Joel Goldberg’s back. The twitpic is good, the tweet’s even better. Bruce Chen’s just chilling out for a photo shoot and Joel’s hashtagging like you wouldn’t believe. #BelieveIt
Everybody’s tweeting out lineup cards now and you know what? I’m fine with it. There’s something romantic and beautifully dated in this digital age about the lineup card. It strikes me as worth preserving for whatever reason. And better yet, it offers information during Spring Training when a writer decides to share it. With 314-player rosters, knowing which 9 will start that day is interesting.
But this is unacceptable. Can’t make out some of the names, it’s not framed well and Todd Rosiak couldn’t be bothered to take another stab. The lineup card twitpic has become a genre unto itself, and this was the worst I could find of it.
Memo to Dan Kolko of MASN: You might have more professional goals to cross off that list but you already crossed one major threshold. You’re a Major League beat writer. So get up out of the dugout, walk up to the batting cage where freaking Georgetown is taking rips, and snap a decent picture. And if some eager-beaver Sports Information Director or someone tries to tell you to get back in the dugout, remind him you’re in the Big Leagues. Lanyard-whip that SID if you must.
Can’t thank Jim Salisbury enough for capturing the Bad Spring Training Twitpic essence here. “Very cool” indeed, Jim.
Plainly evident Roch Kubatko took the batting cage for granted. Quick zoom and bam, snapped his twitpic. Problem is, you have to respect the batting cage. You have to. Kubatko didn’t and now the bar’s cutting Nick Markakis’s neck off, it’s blurry, and the netting’s really not helping either.
Kevin McAlpin of Atlanta sports radio station 680 The Fan contributed this shot. I’m not even really sure what to say about it. He says it’s Chipper and Uggla, and he suggests it’s Jair Jurrjens on the hill but we don’t even have a positive ID on the team that’s pictured here. Impressive stuff.
Sorry for consecutive Red Sox posts but I really liked this one as another example of why I just don’t have much sympathy for the “beat guys are busting their ass and doing a second job” crowd. Take another pic, and post the one with Bobby V’s eyes open. It’s just not that tough.
Pete Abe is well-known for rolling with the punches, so I’m sure he’ll take this in stride and do better next time!
Can’t make out one player, can barely tell they have red on and there are no identifiable characteristics of Jet Blue Park in the shot. We’re taking Joey Mac’s word here.
You have to understand, too, that I’ve heard complaints about how this site is insulting to writers going “above and beyond” and doing “2nd jobs” when taking these photos. In this case, if Joey Mac walks down closer to field level on the first base side, we get the replica Monster in the background and likely some specific players we can see in the foreground.
BUT NO JOKES ABOUT BEAT WRITERS AND TWITPICS DURING THEIR 6-WEEK ASSIGNMENT IN PERFECT WEATHER COVERING MEANINGLESS BASEBALL! IT’S SERIOUS BUSINESS.
If you look at all of the pictures posted to date, the ones where you can’t make out anyone tend to be snapped too far away and/or are inadequately zoomed.
The neat part about this Alden Gonzalez work is that you can’t make out any of the folks in the picture, and yet he couldn’t have been more than 20 feet away from anyone. Proximity is there, but the photo’s just not. It’s good stuff.
