Sportswriters as Imaginary Friends

We were one of the thousands of Washingtonians this weekend who tried (unsuccessfully in our case) to purchase tickets to Opening Day of the Washington Nationals on April 14th, and so it was with great interest that we read Harry Jaffe’s write-up of the face of the Post’s Nationals coverage.

Barry Svrluga, formerly tasked with covering college basketball, is forging a new path as the paper’s hometown baseball writer–a task that could take him away from his wife of last June, Post Metro Writer Susan Kinzie, for 170 nights this year. She sums it up as such: “It’s sort of like when you were a kid and had an imaginary friend. No one ever sees him, but you talk to him all the time.”

So far, Svrluga has good things to say about the Nationals: “Baseball players have a reputation for being real pricks. You can’t overstate the sense of a fresh start the National players have. It plays a part in how approachable and accommodating the players have been…. I haven’t found a jerk in the locker room yet.”

We’ll look forward to his report on Opening Day, since all the tickets all sold out and (so far) no one will be able to watch it on TV.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting this Thursday, February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), and Tim Devane (bitly). Register now.