Spring Training #GrapefruitGators
My week covering spring training games in the Grapefruit League was the best experience. I always grew up wanting to be a sideline reporter, but after an internship with the Cape Cod Baseball League I developed a lot of knowledge for the baseball operations side. This spring training experience helped me solidify that it is a department I want to get into.
During this experience, I did really well taking advantage of what interest me. I learned I liked to sit back and focus on what notes I can write about the specific players mechanics while I watched them play. I talked to some of the pro scouts to get more insight on what they do during spring training games.
Instead of asking for media credentials, I decided to sit and watch how the pitchers pitch, what hitters have a good approach, etc. It was cool to watch everyone in the different organizations and it gave me a different look of scouting talent I don’t watch everyday at Florida.
The class assignments that helped me the most to prepare for this experience was doing as much research as I could on the teams I was going to watch. Learning the players and what colleges they went to, how many levels they’ve been through helped me get to know them better. It was also helpful to know the staff’s emails to the PR department incase there was extra information I would want to know.
For my media piece, I got the opportunity to interview former Gator Jud Fabian with the Orioles. I wanted to do a piece updating his time within the Orioles but he took every chance he could to talk about his little brother Deric. So, I decided to do a piece on the both of them and talk about their relationship off the field. I was proud of being able to take a different angle than I originally thought of.
For future students, the advice I would give is to have as much stories ready that doesn’t involve credentials. There are a lot more than you think you can do and a lot of workers at the stadiums have interesting stories to them. I don’t think anything needs to be done differently, you get out of it what you put into it.
