The Yang Slinger: Vol. LXXXIV

The University of Iowa boasts one of the best newspapers in the country. Yet even though it's staffed by her fellow students, no one has been granted a one-on-one interview with Caitlin Clark.

This is a weird post to write, because even thinking about it makes me feel like a bit of a dinosaur. I mean, I graduated from the University of Delaware 30 years ago, and back then everything about covering sports was so, so, so, so … different. First, print was king. Second, there were newspapers and magazines galore. And third, access was mostly a non-issue.

When I refer to “access,” I mean the opportunity to interview athletes and coaches. Why, as a Delaware junior and sports editor of the student newspaper, The Review, I once called the media relations department of the Philadelphia Phillies, asking if they’d allow me to come to Veterans Stadium and interview Derrick May, the visiting Cubs outfielder who was born and raised in Newark, Del.

Two days later, sweaty palmed and frog-in-my-throat terrified, I found myself sitting alongside May atop a dugout bench.

It was that easy.

When it came to covering Delaware sports, it was even easier. At the time the university’s sports information director was a man named Scott Selheimer, and he not only allowed student journalists at events—he wanted us there. We received invitations to every coach’s luncheon, every administrator’s announcement. If we needed a one-on-one interview with a player, all we had to do was put in the request. If we felt the need to ask Tubby Raymond (the legendary/intimidating football coach) a few questions for a story, we’d seek out office time and get it. Always.

And, sure, Delaware wasn’t Duke or UCLA or LSU or Iowa. But my journalism peers who attended big-time Division I schools enjoyed mostly similar experiences. I’ve had this discussion with an endless string of colleagues, and almost all us cut our teeth on being 18, 19, 20, 21, 22—and having the opportunities to interview the supernovas of our campuses.

It prepared us to be journalists.

It’s why, in large part, we were able to learn the gig.

I bring this all up because last week my friend and colleague, Richard Deitsch, hosted three staff members of the Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, to discuss covering Caitlin Clark on his excellent Sports Media Podcast. And the aspiring journalists—sports editor Kenna Roering, assistant sports editor Colin Votzmeyer and reporter  Cooper Worth—were terrific. One by one, they broke down the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sit courtside and have a phenomenon in their midsts. It was cool and fun and reminded me of why college journalism is so magical.

It also (cough) sorta pissed me the fuck off.

Buried deep within the stories and experiences of the three student reporters was a nugget of information that left me dumbfounded. Namely, no one from the Daily Iowan has been granted a single second of one-on-one time with Caitlin Clark.

Let me repeat: Caitlin Clark, Iowa student, has had no one-on-one times with Roering, Votzmeyer and Worth, the Iowa students assigned to cover her.

“That’s absolute bullshit,” Tyler Kepner, the brilliant Athletic baseball writer, told me. “In Major League Baseball, writers can walk right up to a future Hall of Famer—Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer—in the clubhouse and ask them for an interview. You’re telling me some college won’t allow an aspiring pro basketball player to talk to a fellow student who’s an aspiring pro journalist? That’s absurd.”

“As good as these athletes are, the reporters are still peers at the same school and this is (theoretically) part of both the collegiate learning experience and also a way to spur interest in these teams for the sports programs,” added Chris Ballard, the author and former SI basketball scribe. “Sure, the team might be really good right now but a time may come when they’re not. Within reason, you’d hope that schools would prioritize their own journalists when possible.”

And if you’re thinking, “Well, she’s really busy …”—yeah. It’s true. She’s really busy. But the Iowa Sports Information Department and/or her handlers at Excel Sports Management¹ have arranged for her to sit down with Good Morning America, to sit down with Stephen A. Smith, to shoot jumpers and chat with Sue Bird, to hang with Wright Thompson, to record a docuseries with Omaha Productions, Peyton Manning’s company. Yet, zero time with student journalists.

To be clear, I’m not mad at Clark. In many ways, she’s merely a byproduct of the modern world of athletic craziness we occupy, where NIL deals turn folks into instant-millionaires and one is less “student-athlete”², more token to be marketed, merchandised and exploited. Caitlin Clark is quite possibly the greatest come-to-the-University of Iowa recruiting figure in the school’s 177-year history.

Plus, she’s barely 22. She’s a kid.

This is not (mostly) on her.

To attend the University of Iowa, one must pay an in-state tuition of $10,133, an out-of-state tuition of $26,617. By modern standards that’s a pretty good deal, even when you add on food, lodging, books, student fees, etc.

In 99 percent of cases (I’m guessing), one forks over such funds because he/she/they aspire to do something, and the University of Iowa is a conduit toward accomplishing that goal. Maybe you want to be an accountant, an attorney, a teacher, a hedge fund guru. Whatever the case, you are paying big bucks to the school in reasonable anticipation that it will provide you with preparation for whatever you choose to do next in life.

For some, that means attending Iowa to study journalism.

Sports journalism.

Again—call me Cranky Grandpa if you must. But part of that contract includes a sports information department that not merely acknowledges your existence, but contributes to enhancing your education. Or, put more bluntly: Bailey W. Turner works in the Iowa sports information department. Because times are goofy, his title is “assistant director, strategic communications”—but Turner’s actual job is to serve as the SID for women’s basketball. And, as both a university employee and the liaison between athletes and media, he (in my opinion) has to—like, has to, has to, has to, has to—make certain Clark and her teammates (most of whom have, according to the podcast, also given zero one-on-one time to the Daily Iowan) talk to student media. It can be for three minutes after a game. Fuck, it can be for one minute after a game. But, again, these student journalists are literally paying your salary via tuition. They are spending money to come to Iowa to study sports journalism and cover the Hawkeye teams. They are not merely as important as a Wright Thompson or Good Morning America—they are more important. Because they are Iowa.

[A quick aside. When I was an undergrad at Delaware, Jimmy Carter came to the university to speak. Afterward he held a press conference. It was heavily attended. David P. Roselle, the UD president and a man who surely found me cottage cheese-annoying, pointed at me and said, “We need to make sure our student media gets to ask the president his questions.” I’ve never forgotten that.]

And, like the best SIDs and publicists know to do, early in the pre-season Turner (or someone with some swag) needed to tell Clark and Co. something along the lines of, “Look, after every game we’re gonna do five minutes with the Daily Iowan. They’re your fellow students, they’re here studying journalism, it’s the right way to handle things.”

And Clark, I’m guessing, would have said, “Um, OK.”

Alas, that never happened.

I e-mailed Turner for this post, and—to his credit—he responded quickly. And I want to make clear: This is 0 percent personal. His job can’t be easy, what with the dizzying, Tebow-esque nature of Clark’s emergence and the 100,000 daily requests and the shocking “Love is Blind” reunion special (Much respect to A.D. for not going back to Clay).

Anyhow, here’s the exchange …

Shortly thereafter I received an e-mail from Jason Brummond. Brummond is the publisher of the Daily Iowan, which means (in an abbreviated explanation) he’s the adult overseeing things (the paper is part of a non-profit corporation). He was also CCed on Turner’s reply.

He wrote this:

Again, I want to reiterate: No beef here. I’m sure Jason Brummond (a former Daily Iowan editor who graduated in 2008, then received an MBA in 2014) is well intentioned, and is doing his best, and looks out for the business interests of the newspaper. But, eh … it just doesn’t work for me. Not fully. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, these students are paying a lot of money to study journalism at Iowa. They are there, literally, to cover Hawkeye sports and use that knowledge to kickstart a career.

Back when I was at Delaware, the program was gifted with a fleet of journalism professors who worked in the field and carried weight. If you needed help with the athletics department, Bill Fleischman—adjunct and longtime Philadelphia Daily News hockey scribe—gladly picked up the phone. If there was an issue with university policy, Chuck Stone (icon of icons) had your back. We were an independent newspaper, so the instructors had no say on what we wrote. But they loomed as powerful guardians for student press.

Iowa boasts the biggest star in America. As the women’s sports information director, you have to give the students at least some access to players. One on one access. And as the publisher of the student newspaper, you need to (and I’m gonna scream here) CALL WHOEVER NEEDS TO BE CALLED AND TELL THEM ABOUT THIS BULLSHIT. MAYBE IT’S BETH GOETZ, THE ATHLETIC DIRECTOR. MAYBE IT’S BARBARA J. WILSON, THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT. MAYBE IT’S HEAD COACH LISA BLUDER. Seriously, long ago Jason Brummond should have dialed Goetz’s number and told her the Iowa student newspaper (one of the best in America) demands at least some time with Caitlin Clark. And if that request is refused, Roering, Votzmeyer or Worth (or someone) should have done what scores of past student journalists have done—write a burn-the-joint-down opinion piece headlined, WHY IS OUR OWN UNIVERSITY TREATING US LIKE DOG FOOD?

Actually, scratch that: What the Daily Iowan should have done is gone harder. You won’t give us access? OK—watch this. “If I were a member of the student media—or their faculty advisor, which I am at Seton Hall—I would coach the student reporters to follow Caitlin to class, to her dorm, apartment or house and to the dining hall,” says B.J. Schecter, my former Sports Illustrated colleague and Seton Hall’s interim executive director at the Center for Sports Media. “Be present all the time and make her talk to you.”

Added Christopher John Farley, longtime journalist and former Iona University professor: “If athletic departments block access, student journalists should put in the work to go around them. Get to know the star athletes and their circles and try to land an interview without their representatives. Real journalism involves learning how to go around handlers, and college is a good place to hone your skills. The story you work for will likely be better than any interview some official might grant you.”

I reached out to a lot of people for this post, including an Iowa student journalist who DMed at length about the issues, then did a 180 after an adult (I’m making an educated guess here) informed them engaging would be unwise for the Daily Iowan’s interests. They asked me not to use anything they told me.

I get it. Sorta.

But the thing is—this Iowa situation isn’t merely an Iowa situation. I wound up engaging with a dozen (or so) student journalists from different colleges and universities for this post, and the restriction of access seems to be (like MAGA and herpes) on the march. On the bright side, some scribes had positive experiences with their athletic departments. Daniel Steenkamer, managing sports editor of my old haunt, the (Delaware) Review, said when the school held a press conference to announce a move to Conference USA, the SID made certain two reporters from the paper had sit-down talks with Chrissi Rawak, the athletic director. Calvin White, sports editor of Sidelines, the Middle Tennessee State University paper, told me, “I can basically get any coach or athlete from any sport I want as long as their schedule permits.”

The sagas of Steenkamer and White, though, felt like exceptions. Part of it, clearly, is due to the dominant force of social media—why speak with journalists when you can spread your own information on Instagram and TikTok? Part of it, clearly, has to do with all the NIL dough floating around—no one wants to risk losing out on a fortune because you unwisely told a student reporter you love strip clubs and Iggy Azalea’s “In My Defense.”

But mainly, to me, it feels like a weird power play. In general American society, it’s become trendy (thanks, Trump) to shit on the press and stomp on the press and treat the press like irksome gnats, and that extends to the way student journalists are treated by athletic departments. The main complaints I heard from collegiate writers was a callous lack of engagement (unreturned e-mails and interview requests), limited/shitty seating assignments at events and superstars hidden behind Plexiglass shields.

The saga that really leapt from the page (and still bugs the shit out of me) came via Gabriel Duarte, a sports writer for the Daily Sundial, Cal State Northridge’s student newspaper. According to Gabriel, he and his fellow staffers can no longer cover the school’s baseball team because Eddie Cornejo, the head coach and a man who batted .210 for the 2006 Midland RockHounds, took offense to this cover via a past issue of the Daily Sundial’s magazine …

Duarte was told access to the Matadors players and coaches was over/done/terminated, and when he reached out to Nicholas Bocanegra, the assistant director of sports communications, he received this flaccid e-mail reply …

And were Bocanegra in his early 20s and still tiptoeing around coaches, I suppose I could sorta kinda maybe perhaps understand his response. But the dude is 40. And at 40, working in sports information, your job isn’t to rub a coach’s genitalia and tell him he’s the best. No, you schedule a few minutes with Cornejo and say, bluntly, “Bruh, it doesn’t work that way here. You and your players have to engage with student media.”³

If he says no, you go to the AD. If that doesn’t work, you go to the school president.

I’m actually glad Duarte hit me up, because it allowed me to e-mail Shawn Chin-Farrell, the Northridge athletic director, on the Daily Sundial’s behalf. He responded quickly …

Will this change anything?

Will Cornejo allow coverage?

Will Johnny and Amy learn to enjoy condoms?

Maybe, maybe not.

But, in 2024, when the biggest star in college sports is off limits to the student newspaper trying to cover her, it’s hard for me to have much hope.

Go Holy Cross!

The Quaz Five with … Bill Herrion

Bill Herrion is the former men’s basketball coach at Drexel, East Carolina and New Hampshire. He was a four-time America East Coach of the Year and led teams to three NCAA Tournaments.

1. OK, Coach, with March Madness upon us I often think back to 1992, when Delaware beat your Drexel Dragons to reach the team's first-ever NCAA Tournament. And, because I was a UD student, I probably never felt a ton of empathy for your team. So, what does it feel like to be a mid-major, come THAT close to reaching the Dance, and falling short? How did it feel at that time?: That was my first year as a Division I basketball coach. I was 32-years old and as a first time head coach I had no idea what to expect. We weren’t picked very high in the pre-season coaches poll, but as the year went on we just kept getting better and better as a team. Once we got into conference play in January and February, we really got hot and made a run.

There was no question that Delaware was the most talented team in the league and everybody was chasing them. They were very talented, really well-coached and just a really good team. In my entire coaching career, your ultimate goal at the beginning of the season was to get better every day as a team, win the conference championship and then have an opportunity to go to the NCAA Tournament. We ended up being the No. 2 seed in the America East Conference tournament, we won our first two games at home, and then had to go to the old Field House at Delaware for the championship game. When you’re in the championship game and you’re one game away from cutting down the nets and going to the NCAA Tournament, you can just dream and feel it. Unfortunately, we lost to the most talented team in the league and came up a game short of reaching our ultimate goal.

I’ve spent many years in the North Atlantic/America East conferences and that Delaware team could possibly be one of the best teams to win the league. As much as it hurt at the time, it was just the beginning of us beginning to build a very successful program at Drexel.

It didn’t hurt that Malik Rose got dropped into our lap the next summer.

2. In 1996, your Drexel team (featuring Malik Rose) entered the tournament a 12 seed, and you upset Lorenzen Wright and Memphis. I wonder: Did you watch tape beforehand and think, "We're better than these guys?" Did you watch tape and see Memphis' flaws? Or did you think, "Shit, this is gonna be a toughie" and somehow find a way?: So 1996 was Malik Rose’s senior year. If you remember, Malik’s freshman year, we ended up being the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. We won our first two games to get to the championship game and we ended up hosting the final game on our home court against Delaware in a rematch. They were still very good and talented and I knew it was going to be another really tough game. It was a very close game down to the wire and at the end we made a couple of crucial mistakes and ended up losing a very close game to get to the tournament. So, we were 0-2 in our first two championship games and losing that second one at home was really crushing!

We then went on a three-year run of winning the championship and going to the NCAA Tournament. In 1996 it was our third-straight year getting to the “Big Dance.” We had a very veteran, talented, experienced basketball team, obviously led by Malik, who was finishing a record-breaking career at Drexel in just about every statistical category in school history.

We were a really, really good basketball team. Possibly the smartest and highest basketball IQ team that I coached in my 32-year career. We were 26-3 going the tournament. We were a 12 seed and that is the seed where a lot of basketball people say the most upsets occur in the NCAA Tournament.

When the pairings came out on Selection Sunday, what I first knew was that Memphis was very talented and athletic. They were coached by Larry Finch, who was a great player at Memphis in his day. Lorenzen Wright was a 6-foot-11 center who was going to be a lottery pick in the NBA Draft, and they had other really talented players. When we started watching film, the first thing that jumped off the screen was their speed and quickness and just their overall length and athletic ability. They pressed full court for 40 minutes, so the real key was we had to adjust to the press and not turn the ball over and give them transition baskets.

Like I said, we were a really, really good, smart team. Everybody could handle and pass the ball, so we did a great jog against the press and as the game went on, we started pulling away from them and we won the game by double figures and we stunned everybody. If you remember, we would have had all of the national publicity, but later in the day Princeton beat UCLA on a back-door layup to win the game. So we had to share the spotlight with Princeton that day.

3. When a team wins a first-round upset game, a la Drexel over Memphis, does a loss in the next round feel easier, because you accomplished something? Or does it hurt more, because your expectations are higher?: What very few people know was that late in the Memphis win, Malik Rose caught his foot running down the floor on the back of a Memphis’ player’s foot and ended up with a severe high ankle sprain. He probably should not have played the next game. But this was one of the toughest, most-competitive guys I ever coached, so there was no way he was sitting out.

We drew Syracuse in the second round and now you’re thinking and dreaming that we can get to the Sweet 16! We felt it was a good matchup for us. Syracuse played all 2-3 zone and we were a team that really passed the ball well, handled it well and had multiple three-point shooters on the floor. So, it wasn’t a feeling of just being happy to be there. We honestly felt we could win the game and advance to the Sweet 16. We played them very tough but just didn’t make enough perimeter shots against the zone. Malik really struggled with the ankle injury and it greatly limited his impact. With that said, it was a great run and obviously the best team I had the privilege of coaching in my career.

4. You had a terrific eight-season run at Drexel, and then in 1999 you left for East Carolina. And, as a guy who has followed your career, I've often wondered, "Why?" Like, Drexel—tremendous school, Philly, gritty, hard-nosed. So why, of all places, East Carolina? And why do you feel like it didn't quite work? Do you ever look back and think, "I shoulda stayed"?: I was so fortunate to spend eight great years at Drexel and to coach in the city of Philadelphia—hands down the best college basketball city in America. At that time I had the opportunity to play and coach against some of the best coaches and most historic programs in college basketball. Think about being able to walk three blocks to the Palestra at noon time and play pickup games with the coaches from Penn, LaSalle, St.Joe’s, Temple! To go over to the old McGonigle Hall at Temple on Saturdays and watch the high school and college kids play in the Sonny Hill league! For a basketball junkie like myself, I was in basketball heaven!

We had 8 great years at Drexel and never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that we would accomplish the success we did. We went to the conference championship game seven out of eight years. We won it three times and went to three NCAA Tournaments. We also went to one NIT Tournament! I just felt at the time that I needed a change. Don’s ask me why, because I don’t know if I have the right answer. Why East Carolina?

When I took the jog they were playing in the old CAA conference. Our football team at ECU at the time was in Conference USA. The word was they were eventually going to move all of the sports at ECU into Conference USA. Little did I realize they made the decision my first year I was there. It was really my first experience of coaching in a higher level conference. You’re talking, Louisville and Pitino, Cincinnati and Huggins, Marquette and Dwyane Wade and Tom Cream, Memphis and Calipari, it was a very high-level conference; a very, very hard job, but I really enjoyed my time there, met some really good people and did not look back on the decision at all.

What you do learn at the higher levels is that you need pros to win. We were playing against teams and programs that had future NBA players. We were competitive, but night in and night out it was a very tough league.

5. How do you feel like the transfer free-for-all and NIL stuff has impacted college basketball? In particular, mid-major college basketball? And is it less fun being a coach than it was, oh, 20 years ago?: Well, I think we can go on and on with this question. It has obviously become free agency at the college level. I was thinking about this the other day when I was out for a long walk. Back in my early years of coaching, not many kids used to transfer.

It was all about building a program back in those days. To be successful, you would have good older players in the program who came in, you developed them as players and they were your older veteran guys. Then you would bring in a freshmen recruiting class—maybe one or two could play right away and the others had to wait their turn behind the older players. The only time players would transfer was if they weren’t happy with their playing time, but back then you would have to sit out a year if you transferred and I think that made players think twice about leaving. Now that’s all changed.

When the NCAA recently changed the rule with immediate eligibility, a bad precedent was set and it opened the floodgates for these kids. The days of working hard, earning playing time in practice every day, developing and improving as a player—those days are over. Now it allows players to just give up, give in and, “If I’m not happy, I’ll just leave.” It’s the easy way out and that’s not the reality of how life is.

Then the NCAA just passed the rule you can transfer a second time and not have to sit out. This is just going to allow kids to go from school to school and just keep moving around until they get what they want. When you add in the NIL, it impacts the mid-majors in terrible ways: The days of you recruiting really good freshmen—I’m talking Rookie of the Year-type guys, and holding onto them … well, those days are over. If you’re fortunate to bring in a really talented, young, impact player at the lower level, there’s a real good chance you’re going to lose that kid to a higher level program with NIL money. Once you take away a really talented young player off your roster and they transfer, it immediately decimates that program. Could you imagine if the transfer portal and NIL money was around when Malik Rose was at Drexel? And that’s what’s really sad about the college game now. I used to tell Malik when he was at Drexel, the people at the next level will know who you are if you just keep getting numbers and statistics and you’re in a program that is winning and going to the NCAA Tournament. They will definitely know who you are!

I feel really bad for the players now leaving schools just to make money. If you’re really concerned about your basketball future after college, you better stay in a program where you’re starting, playing major minutes, putting up numbers and stats and helping your team win. The pros will have no choice but to know you. Once you chase the money and you go to a place and you’re not starting, your minutes get cut and your numbers go down. It now becomes “out of sight, out of mind.”

So, with all of that said, I don’t like where college basketball is at at the lower levels. I hope they don’t get left behind. Look how crazy this transfer portal is. It just opened up officially the same day that came out with the NCAA brackets. You can’t wait another couple of weeks? Before you know it their will be 1,500 kids looking for a new school …

BONUS (Rank in order—favorite to least): Malik Rose, strawberry shortcake, Butch Hobson, Brian Pearl, Sly and the Family Stone, TikTok, Franconia Notch State Park, Caitlin Clark, baggy shorts, pina coladas, New Orleans: Malik Rose (how can I not rank him first?), Butch Hobson (I’m a die-hard Red Sox fan), Franconia Notch State Park (shout out to New Hampshire), baggy shorts (I like things loose), Caitlin Clark (unbelievable career), Brian Pearl (took two NCAA Tournaments away from us! Great point guard at Delaware!), Sly and the Family Stone (love old time), New Orleans (great city for Final Four), strawberry shortcake (I have cut down on sweets in my older age), pina coladas (I used to love pina coladas, but I stopped drinking many, many years ago), TikTok (I don’t do TikTok)

Ask Jeff Pearlman a fucking question(s)

From: MonoDuer: You’re a pretty old guy. Who’s your favorite March Madness hero?: Fun question, even though I could do without the age notation. So I have a decades-old March Madness observation with friends, which is—basically—My favorite part of the tournament is the opening round when a 15 seed leads a 2 seed, oh, 10-6. That’s the moment when hope seems real, when upsets feel possible, when the slow-and-outgunned small-conference palooka feels as if anything is doable.

And since I’m a product of the University of Delaware and the America East/North Atlantic Conference, I have to go back to 1995, when No. 4 Oklahoma State squared off against No. 13 Drexel and its undersized center, Malik Rose.

Yes, the Dragons got slaughtered by Bryant (Big Country) Reeves and Co., 73-49, but it was cool seeing Rose—a player who had tormented the Blue Hens—getting some national due.

Oh, and one year later Drexel returned and upset Memphis.

So, hey.

Honorable mentions:

• Harold Arceneaux, Weber State.

• Brett Blizzard, UNCW.

• Mouse McFadden, Cleveland State.

• Bill Edwards, Wright State.

From: UaLoser: You’re 51. Why are you on TikTok?: I’ve been getting this a lot lately. Why? Because a big part of being an author is trying to reach myriad audiences. And TikTok offers an opportunity to reach folks. So every day I post a video … just me telling a story from my career. It’s fun, takes all of three minutes and harms no one. Follow me here, pretty please.

A random old article worth revisiting …

On June 8, 1966, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran this wire story—which is both fascinating and a time stamp from a really hostile, rough period in American history.

The Madness of Tyler Kepner’s Grid …

So unless you’ve been living beneath a pebble beneath a rock beneath a big hunk of cheese, you’re aware of Immaculate Grid, the daily game that’s drawn thousands of nerdy sports fans (guilty!) to its ranks. And while the NBA grid, NFL grid, NHL grid and WNBA grid are all fun, this game is at its best when it comes to baseball—where the names are endless and the transactions ceaseless.

Over the past few weeks I’ve often discussed the grid with Tyler Kepner, the Athletic baseball writer. And now, for kicks, every week I’m gonna feature one of Tyler’s bonkers grid results. He’s the ultimate baseball geek (I say this with great affection), and his outputs blow my mind.

So …

Tyler thoughts …

• Ron Washington is known better as a manager and coach, of course, but he played for several teams. He’s one of the most popular people in baseball, so I use him a lot.

• Roger Mason — I’ve mentioned him before here. A go-to guy for me who hasn’t caught on with the masses, like Terry Mulholland has.

• Jim Lindeman was a promising young first baseman with the Cardinals, replaced an injured Jack Clark in the 1987 World Series. Bounced around after that.

• Mark Guthrie was a lefty reliever for the Twins when they won the 1991 World Series. He pops up as a Dodger when you see the clip of Tony Gwynn hitting an inside the park grand slam off him.

• Junior Ortiz was also on the 1991 Twins; you could see his number 0 on the cover of SI after they won it. He played for the Pirates earlier and my dad used to call him “Señor Junior” 🙂

• George Frazier was on the Twins’ 1987 World Series title team. He pitched for St. Louis in 1981 before they traded him to the Yankees; he lost three games for them in the World Series that year.

• Tayler Scott was a name I had just learned the day before this grid, when I was studying the Astros’ media guide before seeing their team in spring training. He’s from South Africa and has pitched for six teams.

• Damaso Marte pitched for the 1999 Mariners, who I covered. He was putting up great numbers at Double A and Lou Piniella was always itching to get those guys to the big leagues. It didn’t go well. He resurfaced after a couple of years and pitched for a long time. I covered him again with the Yankees in 2009, when he helped them with a World Series.

• Stan Clarke’s 1988 Topps card was a bookmark I used (picked at random from a box of old commons) recently. Baseball cards make the best bookmarks.

This week’s college writer you should follow on Twitter …

Brock Heilig, Oakland University.

The sports editor of the Oakland Post is surely loving existence right now, what with Oakland University’s otherworldly upset of Kentucky on Thursday. He also happens to be a helluva writer whose tournament lead-up piece, GREG KAMPE: A WIN OVER KENTUCKY WOULD ‘CHANGE MY PLAYERS’ LIVES’, deftly encapsulated what it is to be an underdog given one chance at national greatness.

Wrote Heilig:

One can follow Brock on Twitter here.

Bravo, kid.

Journalism musings for the week …

Musing 1: Graciela Mochkofsky, the dean at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, took to the New York Times to make the (convincing) case that we can save journalism as a profession by making j-school free. Writes Mochkofsky: “In a resource-starved industry, few newsrooms can offer the type of mentoring, guidance and time that it takes to shape a great journalist. This is now primarily the responsibility of journalism schools. It is the civic duty of these schools to find and train reporters and news leaders, instill in them an ethical foundation, help develop their critical thinking skills, allow them to try and fail in a safe environment, open doors and provide a support network. (Journalism schools should also contribute research in a variety of areas, from the impact of A.I. to new business models to identifying and responding to emerging threats.)”

Musing 2: Michael Wolff of New York Magazine with a pretty deep look at exiled CNN big man in this interesting article, JEFF ZUCKER’S FLEET STREET MISADVENTURE. Writes Wolff: “Jobless, Zucker could be frequently spotted wandering the streets around his East 60s apartment, eating a sandwich at the single-counter coffee shop nearby on Madison Avenue, or at the Core club, a midtown redoubt for executives who have lost their office, or at Jack’s Stir Brew Coffee near his summerhouse in Amagansett. Here you are in your professional prime in an industry, mass-market media, that more and more people have given up on. What do you do? The answer seemed to bring other media people to the edge of their seats. He was everybody’s omen. If Jeff Zucker couldn’t find a future … was there a future?”

Musing 3: Chuck Culpepper is a word magician. I thought that two decades ago, I think it now. And if you walk away from his latest Washington Post column, LONG BEACH STATE’S COACH GOT FIRED. THEN HE STAYED FOR THE NCAA TOURNAMENT, without being dazzled and moved, your heart is a lump of coal.

Musing 4: I’m starting to think Google’s AI hgenerator, Gemini, might not be working out so well. According to Bobby Allyn’s piece for NPR, Gemini “did weird things like refusing to show white people where appropriate and depicted Nazi soldiers as Black, which is obviously not accurate.” I mean, hey, no one’s perfect.

Musing 5: I was fortunate to attend the New Orleans Book Festival last week, which was a fun/cool/thrilling celebration of all things literary. At one point I found myself in the lecturer lunch room, sitting at a table with Jonathan Eig (who invited me as a guest), Ken Burns, Jake Tapper, David Books and Jeffrey Rosen. So neat. But then I was alerted to, um … eh … a moment, featuring Walter Isaacson, the longtime journalist and one of the event’s organizers. When he, um, eh, argh, eh, um … assaulted a student. Which isn’t the best.

Musing 6: My son Emmett is a 17-year-old high school senior. He made this in art class earlier this week, and I love it. So—boastful dad alert—I’m sharing …

Musing 7: The House impeachment hearings were, predictably, a joke this week—but I’m here for Jasmine Crockett, the Texas Democrat who absolutely brings it with a merging of intellect, snark and wit. There’s nothing conservative white men hate more than a strong Black woman smacking them down, and Crockett is as good as it gets [Jared Moskowitz is a close second].

Musing 8: Not all that long ago, Shaun King was a sorta-admired journalist whose opinions on race, class, politics were valued. I have no idea what’s happened since—but maybe he’s always been a conman. Anyhow, Minnesota's branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations decided to remove King as its keynote speaker for an upcoming Ramadan fundraiser. Makes sense.

Musing 9: Sean Patrick Small, the actor who played Larry Bird in “Winning Time,” is a tremendous dude whose chasing that golden ring that is a sustained Hollywood career and isn’t afraid of the grind. He’s now in the midst of post production for his independent film, “Lost, Not Forgotten,” and is seeking help and input. Visit here for more information. It’s a worthwhile endeavor.

Musing 10: Deion Sanders is Don King, is Donald Trump, is Bob Arum, is Suge Knight. He’s just always full of shit, always selling, always fibbing, always exaggerating. And it’s exhausting. Watch this, and tell me you believe the man.

Musing 11: The new Two Writers Slinging Yang stars Cora Hall, Tennessee women’s hoops beat writer for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Quote of the Week …

1. It’s 2024. This is a thing.

2. Sadly, a ludicrous notion these days.

3. You can also remind him that his team is 11-9 and going nowhere fast.