Esteemed Baseball Writers Highlighted This Week's PBL Roundup Show

Esteemed Baseball Writers Highlight PBL Roundup Show 

By: Mathias Altman-Kurosaki

A few distinguished baseball writers were the stars of this week’s edition of the PBL Roundup Show. Hosts Thom Brennaman, Bill Bavasi, and Joe List talked about a wide variety of topics with each guest.

Bavasi and Brennaman spoke with Jeff Passan of ESPN about the ethics of breaking a big story, especially in light of Passan breaking the news about Fernando Tatis Jr. failing a drug test. Passan said it’s important to be right rather than first, and that he needs at least two sources to confirm before he goes forward breaking a story. He said that in Tatis Jr. 's case, he heard rumblings early in the day, but he had to go through many sources to make sure the story was accurate. Passan also spoke about his time at Syracuse University as a student, and said that he looks back fondly at his time there.

The father-son baseball writing duo of Bob and Bobby Nightengale joined the crew about the role of being a beat writer. Both of them said it’s important to show up every day and be upfront about the team you’re covering, especially since you’re around them almost every day. The elder Nightengale also spoke about what it was like covering the Royals in his younger years, and how he dealt with covering a struggling team. The younger Nightengale also chimed in about covering the Cincinnati Reds, who are currently going through some struggles. The two also discussed race relations in baseball, and why they think there’s been a decrease in African Americans in MLB.

Longtime San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s beat writer Joan Ryan joined and spoke about how she ended up as a baseball writer. Ryan said her first gig in Orlando was mainly as a news writer, but she always had a passion for baseball because of her dad. She also spoke about being a female sports writer in a largely male field, and how that affected her experience. Ryan discussed writing a book with former big-league catcher Benji Molina about team chemistry, and even detailed some of her experiences interviewing players such as Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds.

Bavasi was able to speak with best-selling author and national baseball writer Tim Brown about his career. Brown spoke about the process he goes through when writing books, and his fascination with a team’s backup catcher, which is the subject of a book he’s working on. Brown also spoke about how social media and the internet as a whole has changed the baseball writing field.

Hall-of-Famer Tracy Ringolsby was the last writer to join the crew. The Wyoming-native spoke about what the contraction of MiLB teams meant to fans in his area, since a lot of people had attachments to those teams. He also spoke about the differences he’s noticed between now and when he first started as a beat writer for the Colorado Rockies in 1992, saying that the biggest change has been the advent of social media. Ringolsby also spoke about how the game has changed throughout the years, and how he envisions the Rockies eventually finding postseason success.

The show concluded with the latest edition of “Who’s on Durst?”, with comedian Will Durst talking about why he looks forward to the month of September. He spoke about how for contending teams, it’s almost postseason time, but for teams that are out of the race, they can see the finish line.