N&O Baseball Coverage; Biggest Life Decisions; Garden Strolls

N&O Baseball Coverage: The usefulness of coverage of major league baseball by the print edition of The News & Observer continues to be debated, at least by me and my BIL. As noted in previous posts, the newspaper does not include box scores at all. Games end later than press-rolling time, and, noted executive editor John Drescher in a recent column, why run two-day old box scores? The newspaper runs two-day old NBA playoff box scores and two-day old NHL playoff box scores, both of which are meaningless when compared to two-day old regular season baseball box scores, so save space and send the readership to the internet for NBA and NHL summaries as well.

Continuing with baseball coverage, N&O presses start so early few scores—Team A 2, Team B 1—are reported from the day before so the standings also are a day late. In today’s newspaper, only one final score was reported for the 15 games played. That was from a Wednesday afternoon game. The other games were played under the lights. Tomorrow, we might see scores from eight games (all with afternoon starting times) and no scores from four games, all with starting times after 7 p.m. eastern time. And, the standings will not be complete. MLB.com here we come.

Biggest Life Decision: Also in Thursday’s newspaper, Andrew Carter, the N&O beat reporter for UNC athletics, penned a lengthy recruiting piece for Tar Heels basketball coach Roy Williams for the most part with a little included for UNC football coach Larry Fedora. The column was about the continuing NCAA investigation there and how it relates to recruiting in general and specifically that of Kinston’s Brandon Ingram who is expected to announce Monday where he will play college basketball for one year before going to the NBA.

In the column, Carter says Ingram is “a high school senior, after all, on the cusp of making the biggest decision of his life.” Really, the BIGGEST decision of his life? Selecting where to attend college is a huge decision made by thousands of students every year. But, does Carter know Ingram well enough to make such a bold statement. It might be understood that this decision could be the biggest at this point in his life, but, on the other hand, there may have been decisions prior to this that are bigger. Maybe, before making such a statement, Carter had an in-depth discussion with Ingram about previous big decisions to determine where this one fits. One wonders if Ingram chooses a school other than UNC will that “biggest decision” will be the wrong decision as far as Carter is concerned.

Garden Strolls: One reader responded to yesterday’s post of photos from the WRAL-TV Azalea Gardens with an email subjected “Vomit.” His text was simply: “A stroll through the WRAL Gardens? Gag me!” With all due respect to his response, Wednesday was the first day home after a week of on-the-road business. So the day was a break from work and included lots of stuff with my wife such as doing yard work together, then going out to lunch together, taking care of a few errands together, a stroll through the WRAL Gardens together, a visit to the State Farmers Market together, a late afternoon wine tasting at The Wine Merchant in Cary together, and watching a feel-good movie (And So It Goes, Michael Douglass and Diane Keaton) on Netflix together. It was a very nice day indeed.

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Dictionary.com word of the day

bolide (noun) [boh-lahyd]: a large, brilliant meteor, especially one that explodes