Will Carroll, on with Buffone and Haugh after the Sox game today, had sort of a throw away line at the end of the interview in which he said the beat reporters covering the Cubs should have been able to figure out that Prior's shoulder was hurt.

The comment was relayed to Ofman during his report and he went into a huff, saying that's easy for Carroll to say since he doesn't cover the team.

Of course, Haugh took the side of the beat reporters, saying basically you can only report what the team tells you. Yeah right. Fact is, Ofman, Levine and the newspaper beat reporters were whipped on the biggest story this spring training in Chicago by a guy who doesn't cover the team. Hahaha!

It's pretty clear that George and the rest of the beat reporters view there time in Arizona as nothing more than a 6 week vacation.

George then went and laughed at some Dusty Baker lies, failing to provide any followup questions, and then bit a pillow in the clubhouse while awaiting Jim Hendry.

So Offman and Haugh think that the job of a beat reporter is to only report what they tell you. Hell a monkey could do that. I want a beat reporter to tell me what they don't tell you. An internet source had the Prior story a month ago. Sullivan dismissed him and so did Offman. So a non Chicago guy beat these two Cub beat reporters. Pretty pathetic.

You have to understand that the second a Chicago beat reporter were to print or report anything, albeit true, that disparages the Cubs or their players, Good 'Ole Dusty would instruct his dumbo players to ignore said reporters.

Then the reporters would be left to "guess" instead of "beat report".

George, not being well-liked nor respected to begin with, could never risk this - he would get NO interviews/information (as opposed to the teensy bit of info that he does get at the present time).

I often wonder what Ofman/Levine do down there besides tell us things we already know....Yeah, they know their baseball, but those reports are nothing more than daily repititions of things we already have talked about many times.

Also, yes Geroge, maybe you can only report what the team is telling you, but isn't it you who is supposed to have those inside sources, and tell us things before they happan ? I realize that you can't get everything that happens on the air before it's actually out there, but this was a story (Prior's health) since Day 1, and you did nothing to futher ther story.

So, in summar, Levine/Ofman do know their baseball, but that doesn't mean they should get a free pass for not going 'inside' the team.

I've often wondered about sports journalism in this light for a long time. You have your team-organized interview sessions, and access to players during training, which, face it, is on team premises. And you don't see the spoon with which information is being disseminated?

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry