DRIVEL

By David Nevard, Buffalo Head Society

Way back around the turn of the decade, we had a young friend -- let's call him Jim -- who wanted to get into the baseball media business. In college he worked as a TV cameraman for a Red Sox minor league team. Jim contacted us at A Red Sox Journal and was a our correspondent for about a year. After graduation, Jim returned to his hometown in the Midwest and decided to start his own newsletter, devoted to the local Major League franchise -- let's call them the Slammers.

Being a resourceful and energetic young man, Jim got in touch with the Slammers' PR department and was able to obtain press credentials. Not just pre-game field passes either; he got a seat in the press box. Jim's Slammer Gazette was soon producing photos, stats, and interviews devoted to the exploits of the hometown team.

You have to understand that Jim was not a wild-eyed hippie radical (despite our influences). He was a rather normal Midwestern guy who loved baseball and apple pie. In one of the first issues of The Slammer Gazette, he wrote a little editorial stating the purpose of his 'zine. He wanted to differentiate his product. So he wrote that TSG would give Slammer fans something better than the "drivel" they were used to seeing in their daily newspaper.

The man who covered the Slammers on a daily basis -- let's call him Bob Beatwriter -- read Jim's little editorial. Now Bob is a pretty good writer. I've read some of his essays, and they weren’t the work of a drivel-writing hack. But that's beside the point. The Slammers play in a one-newspaper town. To Bob, the word "drivel" was directed at the sports page of The Only Paper, and if you want to be even more exact, at The Only Paper's man covering the Slammers. Bob took it personally.

Bob went to Slammers PR director Axel Sledgehammer and said, "How can you give this guy press passes when he says I write drivel?" Axel carefully weighed the two sides. The Only Paper had hundreds of thousands of readers, and a popular scribe who gave the Slammers free publicity every day of the year. The Slammer Gazette had few readers and a young unknown editor just out of college. It wasn't a tough decision. Jim lost his press credentials.

Drivel means "stupid or senseless talk" (like that of a drooling baby or an idiot) and maybe Jim was just trying to say that Bob Beatwriter's stories were getting a little boring. Or maybe Jim really meant "drivel", but should have been more diplomatic. Regardless, this is not a free speech issue. There is no free speech in the press box. Press credentials are a privilege, not a right. Still, could the Slammers' decision have started the process of alienating a sincere fan? What about other fans Jim might have influenced with his publication? Hard to tell, isn’t it?

Our publication, A Red Sox Journal, tried for several years to get press passes. We finally succeeded in 1989, after Karen Johnson made friends with the PR staff during spring training. Over the years we developed a good relationship with Dick Bresciani, the Red Sox PR director, and his assistant Mary Jane Ryan. Dick liked us, and respected the research and accuracy of the Journal.

We asked for only a few passes a year, for games that we didn't think would be drawing a lot of media. We got pre-game field passes only, but we were able to get good photos around the batting cage, do a little interviewing, meet some of the other media people, and get a feel for the mood of the team.

In 1997 there was a change in the Red Sox front office. Dick Bresciani was promoted to VP of another department (Mary Jane Ryan went with him). Kevin Shea became the PR man, assisted by Kate Gordon. And this year Kate informed us that we would not be granted press passes. There had been a change in policy, they had so many requests from CNN and ESPN, etc., etc., etc.

We called our friend Dick Bresciani, but he is out of the loop now. He didn't know why we were refused passes. Was it something we said? Maybe. But it seems more like a change in attitude.

Why did the Red Sox ever give us passes in the first place? Because they liked us! Can you imagine that? We were mere fans, and if you look around, you will see that the relationship between baseball and its fans is getting more structured and distant every year. Look at the increased number of fences at spring training. Look at the scoreboards telling us when to cheer. Look at the "fan fests", with fans herded like cattle to receive consolation prizes.

Sorry, no fans allowed on the field.

(It must have been something we said.)