Waldstein to MFY Beat

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

That sucks.

DavidWaldstein Well folks, I've written my last story as Mets beat writer. I cleared waivers & been traded to Yankee beat, pending physical & new contract 1 hour ago

DavidWaldstein Mets beat gets back top, top prospect Andrew Keh, a 5-tool writer/reporter with HUGE upside, back in the trade. Great deal for Mets readers 1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply

New guy has a sense of humor:

Andrew Keh @DavidWaldstein : Beltran :: @AndrewKeh : Duda 41 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

[MFS62]

I used to work with Waldstein's dad. He was a big Mets fan (he leapt to his feet in the office and cheered when Cleon caught the last out of the 1969 WS) and had the same wry sense of humor.

Later

[Gwreck]

This really blows. This is not the first time the NY Times has moved a good beat reporter from the Mets to the MFYs.

Same thing happened to Ben Shpigel a couple of years ago and Buster Olney years before that.

Looks like Shpigel got moved to the NY Jets beat.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Who's gonna cover the Red Bulls?

[bmfc1]

Sux that The Times treats the Mets are a stepping stone to what is seen as a better beat.

[Ceetar]

I was never overly enamored by Waldstein. One of these guys that never really impacted me and occasionally i saw something he wrote and was rarely wowed.

eh, let him go. New guy looks youngish. Fresh blood could be good.

[TransMonk]

I'd rather Waldstein to Beat MFY.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Times must be shaking things up. My education writer buddies are not too thrilled by this other Times transaction:

Schwarz jumps sports beat for education at NYT
Sports reporter Alan Schwarz at The New York Times has been named a national correspondent covering education for the newspaper. He joined the Times as a fulltime reporter in March 2007, but was a contributing writer for eight years previous. He can be followed on Twitter at his brand new account: @alanschwarz

[metirish]

I like DW, got some good off beat stuff in Spring Training , was funny and informative on Twitter without being a wanker.

[Gwreck]

I was never overly enamored by Waldstein. One of these guys that never really impacted me and occasionally i saw something he wrote and was rarely wowed. eh, let him go. New guy looks youngish. Fresh blood could be good.

You should have paid more attention (you might have noticed that he's not exactly a geezer himself).

In addition to being an outstanding writer he was very good at writing interesting stories that nobody else of the beat had. Just a few examples off the top of my head:

Beltran and how he listens to his bats

The now-deceased Bullpen toolchest

Capuano and Beato's pickoff moves

Bobby V's impact on Reyes

[Gwreck]

Times must be shaking things up. My education writer buddies are not too thrilled by this other Times transaction: Schwarz jumps sports beat for education at NYT

Not too thrilled that the Sports guy is on the education beat? Or for the competition?

Schwarz is also a distinguished writer but to keep this on topic, I remember him as writing the article that years ago first made me aware of one R.A. Dickey.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

About a sports guy taking over a schools beat. As you can imagine, there are differences between the departments, and sometimes there is an unfair perception that sports is kind of a country club beat. During the 97 baseball playoffs, our baseball writer wrote a whole column complaining about how cold it was in the press box in Cleveland. I remember telling the sports editor that if Danny wants, he could sit in one of my nice, warm school board meetings and I could go to Cleveland and happily write about the game without whining about it.

But other than that incident, I don't have a problem with it. A good newspaper should have reporters able to cover all kinds of things.

We've had situations here where a sports story turned into a news story, and the editors would have me pick it up because the sports guys were uncomfortable handling it and they know I like sports. But really, in theory they should be able to cover a fire and I should be fine covering a track meet. (And we both should be able to cover an arts event.) I suspect most of the sports guys could easily cross over to news, and news reporters to sports. Three of my reporting awards are for sports stories. A good story is a good story.

OK, here's one funny story. While at my other paper, a sports guy came back from a city basketball game all excited, saying the game ended in a massive brawl with the stands emptying and fights breaking out in fights all over the place and the police coming and arresting a bunch of people. The editor said, "Great, start writing it up." And the sports guys said, "What? I left. I cover the game." That guy couldn't cross over.

I'm sure Schwarz will do wonderfully.