No sane sports executive, or even a star player, should ever choose to ply their trade in New York City, writes williamfleitch
And it’s not just about demanding fans. Photo: Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images Until the Mets reportedly settled on former Angels general manager Billy Eppler as their new general manager Monday night, we had reached the point of their Mets’ desperate search for a GM that if you had not personally received an invitation to interview, they must have had your old number.
“I think it’s mostly about New York, and not about, you know, Steve or the organization or what have you,” Alderson said to reporters. “It’s a big stage, and some people would just prefer to be elsewhere.” Look, I love New York City and its sports teams. I lived in New York for nearly 14 years; I’m obsessed with the Knicks ; and I have been to so many Fordham basketball games that Mike Breen once told me he remembered seeing me at one of them. I consider the Jeremy Lin fortnight one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had in sports; for God’s sake, I’ve been to a freaking Wagner game in Staten Island.
To visit a press box in, say, Cincinnati, is to wave to two or three other reporters and then be blissfully left alone for three hours. New York remains, by far, the most competitive media market in the country, perhaps the world. What that competition means for you, the superstar athlete, is that you will never be left alone. You will be an endlessly renewable resource for scoops, and the media will get some scoops, at your expense.