Effectively Wild Episode 1235: Becoming a Beat Writer and Marketing Mike Trout

June 26, 2018

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler discuss Lindsey’s transition from blogging to beat writing, how to talk to players and become comfortable in the clubhouse, the contrasts between the Yankees and Mets (and Aaron Boone and Mickey Callaway), writing about teams vs. writing about baseball’s big picture, the beat-writing fraternity, being a beat writer on Twitter, and more. Then (32:01) they bring on former MLB Director of Business Public Relations Jeff Heckelman to explain why MLB players struggle to become superstars, the sport’s structural disadvantages from a publicity perspective, whether MLB is doing a bad job of marketing the sport, what makes people become baseball fans, why baseball players are so straitlaced on the field and on social media, MLB’s crackdowns on video-sharing, the demise of the MLB Fan Cave, how the league could improve its marketing message, and more.