James Venes

Updates to this thing are usually rare because up to this point I’ve mainly just used it to share my latest game photos. I may change that at some point.

With pitchers and catchers reporting over the weekend, the first sign of the new baseball season is upon us. Many teams are looking for a fresh start and I’m no different, working on plans to move from the Bay Area closer to Sacramento by some time in May if things go as expected. There are a number of reasons for this but one of the benefits will include being closer to minor league locations in Sacramento and Stockton. It will also make it easier for me to get to Reno, where the Triple-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks kicks off their first season after moving from Tucson. Construction on their new ballpark blocks away from the downtown casinos should be finished in time for their opener.

One of the things I enjoyed the most about 2007 was working a pair of All-Star Games in Albuquerque and Stockton.  As it happens, it looks like the pattern of the Triple-A and High-A games alternate to have both in roughly the same region based on whether it’s an odd or even year. In other words, this year the Triple-A game returns to the West (Portland)  between the Pacific Coast League and International League, and the High-A game will also be here (Lake Elsinore) between the California League and Carolina League.  If all goes well I’ll be covering those, but I’m also hoping to get to the Texas League game (Frisco).  The ballpark there is absolutely beautiful from what I’ve seen and it’d be fun to work it.  Time will tell.

Aside from that, I have an interview with former Golden State Warriors and Sacramanto Kings head coach Eric Musselman to share that I did recently for Warriorsworld.  Dating back to my time in college I’ve had a bit of experience asking people questions for both their newspaper and radio, though over the years my main interest has shifted more toward photography because I’m a more visual person.

In spite of that, the opportunity to interview “Muss” was one I’m glad I didn’t pass up.  He was a blast and great to spend some time with.  It easily passed what I was prepared for (about 22:30 when I figured maybe 15 minutes tops) but that was because he really went in depth with a lot of his answers, giving some great insights.  I couldn’t have asked for a better result, especially for my first time doing one of that magnitude. You can read (or listen to) it here.

With something like this, it makes me think of what I get out of conducting an interview. I see postgame interviews and it’s all usually the same answers filled with cliches, but it’s also all just going off the same thing: questions about the game. How much variety is there in that, really? Athletes and coaches can easily fall into giving the same response night after night. It makes me think of Rasheed Wallace’s famous line: “Both teams played hard.” When you do postgame interviews, it’s not as easy to go into much detail past what happened in the game itself and it’s not surprising if people look at it as more a requirement than an enjoyment.

That’s not the case when you can get a specific interview lined up with someone.  I may not do a lot of them but this gave me the time to do a little research first and come up with a list of questions that were more specific to Musselman’s experiences as a coach.  We went into detail about some of the things he picked up from his coaches in college along with other questions that dipped into his knowledge and experience dating back to his time coaching in basketball’s “minor leagues.”

There were a few of the obligatory questions to find out his thoughts on the current NBA season but I think one of the things that interested me the most was listening to him talk about a new experience for him: doing color commentary with former Warriors play-by-play man Greg Papa at some college basketball games.

Here you have a guy whose entire professional career has centered around coaching basketball players, much of that including dealing with the media.  Now he’s getting the chance to be on the other side in some way and it sounds like he’s eating up the whole experience.  Even there, Muss was able to give some interesting insights to a little of the preparation that goes into calling a game, including sitting down with some coaches to find out some things to look for.

Having done some color commentary for basketball and football when I was in college, this is another one of those things (along with my own “work” in the minors when it comes to photography) where I can say that on some level, I know where he’s coming from and I identify with it. When you can do that, it can only help the flow of an interview.

Getting back to the main point, if I ever reach the stage of doing interviews on a more consistent basis I think I’d get a lot more enjoyment out of being able to talk to specific people with enough prep time to do more than just ask the same old questions. That’s not to say I think I’m the first person to ever ask Muss about much of what we discussed, but it’s not the same as “What happened there at the end of the game, Coach?” I’ve done beat reporting covering sports in college but it’s not the same as something like this.

Again, I think the result speaks for itself. Of course, I have Muss to thank for that.

There are a few things I’ve shot lately, including my first visit to Alcatraz last week along with finally starting to go back and import some older stuff to the current site, such as New Orleans back in March, but the main focus this time is the Media Day event the Golden State Warriors held last Friday.

To be clear, I’m still just an amateur when it comes to certain things. When I do work for Scout.com I have media credentials but it’s an unpaid thing at this point. At A’s games, I’m just a regular ticket-buying fan and they’re pretty lenient on letting people in with an SLR as long as people don’t try to sell the images and they don’t block others. It’s a little different with the Warriors. I can’t bring a professional camera into the arena, so I’m restricted to using my old “prosumer” camera, one that’s SLR-like in shape.

Point is, to gain access to certain things it helps to have connections. I’ve been on Warriorsworld for a number of years now and they, along with Golden State of Mind, are two of the largest fansites for the team. GSOM has a pretty good relationship with the team and usually has one or two games a year where a large group of fans attend. Warriorsworld is more of a free-flowing site with much less moderation, which basically means anything goes. That definitely gets interesting.

The Warriors have done a pretty good job of understanding the role blogs and fansites play overall. The people who use those sites are among the most diehard fans you’ll find if for no other reason than the fact they’ve sought out a site to communicate with other fans. As part of this, the Warriors have extended invitations to both Warriorsworld and GSOM to cover their annual Media Day. Last year I went for the first time (and ended up transcribing about 20 pages worth of interviews in one evening, ouch) and I was asked to go again this year. There are certain limits on what we can do, which basically amounts to “Working media has first priority when asking questions, but feel free to ask your own at any empty tables.”

This isn’t too hard to comply with, especially when the first group that came out on Friday consisted of veteran Stephen Jackson, second-year player Marco Belinelli and three rookies/training camp invitees. Immediately, all the media gathered around Jackson’s table and I got the other four players one after the other. Not long after that, Belinelli had a few people at his table while I set my recorder down at Jackson’s and still got over 12 minutes worth of questions and answers as I snapped a few photos. Pretty simple stuff.

I may not yet be at the level of someone paid to do this but it’s still fun to have the chance to go to something like this. Whatever anyone thinks of the way the Warriors are run – and the opinions range from one extreme to the other among the fans – it’s great that they give people who wouldn’t normally have any access the chance to observe and take part in a few things.

For a recap of Media Day along with a link to the photos, go here.

For about 70 minutes of audio from the various interviews, go here.

Usually, as training camp goes on, material the reporters obtain on Media Day is cycled through little by little. In my case, I can get it all out there at once and provide a different type of coverage that isn’t limited to so many words per article or column.