The Ways of a Sports Journalist, Part II.

A continuation of Part I, which was my last post.

After Corey and I left the station, we headed right on over to Coca-Cola field to watch the Buffalo Bisons take on the Pawtucket Red Sox. We parked in a building two blocks away (which I didn't mind because I need the exercise anyways), and walked into the entrance of the restaurant they have at the field. The name escapes me at the moment. We received our media passes and we both had to sign a contract permitting us to be allowed up in the pressbox. According to the pass, we were allowed in the clubhouse, on the field, and obviously the pressbox. We took the elevator up to the third level, and waited by the pressbox doors since they were locked. One of the guards came and opened it for us, and now my brother knows the passcode. It's really easy by the way, but I won't say it here.

The first room we walked into was the Media Lounge Area. There was some food left there but most of it was gone because we got into the ballpark when the second inning began. I had a roast beef sandwich with lettuce and mayo. I also had a Coke. Corey was stoked because since the field had been renamed, they now had Cherry Coke stashed in the drink dispensers. I was never one for the cherry stuff.

As we sat and ate in the lounge, Corey began discussing with me how very little female journalists there were in the sporting world. He believes that they do need more female journalists who know what the hell they're talking about. He also mentioned that most of the journalists around the country come out of Syracuse, and they're awful at their job. Most of them, anyways. I took note of this and decided that I was truly determined to try and get a shot at being a sports journalist.

Eventually, we made our way into the actual pressbox. We took a seat next to Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News who was on his handy laptop. Everyone in there has a laptop or a desktop to work on. They're constantly checking other scores and updating blogs that they run. There was also a staff room for the big shots but we weren't sllowed to go in there. Not surprised.

My brother made sure to explain plays to me while the game was going on because I know little about baseball. There were a lot of double plays going on during the game that we made note of. I also learned that the umpire and catcher aren't the same guy! Oh baseball, you trick me so.

Everytime teams changed in an inning, there was always something going on in the crowd. It is just the minors, but I thought it was cool that even if nothing exciting was going on in the game, the crowd could continue to be entertained by something. Believe me, they needed it during the game.

Corey said that my future would lie in copy editting because of something I noticed on the scoreboard. They were changing teams and this thing called 'Little League Heroes' popped up on the scoreboard. Instead of Heroes, it said 'Hereos'. I turn to Corey and go 'Hereos? What?' He asked me what I was talking about, then looked up to see what I was looking at. He couldn't believe how fast I had picked that up. I guess I'm just on the ball with those types of things.

I think my experience at the ballpark was incredibly boring, mainly because the Bisons didn't get any runs in and Pawtucket got a run in off of a home run. The final score was 1-0. I still don't think the Bisons have won a game yet.

It was very warm in the pressbox, but as soon as we walked out, it was freezing cold again. I put on my jacket as we walked down the stairs and he headed out towards the arena for the Sabres game.

I will have the final part of this up tomorrow, probably. There you'll read about my experience at the Sabres game.

The Ways of a Sports Journalist, Part I.

This would have been posted sometime last night if college hadn't been nagging me. I have a course scheduling on the phone later today so I had to look up some courses I was interested in taking (at least, my general requirement courses). I sure hope I don't lose my reception today since I will be speaking on my cellphone. I'm moving up in the world!

So Saturday - I was over at my brother Corey's house a little after ten o' clock, and we drove on over to the WGR 550 station where they do their shows and everything. It's in a secluded spot in Amherst and when we pulled up I couldn't believe that it was located in there. All nice corporate buildings but I just didn't think that various radio stations would be located in there to do their magic. You walk in and the elevator music blares over the loudspeaker. This was how I remembered it was a corporate office building.

You walk through a few doors and go down a few hallways, and you see cubicles and the radio stations production room and broadcasting room. I got to meet Pat Malacaro, who usually produces Corey's show when he's on. He was extremely nice and showed me the ropes during one of the breaks. As Corey was working on his show, I did watch Pat every now and then work the controls on the board. All you really need to know is which button does what action. Going to school for broadcasting specificially might have something to do with how good he is at it, too.

It was funny to see how Corey actually looked as he did his radio show. My mom told me I had to take note of that as I watched him, and I wasn't disappointed. Then again, he just acts like he normally does. You have the ability to do that if you're on the radio - you can show up in anything you want and no one is going to care because they can't see you!

Before the show had began, Corey showed me quickly how they get sound bites into their computer to use for the show. They have hundreds of folders that they put them in, and it transfers over to the computer in the producing room. That way whoever is producing the show can fire it up to put over the air. Tons of complicated things go on behind the scenes. I even heard that they have had multiple fires at the station before. My brother said that it's always a good time when those happen.

Corey also showed me some pages he typed up for his show, or his notes. He had it all planned out what he was going to say. I actually thought that he just spoke about what was on his mind at that moment, so that was interesting to find out that he has a specific lineup of what he's going to talk about. Nevertheless, when we first walked into the producing room, Pat had told Corey about Donte Whitner's arrest in Cleveland outside the House of Blues.

Another thing I learned was that you always have to find out your information. You can't trust the local news website to have the information right (even if they did plagirize from a Cleveland newspaper on what happened), so it's best to find out for yourself. Pat actually tried to give the Cleveland police a call to find out from their records, but I have no idea if he ever managed to get through.

I told Corey I would never be able to be on a radio show because of some of the calls they receive from people. This one guy told Corey that the Sabres should go out and get Ilya Kovalchuk; lord knows why. Corey disconnected the call so that the guy wouldn't embarass himself any further, and let people know that - hey - we all ready have a guy making tons of money to score goals. We don't need another one. Even listening to the show in the car, I want to hurt some people who sound ridiculously stupid. Obviously not my job of choice, as you can tell.

I also met Dave Buchanan near the end of Corey's show, and he was really nice as well. Him and Corey had a quick discussion about the Bandits and how they have done this year, but I don't think they they clinched the top of their division...I know they lost to the New York Titans on Saturday, and Dave said that New York would win the tiebreaker I believe if they lost to them that night.

The show ended a little earlier than it was supposed to because Corey and I had to head out to Coca-Cola Field to watch the Bisons game. That part of my day will come up in my next post - The Ways of a Sports Journalist, Part II.