MikeAshmore.com

May 20, 2007

2007-05-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

So, let's see.

Since my last entry, I've covered around 20 games and interviewed a few dozen people.

But the big news was that I got back to the big leagues this month, covering the New York Yankees game against Seattle on the 7th.

Matt DeSalvo, who spent his season with the Trenton Thunder in 2006, was making his Major League debut, and I figured it was worth a shot to call and try to cover the game.

I honestly didn't expect to have a chance, but I got the call and I found myself in the Yankee Stadium press box a few days later.

I got there at around 2:00 PM. After a lap around the stadium, I ventured over to the press gate.

Considering Roger Clemens announced he's coming back the day before, I am expecting this to be a disaster.

After the guard and I discussed the difference between my work affiliation (The Hunterdon County Democrat) and my political affiliation (which is what he thought is what I was telling him) I had a Yankees press pass around my neck.

He directed me on where to go, sending me to a lobby and pointing me to an elevator. After seeing YES announcer Michael Kay standing around, I take the elevator to the loge level. Quickly, I am lost.

I head to the front desk of an office, and they tell me where to go. While there, I also meet Michael Margolis, who I ended up going through to get my press pass.

I'm pretty much the first one there, so I get a chance to soak everything in. The press box is not as big or as nice as I'd expected, to be honest.

I stay in there for a bit, watching the players stretch and throw on both sides of the field.

After a while, Margolis comes back in and gives me the ground rules (including the "don't ask for autographs speech" which is really almost insulting at this point) and also tells me the various times in which the clubhouse is and isn't open.

He's heading down there, so I go with him and the clubhouse has just opened up. Only a few players are around, but Sean Henn is one of them. He's a Thunder alum, so I talk to him for a few minutes.

In the meantime, ESPN's Erin Andrews is walking around the clubhouse. She's...uhhh, not so bad to look at. We need to get her to cover some Atlantic League games.

Matt DeSalvo is sitting at his locker, writing in a little notebook. He's talking with a few people -- not reporters -- but that's still surprising considering it's his first big league start.

Derek Jeter is standing by his locker -- well one of the two lockers he has, he also has another filled with boxes and boxes of shows -- and he's finishing up with one reporter. I figure the worst thing he can say if I ask him for a minute is no...

Jeter and I talk for about a minute or so. It seems fairly ridiculous that I'd ask him about DeSalvo considering everything the guy's accomplished, but I do have a story to write.

All in all, I get Johnny Damon, Mike Mussina, Jorge Posada, Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes in the clubhouse before the game.

On my way out, I wished DeSalvo luck.

After that's done, you head on over to the dugout to speak with Joe Torre. Somehow, I squeezed my way into a really good spot. There are literally around 80 people or so all crammed into this little space. As soon as Torre sits down, the hole that was opened so he could walk through instantly closes and you pretty much get squashed.

I manage to get two questions off to Torre, which isn't bad considering the group I was in.

For whatever reason, a giant pile of reporters has now surrounded GM Brian Cashman, so I go join the fun. I'm pretty much standing directly behind him, but I get him to turn around after a while, and he answers three questions for me.

I watch BP on the field at Yankee Stadium for a little while. Not too many people can say they've done that.

After Mariners BP ends, I head into their clubhouse and see Ichiro sitting in the back corner by himself, cleaning his cleats. No interpreter means no Ichiro, though. Boo.

I head into the media dining room. I have roasted chicken, something else, and then some shredded red stuff that I assume is cranberry relish of some sort. It isn't. It's beets. Yuck.

Al Leiter is sitting in the dining room and nobody's saying a word to him. He works for YES now. Must be weird to be on the other side.

After polishing off a piece of cake (this wasn't free, by the way) I head up to the press box and eventually end up moving my stuff to the auxilary press box...which is past the broadcast booths and is usually used by the guys doing the live game updates for radio stations.

The game was good, and DeSalvo ended up doing a lot better than I thought he would. But he got jobbed out of a win on a bad call at second, and Mariano Rivera gave up a missile to Adrian Beltre to pick up the loss.

The mood in the clubhouse wasn't so bad after the game, as DeSalvo was pretty upbeat about his outing. I asked him two questions, and again went over to Jeter to get his perspective on how the young pitcher did.

A very fun, but very hectic experience all in all. Easily the best I've ever done at a big league game. Also the first big league press pass I feel like I earned, too.

People I've interviewed this month

Bill Masse, Marcus Nettles, R.J. Swindle, Brett Jodie, Bobby Brownlie, Carl Everett, Danny Graves, Jeremy Hill, Tike Redman, John Halama, Collin Balester, Mike Carp, Kevin Mulvey, Noah Hall, Tim Raines, Brian Cashman, Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, Chien-Ming Wang, Sean Henn, Phil Hughes, Joe Torre, Jason Giambi, Don Mattingly, Jorge Posada, Matt DeSalvo, Mike Mussina, Steve Foucault, Wayne Krenchicki, Sparky Lyle

Games I've covered this month

5/3 - EL - Fisher Cats @ Thunder
5/4 - ATL - Bears @ Patriots
5/5 - ATL - Bears @ Patriots
5/6 - ATL - Bears @ Patriots
5/7 - MLB - Mariners @ Yankees
5/8 - ATL - Bluefish @ Bears
5/9 - ATL - Road Warriors @ Patriots
5/10 - ATL - Road Warriors @ Patriots
5/11 - ATL - Revolution @ Patriots
5/12 - ATL - Revolution @ Patriots
5/13 - ATL - Revolution @ Patriots
5/17 - ATL - Riversharks @ Bears, Game 1
5/17 - ATL - Riversharks @ Bears, Game 2
5/18 - EL - Rock Cats @ Thunder
5/19 - ATL - Ducks @ Patriots
5/20 - ATL - Ducks @ Patriots

April 20, 2007

2007-04-20T04:24:00.000-07:00

You'd think that interviewing three Hall of Famers in the past would make it easier to speak to a fourth one.

It isn't.

In the history of baseball, there are 38 first ballot of Hall of Famers and I've now interviewed four of them (Bob Gibson, Reggie Jackson and Jim Palmer are the others).

My fourth, Brooks Robinson, called me yesterday and we spoke for about ten minutes about the Atlantic League and his first professional season in York.

First of all, the fact that a guy with those credentials is calling me never ceases to amaze me. You obviously have to be professional and you obviously have a job to do, but hearing "this is Brooks Robinson" on the other end sets off a few alarms.

I probably could have done a better job with my questions, but I think I still did a decent job and was able to get a lot of good stuff for an Opening Day feature. He told a really great story about his first game in York, which was his first professional game back in 1955.

That'll probably be my lead, so I don't want to let that cat out of the bag, but suffice it to say that nobody knew who he was back then.

I've still got a lot of work to do on my Opening Day stuff, and I have to meet with my boss early next week to figure out exactly what I'll be able to get in print, but I think things are going pretty well so far. And regardless of what ends up in the paper, you'll be able to find everything over at AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com

April 15, 2007

2007-04-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

On April 5th, I watched Chase Wright strike out ten Bowie Baysox in seven innings on Opening Day for the Trenton Thunder.

On April 17th, he'll be making his Major League debut for the New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians.

Wow.

I've been really, really, really, really sick over the past week -- I ended up losing about seven pounds over the span of three days. This isn't good. But what was especially bad about that was that I was unable to head out to Trenton to cover any games in the Harrisburg series, although I wasn't intending on seeing his second start anyway.

Thankfully, I picked up some Jeff Kennard quotes from Opening Day, and had enough stuff to turn out an article for this week. I was healthy enough to attend the Patriots Fan Fest on Saturday, and will have a notebook about that and some of the team's new signings.

Make sure you check out the Democrat every week for all the latest Ashmore articles, and be sure you stay tuned for a very special Atlantic League season preview in the paper and on AtlanticLeagueBaseball.com starting May 3rd.

March 28, 2007

2007-03-28T11:21:00.000-07:00

Why have I been in touch with Mackey Sasser, Matt Stark, Mike Kingery, Kirk Bullinger and many others over the past few days?

Stay tuned, and around the beginning of May, you just might find out...

March 24, 2007

2007-03-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

It's 4:03 in the morning, and I'm still working. Nobody can ever tell me I don't work hard, that's for sure.

For various pieces I'm working on, I'm digging up phone numbers for various players. You'd be amazed at how many of these guys work at baseball camps and schools and stuff like that, it's fairly easy to get a hold of them through those places. There are also other ways to track guys down, it's amazing how easy it can be.

And for some guys, it's way too hard.

For example, I recently contacted one team to speak to their hitting coach, since he played for a team I cover. Amazingly, all they could do for me is track down a mailing address for this particular guy. So, he's employed by you as a hitting coach, and you don't have a phone number for this guy? Stellar.

For the most part though, this has been fun. You can get a hold of guys you didn't even know you needed. Steve Balboni has a baseball school? Cool. Let me call him and ask him about playing with Tommy John.

Mike Kingery has one too? Hmmm...I can ask him about his playoff run with former Atlantic Leaguer Dante Bichette on the Rockies. There's ALWAYS a connection, you just have to look hard enough.

Anyway, I hadn't done one of these for a while, so I figured I'd take a break from searching and do one. The Cust story made cover of the paper, by the way.

Woo-hoo!

February 28, 2007

2007-02-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

Over the past two days, things finally came together for my Jack Cust story.

He called me at 9:15 in the morning, on his way to the field at Padres Spring Training.

We spoke for about 20 minutes, and I was really able to get a lot of what I needed to put into my story. I was relieved to finally get the wheels turning on this, it kind of stalled out after I'd put a lot of work into it.

Someone else who proved to be very helpful was Tom Gambino, Jack's coach at Immaculata High School. He works at Cust's baseball academy, and I spoke with him for about 10 minutes about coaching Jack before he was a big star.

Gambino was very helpful and also very candid, and I probably could have gotten an article on Cust based just off of what he was telling me.

The article is written, and my boss and I are pretty much exchanging drafts of it at this point. He was impressed with my first offering, but had a few suggestions for things he'd like to be tweaked.

I'm not entirely confident about the piece -- I certainly don't think I killed it (killed is good) -- but I know it's probably one of the better ones I've done. It's also the first piece I've ever done where the entire thing was done over the phone, and I think that kind of hurts the descriptive qualities I can add to it -- you can pick up a lot from someone's body language and mannerisms.

The piece is slated to run on March 8th, and is easily the hardest I've had to work to get one published. I'm hoping to have a Patriots notebook accompany it, but since the Cust piece is long, there may not be room.

--

In other news, not everything was positive. A few hours after speaking to Gambino, I received a call from Jay Horwitz, the media relations director for the New York Mets. I really want to do my Atlantic League coverage right this year, and I want to take advantage of the league celebrating its tenth anniversary, so I'm reaching out to players from the league's early years.

Ruben Sierra was arguably the league's first true superstar, and he's currently in camp with the Mets. Unfortunately, Sierra was not interested in speaking with me, although I'm told that could change if he makes the team.

That would make him the second AL alum to shoot me down, as John Rocker's publicist informed me that he doesn't do print interviews back in January.

There is one big name that I'm working on getting that I can't divulge quite yet, but I can tell you he's easily more accomplished than Sierra and Rocker combined. I think having someone of this person's caliber speaking positively about the Atlantic League and the team he is/was affiliated with would not only be very beneficial to my coverage and myself, but to the league as well.

February 23, 2007

2007-02-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

After much optimism, my Jack Cust story is now circling the drain.

It's frustrating, because I've put a lot of work into this, probably more work than I put into some of my "regular" Atlantic League and Eastern League pieces. That probably has a lot to do with this being the first story I've ever actually been assigned -- I can generally decide what I want to write about on my own in my regular beats.

So, I obviously want to prove to my boss that he picked the right guy for the story, and right now I'm not so sure that's the case.

The story is still missing quotes from Cust, and it's not going anywhere until I get that. I've left a voicemail for him myself, had his dad leave a message for him and even went as far as to contact the Padres (again) and ask them for their help (again). I feel more like a pest than a reporter right now.

As far as things to look forward to go, I've set up a Q&A with Long Island Ducks first baseman Rob Cafiero on atlanticleaguebaseball.com on March 5th at 7PM.

I'm also working on getting some big names for my season previews in both the Atlantic and Eastern Leagues -- if even one of them comes through for me, you'll be pleasantly surprised at who you'll be hearing from.

I also had my February notebook run in yesterday's paper, head on over to http://www.mikeashmore.com/022207.htm to check it out.

February 18, 2007

2007-02-18T20:03:00.000-08:00

A great day in sports was also a great day for myself as well.

After watching a Daytona 500 that featured a thrilling final ten laps and an NBA All-Star Game which featured about four defensive plays, I have some time to update everyone on the Jack Cust, Jr. story.

Things are finally coming together for me on this one, although it appears highly unlikely that the piece will run until March 1st.

I spoke to San Diego Padres Farm Director Grady Fuson for about 10 minutes this morning, as well as Patriots catcher Travis Anderson, who works at the Jack Cust Baseball Academy in the off-season.

The key element, however, is still missing -- quotes from Cust, Jr. himself. I'm hoping that his dad will be able to help me out on this one, as I now have an extra week to speak with him.

For now, look for an Eastern League notebook in the February 22nd issue of the Democrat, where I take a look at some of baseball's biggest prospects that are headed to the league in 2007.

The piece features quotes from 2006 Red Sox first-round pick Kris Johnson and second-round pick Justin Masterson, both of whom could make their Eastern League debuts this season.

I spoke to both players in Brooklyn last season while they were with the Lowell Spinners of the New-York Penn League last season. Stay tuned for an announcement regarding the NYPL in the near future.

UPDATE: The Cust story keeps getting better. I just heard back from Nick Bierbrodt, who spent some time as a teammate of Jack's in Triple-A with the Diamondbacks in 2001. Bierbrodt, who I covered during his time with the Patriots, didn't play with Jack for all that long, but still provides a much-needed perspective from someone who's actually played with him.

All I need are quotes from the man himself, and I'm very confident that this story can be something special.

February 17, 2007

2007-02-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the MikeAshmore.com blog!

I wanted to keep everyone posted as to what I'm up to in the off-season, as well as what stories you can expect to see throughout the upcoming season in the Hunterdon County Democrat and on atlanticleaguebaseball.com

I also expect to be able to make an announcement here and on MikeAshmore.com regarding some new ventures I'll be working on.

As for what I'm working on now, a story on Flemington native Jack Cust is taking up my time.

I have a Monday deadline to get this story done, and I realistically only have about 25% of what I need to get this one hammered out. I am, however, expecting to hear from Grady Fuson, the Minor League Director of the San Diego Padres, within the next 24 hours.

Getting the Padres perspective on Cust's position in their organization is critical to the success of my story, so pulling that off was big.

It was also surprising (to an extent) how easy it was to get the help I needed from Warren Miller, head of the Padres PR department. He was very willing to help me out once I explained Cust being a local player and the angle of my story. Considering the crap I have to deal with in my regular beats at times, it was refreshing to see how easy things can be at the highest level.

Cust making the Padres would be great not only for him, but for me as well. I'm fairly certain I could go to Philadelphia or New York and cover a Padres game to do a follow-up on this story, which (hopefully) will run on February 22nd in the Democrat.