Fall 2020 JOU 3304 9th Class Presentation September 21, 2020

1. JOU 3304
Sports Writing
Professor Michael Rizzo
Director, Journalism Program
Division of Mass Communication
Collins College of Professional Studies
September 21, 2020

2. JOU 3304
Sports Writing
Last Class - September 17
Feature stories

3. JOU 3304
Sports Writing
Today
Moe on features
Start Baseball

4. Recap
Features take audiences to places and show
them people and things that they couldn’t
reach on their own
Give readers a story with something new
and something they don’t know
Be descriptive
Provide characters and dialogue

5. The best feature stories tug at the
heartstrings.
Most feature stories:
• stand alone
• can run at any time but are often
“hooked” to current news events
• inform, educate or entertain
• profile a person but can explore
innovations, trends or issues.

6. The human interest angle fills
readers’ natural curiosity about
other people. We wonder: how
does/did so-and-so think, feel,
overcome obstacles, failed or
succeeded?
Features stir emotions in the reader
by conveying emotional information
about the subject.

7. The unusual makes features stand
out as worthy of the reader’s time.
Have you found a person or an
aspect of the person out of the
ordinary?
Is what they did or what happened
a rarity?
Was it unusual enough to engage
the reader?

8. Focus your feature on the person or
topic, drawing the audience in with
anecdotes, word pictures or an
unusual circumstance.
Features are NOT the place for
summary leads. You’ll tell the 5Ws
eventually but be creative in how
you start your story.

10. Readers want a solid ending for a
feature. The ending does not have
to wrap up the plot but should
connect back to lead.
Like good books, readers are
often disappointed if a feature
ends without a conclusion that
connects with the focus.
How do you write it?

11. Like game stories, your ending can
be another fact, a quote or even
something that looks ahead.
But consider adding something
unexpected. Is there a surprise
you can spring on the reader? Is
there an “outrageous” anecdote
to add? Is there something else
that’s “amazing” to finish with?

15. Read all three of these features which
are posted on BlackBoard.
Choose the one you would name the
winner of a contest on sports feature
stories and explain why in one
paragraph of no more than four
sentences.
Enter your decision and comments in
BlackBoard.

17. For Thursday Sept. 24, 2020:
Read Pages 123-136 of the
textbook which is the
chapter/section titled:
BASEBALL

18. STAY WELL
AND
STAY SAFE

20. Judges’ Comments:
This story is comprehensive, well
researched and told from multiple
perspectives. It tackles a big issue through
the lives of participants at every level,
whether they are famous or not. It brings
us the human side of the sport, not just
what’s seen on highlight reels, with great
interviews and reporting.

21. Baseball
Copyright : Robert D Hale

22. AVG
RBI
OBP
SLG
ERA
LOB

23. AVG - Batting Average: hits divided by at bats
RBI - runs batted in
OBP - On Base Percentage - times reached
base (H + BB + HBP) divided by at bats plus
walks plus hit by pitch plus sacrifice flies (AB
+ BB + HBP + SF).
SLG - Slugging Average - total bases divided
by at-bats
ERA - Earned Run Average - earned runs
divided by innings pitched multiplied by 9
LOB - (runners) left on base

26. Name the seven ways a batter
could reach first base

27. A walk
Hit by a pitch
Interference by the catcher
A dropped third strike
A hit
A fielder’s choice
A fielding error

28. Proper spelling of baseball terms

29. ballpark
center field
doubleheader
double play
home run
line drive
pinch-hit
pitchout
sacrifice fly
shut out
shutout
strikeout
strikes out

30. WHAT MAKES BASEBALL
ATTRACTIVE AS A SPORT TO
FOLLOW?

31. The duration of the baseball
season,
the time of year it‘s played,
the way the game seems easy to
play,
the easy recognition of players
and
the tradition.

32. Baseball writing can be very
technical but, and perhaps
more than other sports
coverage, it can be “poetic.”

33. Baseball fans hunger for talk of the
game and talk from participants
(players, managers, GMs, etc.).

34. The AP covers every MLB game in
every stadium.
They do it with generally
straightforward summaries that
typically do NOT presume the
game was seen on TV, have NO
feature angle, focus on the MAIN
POINT of the game, AND assumes
the reader knows baseball
terminology.

35. Like with any sport, set yourself
apart as a writer and storyteller
by looking for the unusual, even
when it’s not THAT unusual.

36. Rocker Closes the Deal
John Rocker looked at catcher Eddie Perez with fear in his eyes.
Houston's Ken Caminiti had just hit a pitch to deep center field in the
bottom of the ninth inning with a runner on second and the Braves
clinging to a 7-5 lead.
Rocker didn't realize Andruw Jones was camped under the ball a
few yards shy of the warning track. He didn't realize the Braves were
about to wrap up their eighth consecutive trip to the National
League Championship Series.
“I grabbed my hat, like 'Gah ball, please come down,’” Rocker said.
“I didn’t get a chance to celebrate. I was still gasping for air when
Andruw caught the ball.”
Jones’ catch provided the final out of another nerve racking
victory against the Astros, who battled valiantly again Saturday but
lost the best-of-five series three games to one.
Rocker Closes The Deal, Atlanta Constitution,
October 10, 1999

37. The focus is on Rocker's reaction, the
result is in the 4th paragraph but the
writer provides THE MOMENT, the
dramatic color that most people
didn’t see or know

38. Think about how you can report a Spot News
game story AND still provide analysis.

39. D-Backs Club Slumping Giants
There’s never a good time to go into an offensive
funk. Nor is there a good time for Barry Bonds to
be sitting on the bench injured. That both events
have converged bodes ill for the Giants, who left
Bank One Ballpark yesterday on the short end of a
12-3 thrashing.
D-Backs Club Slumping Giants by Henry Schulman, San Francisco Chronicle, April 19, 1999

40. Techniques to help you FIND news in
the sometimes slow and long season.
Remember the small parts:
At The Plate
On The Mound
In The Dugout
After The Game
The 1st, 3rd or any newsworthy inning

41. STAY WELL
AND
STAY SAFE