Joe Kinsey
Videos by OutKick
I want you guys to close your eyes and focus. Think of some of the biggest d-bags you’ve ever come across in your lifetime. I’m talking the biggest self-centered, self-important assholes out there, sucking down Big Gulps® of oxygen only to exhale a special brand of assholishness. Now imagine those same people holding press passes for sporting events.
It is a fact that some of these guys are some of the biggest pricks you’ll ever come across. The TV guys are the airhead pricks. The print guys are the real nerds of the Big J prick world. They’re the librarians of the press box, just waiting to tell you how smart they are. You don’t have to ask them how smart they are because they’ll tell you!
That brings me to Tuesday in San Diego where the Padres were hosting the Cubs in yet another random June baseball game between a couple of second-place teams having nice seasons. Chicago Tribune writer Paul Sullivan, who has put in 39 years for the newspaper, was in the press box doing what baseball writers do before games. He was busy prepping a game story and a report on David Ross not judging Cubs players who haven’t received a vaccine shot.
Batting practice was taking place. Petco Field was empty. And then Paul went full asshole Big J on social media where he really let the Padres have it for allowing a few fans (do I count three?) step down into the press box to see the beautiful field and take a few photos.
“The [Padres] allow fans to invade press box to take photos during work. So lame,” Sullivan tweeted and was soon backed up by his former Tribune Big J buddy Phil Rogers who piled on. “Horrible invasion of privacy but teams/MLB see media’s work space as real estate that can be sold/exploited,” Rogers tweeted like a complete douche.
As someone who has spent a few years analyzing these guys from the massive Indy 500 press box to Super Bowl Radio Row, to Triple-A baseball press boxes, to the bars where they drink after work, let me just say they’re as big of assholes as they come across. I’ll give Paul credit for being so open and honest here. This is the Big J world they live in, where a few Padres bros walking around a press box can ruin their day, yet they’ll pop open a laptop and work in a noisy hotel lobby bar and suck down five drafts like it’s nothing.
Let’s put things in perspective here: Paul’s lucky to even be working in that press box for the Chicago Tribune. That paper could slice Paul’s job tomorrow, and the world would go on without missing a beat.
Suck it up, you douches.
I hear you Phil but reporters in the clubhouse are working, or at least should be. Loitering happens when players make themselves unavailable. https://t.co/SzzTXQn8Et
— Phil Rogers (@philgrogers) June 9, 2021
Hey, some of those press box tours get pretty rowdy. And yeah, at this point I’m sorry I spoke up for @PWSullivan and the rest of my ink-stained brethren. I yield the floor. https://t.co/BE6P8neure
— Phil Rogers (@philgrogers) June 9, 2021
The Yankees spent $1.5 billion in tax dollars on a great stadium but forgot the press box windows. It's cold!!! Just saying.
— Phil Rogers (@philgrogers) October 18, 2009
This is an oversimplification, admittedly, but the world was a better place when they served beer in the press box. https://t.co/eKXLp3dyj6
— Phil Rogers (@philgrogers) December 10, 2020
Man, imagine getting work done when the Three Stooges is on the press box TV!
Live from Wrigley press box. Shemp and Larry. pic.twitter.com/v635FZ25N9
— Paul Sullivan (@PWSullivan) August 22, 2020
In high school my photojournalism teacher managed to snag press passes and courtside passes to a Mavericks game for 3 of his top students, I among them. I have never been treated so poorly as I was that evening by the “professionals” and it’s stuck with me ever since. I literally stopped watching one channel’s news and switched allegiance because their sports guy was such an asshole to me. It’s been almost 25 years and I haven’t watched their news since.
Big J?
Big Journalism…..I believe. not bloggers
As a young sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News working in press boxes in the 1980s, I can say this article is absolutely true. The worst people who never stop yammering and complaining about everything. The Big J memories came flooding back when my brother and I had standing room only tickets to Game 4 of the 2016 World Series. Late in the Indians’ blowout, we made the unforgivable sin of sitting in the largely abandoned press area constructed on the third base side of Wrigley Field. However, one aforementioned Big J came unglued about it. He had a real problem with two schlubs sitting in his little safe space. However, he was left pouting and muttering after I carved him up for working for a podunk Ohio rag in his 50s when I worked for a major rag in my early 20s. Among other words of wisdom, I told him to get a real job and stop writing about the exploits of others and start earning your own.