume that what someone else does is “easy”. But yes, once you actually see what goes into some things, you have a greater appreciation.
This begs the question…If they go through such a rigorous workout/conditioning routine, how on earth are there fat ball players?
Trans Fatty Acids.
Beer and alot of Junk Food.
matt- thanks for great insight. my main question this year and every year is still not answered, however. who is being paid by the mets front office to take care of the health of their players? we all understand that the baseball season is essentially from feb-oct, including spring training, but from oct-feb, aren’t there any requirements for health checks and such? since professional athletes are such fine tuned mechanisms, shouldn’t it be the responsibility of these players, with the assistance of someone from the mets, to monitor all of their ailments ALL year long? if you tell me that this is being done already, i have to say that someone is not doing their job well. if i were being paid $7 million a year, like alou, i would feel it my duty to maintain myself in such pristine condition that i would just ease into spring training, 100% healthy. how can a player who is taking care of himself attentively all year long, come into camp and develop a hernia from bending over to field a ball? how come beltran is STILL rehabbing from an operation described as not being major that took place FIVE months ago?
can you explain to us where the responsibility lies? is it somewhere in the players’ contracts or do they get a free health pass for the entire off-season? if that’s the case, something is wrong.
dude, you want to encase them in glass and put them on a shelf in the offseason. They have lives, and the vast majority of them take their fitness and health with deadly seriousness. Alou has spent most of his life performing at near-peak athletic performance, and the human body isn’t designed to do that forever. And since I guess you’ve never known anyone who’s had a knee scope (let alone both), what happens is your leg muscles atrophy because you can’t use them. Most people have to use a cane for a month (after being immobilized for two weeks)before they can even begin to hobble around. There was even a post on this site about it a couple of days ago; try to find that post and there’s a link to a story about Beltran’s rehab. he’s not slacking, it’s more effort than most people would choose to endure (however many millions you cite, most people simply cannot push themselves that hard.)
thanks for explanation, jamie. i’m familiar with arthroscopic knee surgery and what the recuperation is for a non-professional athlete, but i’d like to try to find that post you mentioned about beltran’s rehab. if you have an idea of where it might be, i’d appreciate it.
i wasn’t picking on beltran especially–my overall, general question remains: who is responsible for overseeing the training of the players in their off season? aren’t there prescribed regimens that need to be followed? i understand that they “have lives” but playing professional ball needs to be a year-round thing. the mets always seem to have an inordinate amount of injuries in spring training. i don’t have figures, but it seems that we have more than most teams. i might be wrong, but i’m guessing that there should be a way to avoid a significant percentage of them with proper off season training. i always thought spring training was a tune up not a major overhaul.
sorry to tell you what you already knew; it seemed like you expect that he should be totally healthy, and that you weren’t taking the particulars of recovery into consideration, but I guess I was wrong.
The point I was making is that most players do treat baseball as a year round profession. I think maybe it (the amount of injuries) looks to be inordinate because we follow this team much more closely, and we have progressively more access and coverage each year. Will Caroll writes tons about injuries each season…maybe you should try writing him with your question; he’d certainly know. (may be ‘Carroll’ with 2 r’s, not sure).
the post was from the last 3 days, and the headline to look for is something like “beltran is worried about rehabbing”, or something similar, and it’s bolded in the post. I think it’s the “daily news roundup” that Matt’s been doing every morning.
I always suspected they work hard, I can just imagine how much harder it was for them 20+ years ago when they weren’t quite making zillions of dollars, or even longer ago when they held down other jobs besides baseball. Nowadays people complain about “West Coast Trips’, because of the travel time, but the Yankees and Cardinals took 24 hours to get from St. Louis to New York for the 1926 World Series, and that was with special rerouting of the trains.
I think the way (for you) to keep it fun is to occasionally close the blog, turn off the phone and just grab a beer and watch the game. No analysis, just watch, and root, and scream.
these guys are the best in the world, and as is true with anyone who’s the best in the world, they’re closet perfectionists who work their tails off, while at the same time making it look effortless.
to me, that’s the beauty of baseball. anyone who has ever played the game knows how hard it is to do what they do, let alone every day from mid-february til october.
Exactly…heck I’m exhausted after playing a double-header in softball on Sunday mornings. And I only play once a week!!
Wha? Who?
You guys got THAT from reading the post? I got that Matt’s earlier posts p!ssed folks off HARD. Today’s post reads like the statement that a professional athlete makes after screwing up (”It was never my intent to harm the fans, the game of baseball, or the New York Mets sportswriters. I regret this unfortunate incident, and hope to be given the chance to……”)
There’s no reason to feel bad about a little naivety for two reasons – because you were able to learn & come out smarter, and because you were able to share that knowledge/experience with so many people that were also naive about the business. Keep up the great work.
Matt,
You are living a dream. I for one am living it through your eyes. Your posts have been very interesting to read. In this post, it does sound like someone got to you. Were you schooled like other rookies?
Learning is part of life…and you are living in a world that many of us would love to be in, Matt. Keep up the hard work. My younger brother played a few years in the minors and told me about all of the intense workouts they go through to put the product on the field. It’s truly amazing. Sure they make millions of dollars and can retire before any of us can dream, but it definitely takes a toll on them physically, especially in their later years of life. So I’ll take the trade. I personally make video games, which is, in my opinion, possibly the second best job in the world. Thanks for the insight Matt.
Yes Matthew, I do remember you writing some years ago about not wanting to be a standard journalist, because you wanted to stay a fan and not get too close and ruin that. Glad that you are enjoying your new role.
How’s the journalist woodshed decorated?