The Wussification of Baseball (the "Woos" was making my eyes hurt, had to change it)

[NYgiantsfan5689]

The radio station that Brownie and I work at here in Syracuse has a weekly Saturday night sports show. The topic for this week is the following: The Wuss-ification of modern day sports. We are covering 4 sports: Football, with the excessive fines and roughing the passer calls; college basketball so we can get a local angle; hockey, with the movement to ban fighting; and baseball, with inning counts for pitchers (it's got a local angle with Joba getting a start count for his 3rd straight year).

I got assigned to do the baseball package. My interview goals are the following: to interview Peter Abraham about Joba, to interview a Seattle beat writer about Felix Hernandez to find out how much overworking actually ruined some of his potential, to interview Roy Halladay on the (lost?) art of pitching a complete game, and to interview a baseball strength and conditioning coach to get a health perspective.

Obviously, I can 100% guarantee you those will not all happen. The beat writers will be easy. Halladay will be the hardest, but if I can pull of an interview with Bobby Bowden and Lou Holtz, I know I have somewhat of a shot, especially since it might be an interesting topic for him to talk about, and it's spring training when frankly, the athletes don't give a flying **** about anything, and love to cater to fans.

I'd love for your guys' help on this. If maybe Porter can give me the name (and number?) of one or two bigtime Seattle Mariners beat writers, that would be awesome. Also, maybe some of the Blue Jays fans here have any info on how I could possibly get a hold of Halladay/the Blue Jays media relations.

I'm really excited about this package, and I think it could come out well. I'll see if I can post it here when I'm done. I would be forever in debt to anyone who helps me out as well. Thanks guys.

[henks]

Woos?

[henks]

Oh wait, I think you meant wuss.

[NYgiantsfan5689]

whatever, it's a weird spelling. not important. someone can edit it if they like

[Kingdom]

Woooo sah?

Excessive fines in the NFL... what you mean it's not manly to fine a guy for wearing the wrong socks!??! What?!?!

[DirtyKash]

Woos!

[DirtyKash]

And really, are teams really being pussies just because they baby their pitchers and obsess over their pitch counts/innings? So many of these guys blow out their arms early on in their careers that it's better to err on the side of caution.

[browntown653]

Yeah, you're not interviewing Roy Halladay.

[NYgiantsfan5689]

And really, are teams really being pussies just because they baby their pitchers and obsess over their pitch counts/innings? So many of these guys blow out their arms early on in their careers that it's better to err on the side of caution.

Then how come guys used to pitch for 10 years in a 4-man rotation going complete games 2 out of 3 starts?

[Saber]

They threw fewer pitches in more innings.

[NYgiantsfan5689]

They threw fewer pitches in more innings.

How can you justify that they threw fewer pitches?

[cjkalt]

If I got David Ortiz in HS, he can get Roy Halladay

[NYgiantsfan5689]

Wow. So there's a first time for everything. Porter gave me the name of a prominent Seattle beat writer (I believe his name is Larry LaRue), so I emailed him for an interview. Never have I been rejected via email. If a person didn't want to do an interview with me, they just simply didn't respond. But I got an email back from the guy saying simply, "Thanks, but no thanks."

O well. Porter, maybe if you could give me the name of someone else?

[browntown653]

Here, instead of Porter why don't you ask this person?

google.com

[Porter]

Google did a shitty job of trying to find beat writers.