The job description needs changing

From Allen Barra's 1993 review of the book, "The Worst Team Money Could Buy:"

• "...the fact that the enormous sums baseball players now earn have changed the role of the newspaper beat writer. To their credit, the authors acknowledge that

beat writers no longer just report the news

• but are having an increasingly greater influence on the shaping of it....

(Allen Barra): "Newspapers are no longer the primary source for descriptions of games, as they were in, say, Ring Lardner's day, when players and writers traveled, ate and played cards together, and when players' off-field exploits were taboo subjects for news columns. Today it seems that beat writers more and more cover teams to explore the players' private lives and to offer judgments about players' character (or lack of it)."

• From Allen Barra's 4/3/93 article in the NY Times reviewing the book by Bob Klapisch and John Harper, "The Worst Team Money Could Buy," about the 1992 NY Mets.

P.S. With the internet, sportstalk radio and the dominance of negativity and mobs, it's even more important to keep the celebrity/scandal seeking reporter out of the baseball clubhouse. (sm)

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