Baseball coverage, how are we doing?

.... or,,,,,,,,,,, Langston the SW4A going 0-5 would be a nice story about the game of baseball in general. Its why so many people believe baseball to be the greatest game on earth. Because it dont matter how big, tall, or strong you are, or how loaded you think you are,,,,,,,,,,,, baseball on any given day can bring you to your knees. Teams beat individuals, one pitcher having the greatest day of his life, that crazy ball that bounces, a game of inches,,,,, pick your title, theyre all there in the game of baseball.

Overall, great job Langston, you got the Observer going in the right direction for HS baseball. Afterall for a football/basketball guy like yourself, you are (IMO) doing quite well in covering baseball. Heck theys a lot of so-called "baseball gurus" who still aint figured out that you don't make the 1st out at 3B. Keep up the good work.

 

Where's the playoff coverage?

....."people pay more attention as playoffs get going....and that's when the coverage naturally ramps up."

Great for covering Hough. They are on a nice run and should be covered. Hough is 20 miles from the Observer offices. Weddington High is 24 miles from that same office, yet no notice of any kind as to the run they are having.

This team no one who reads the paper would know about, whipped Hough in pre-season action and beat AK and Providence in regular season action. Weddington beat Catholic with a steal of home in the 2nd round of the playoffs 2-1. Not a peep from the Observer.

The leading Pitcher for Weddington (Bostic) is 10-0 on the season with less than a 1.0 ERA, over 117k's and leading Union County ( not just his conference) with HR's by double the next closest player. At one point in the season he was 6-7.....in HOME RUNS! In that span he also had a double and got walked. That alone would be a story line. He's already committed to Clemson.

Weddington has out scored it's opponents in the State Tournament by a combined 40 runs! Yet no one that only reads the Observer would know this.

Peydon Huneycutt pitched his 2nd game of the year to get the win against N Buncombe. (only allowed 1 ER). The game to clinch a spot in the State Finals and a kid who only saw the mound once this year pitches a complete game for the win! Peydon is committed to Navy.

There are a number of good story lines from this team. Many of these players have been playing together since they were 7-8 years old.

The Observer is delivered here in Union County. Possibly your other readers would like to know what happens close to their home. If there is a break in the action of the Hough game next Fri/ Sat, call for a report on the Weddington game. I don't expect to get a first hand report from the Observer. Call Higgy at Providence and Bagwell at AK....ask them about Weddington Baseball and you can still work them in the story.

 

Not even worth the effort. I live in Weddington literally 500 feet from the Meck county line and there is more coverage about the Weddington team in the Asheville paper than in the Observer. It has been that way forever, isn't going to change and I don't give a crap if they ever do it. Seriously, even the Chicago Tribune covers the areas out of Chicago and they are 50 mile from the city.

How are they doing? really? they can't even figure out what their distribution area is or why I tell them to pound sand when they call every friggin week trying to get me to subscribe. Joke.

 

Perhaps the Observer wiill one day investigate and report the players that have been and will be recruited and have played ineligibly at the taj mahal on hwy 51....lets see who is in line for the 2014 season...just watch.

 

Wow! Awesome rundown of the Weddington season... you are right, I had no idea! I know Weddington is a very solid program backed by a very solid baseball community, but I was unaware that that they were doing anything above their normal level of achievement. The results Bostic has achieved are special and deserve some recognition for sure.

Interesting, Hough also beat AK handily (9-2, I think) and had Providence beat until some unimaginable last inning errors undid the victory (I know, that is part of the game)

Beating up the Observer allows us to vent some steam and relax a bit, but they don't have it in them (the Observer sports staff) to really to change or raise their game. I sent Scott Fowler an email regarding the amazing freshman season of Preston Morrison (also from Union County) at TCU....crickets on their end. Great back story and he is leading the freakin' nation in WHIP at 0.76 and 8th in ERA at 1.55.

The bottom line: Newspapers are run by people...and people have their biases, that is just the way it is. Up here in the N. Meck area the local paper has a runaway zeal for swimming and the weekly papers have story after story about swimmers and swim teams. There just isn't a bias or care for baseball at the Observer and until that changes we are stuck with what we have. The day the Observer ran their annual gusher about Providence, the team had an unfortunate end to their season that night, but it was never reported or described in the paper, a natural follow-up if they had any journalistic standards.

 

We are fortunate to have the Enquirer Journal in Union county and Jerry Snow and his staff, who actually do an outstanding job of covering baseball. They did a great write up on Preston and have been really great through out the season of covering all the schools in UC. But you know what, they also manage to do a really good job covering all the other sports as well. The Union County Weekly and Aaron Garcia also do a pretty good job spreading the wealth.

You see, it is not that hard, it is what sells newspapers. Don't sell newspapers, you can't sell advertising, don't sell advertising and ---- Just one more reason in a long line of them why the big newspapers are going bankrupt. "we have had big staff cuts" No kidding.

 

It seems to me that the big-city newspapers often struggle with local high school sports & the small town guys often excel in this area. It's been that way for awhile now. Overall, newspapers are struggling.

 

My opinion is that this is a huge reason they are struggling. If one of the players at a school robbed and pillaged, they would somehow be able to find a little story about them. But if you have a group of kids who do what is right, you never hear of their accomplishments. Like the TV news.....if it bleeds, it leads.

 

Agree and disagree. Agree they are struggling. Disagree on the sports part. They don't seem to have that problem at all with football and basketball. In fact, here is a snapshot of the Quick Links that exist on the HS sports page online today:
PREVIEWS

• All sports previews
• Girls' hoops
• Boys' hoops

​

Granted, the links go to articles from November for basketball and oh, there is a baseball article from February. Oh wait, that makes sense--let's leave content from 6 months ago on a page that has 5 separate advertisers paying for impressions or clicks. Forget supporting the community, their paying advertisers are getting screwed too.

Agree they are struggling.

 

My mother in law was looking for a report on the game to see how her grandson did in the print version. Nothing in the Charlotte Observer about a team 24miles from their office, but......she did find a nice report on a girls softball team. A really nice team....THAT HAPPENS TO BE FROM CARY, NC. A team 2-1/2 hours gets ink and nothing for a team going to the State Championship just down the road from their office.

If I was the coach from Weddington and the Observer Staff came to me for info on his team now, I'd tell them to get lost. The Coach should tell them to pick up a copy of the Enquier Journal if he/ she wants to learn about them