For whatever reason, I have struggled to get into Oregon baseball this season.
This strikes me as mildly ironic, since I claimed (with complete honesty, mind you) just a few weeks ago that head coach George Horton’s Ducks were helping me rekindle my love for baseball.
At the time, they were. But that was back in February, before the season started. Before I really understood what it would be like to cover this team on a full-time basis.
Now, understand that my sentiments have absolutely nothing to do with the team’s struggles this season. If anything, the early bumps in the road provide an even better story for journalists.
No, my problem stems from the short journey I take before every home game: up the stairs to the main concourse, then a slight left to another stairway that leads to the upper-level press box. There, I set my computer down, grab a soft drink and get ready for three hours of college baseball.
Sounds pretty easy, right? You might think I’m completely crazy to even consider complaining about such a setup.
You would be perfectly justified in feeling this way, but the goal of this column is not to shed tears about my view from a wonderfully designed press box. Rather, it is to point out a fundamental flaw in sports journalism that is admittedly difficult to remedy.
Put simply, we are too far away from the action.
It took a spur-of-the-moment excursion down to the field level seats last Friday night for me to come to this realization. I was working on a separate project for a feature writing class, and I left my press seat during the top of the tenth inning in order to observe fan behavior.
I casually made my way to some of the best seats in the house: directly behind home plate and just a few rows away from the field. There, I plopped down and trained my eyes toward the action. Suddenly, it hit me. “So THIS is what I’ve been missing.”
Here, I could watch as a batter dug his feet into the box. I could hear the subtle differences between balls fair and foul as they came off the bat. I could shiver along with everyone else on a cool spring evening.
These are the things we give up as aspiring journalists. And sure, it would be so tempting to say, “Why don’t you drop the pen and join the fans in their seats?”
That’s the problem, though. I love being a journalist. I adore having the opportunity to write about something I love. I have no interest in abandoning it all and becoming another face in the crowd.
Yet, by isolating ourselves up in the sky within the comforts of the press box, we are missing some of the key ingredients that make the game special. More than any other sport, baseball demands to be seen up close and personal. Its essence cannot be fully appreciated from afar. If we saw the game from a closer angle, not only would it be more enjoyable, but I have to believe that the coverage would improve as well.
I will be the first to admit that my level of insight regarding Oregon’s team is subpar. Much of this is my own fault, and I must make efforts on a personal level to attack the beat with passion and fervor. But in the 45 minutes I spent down near the field on Friday, I observed more than I had in more than three hours up in the press box.
That has to tell you something. To be sure, I am not advocating for a new press area on the third baseline or for journalists to abandon their comforts for a seat outside. That is both unrealistic and impractical.
Rather, perhaps reporters should simply take an allotted amount of time every game to observe from a different angle. Doing so could be beneficial for both the writer and the reader.
That’s my plan, anyway. I have been working in a glass house for too long.
It’s time to break out.
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