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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Report scores and results to 425-339-3470 or 1-866-6-SCORES (Call after 4:30 p.m.) E-mail information including items for Tuesday's Communities Sports Roundup and Thursday's Outdoor Calendar, to sports@heraldnet.com Kevin Brown, Sports Editor kbrown@heraldnet.com   Published: Friday, June 6, 2008 TV makes the draft long, boring Lots of delays and time wasting induces John McLaren-like frustration among us media types, but we hold off on the tirades. By John Sleeper Herald Columnist SEATTLE -- We sportswriters loved to cover the Mariners' first-year players draft for the same reason we love covering college softball games. Quick and easy. Softball games mean we're in and out in 45 minutes, max. Same with the draft. We go into the war room at Safeco Field, watch the picks tick off every 90 seconds, then see who the Mariners select. The M's media relations people herd us into a conference room, where vice president of scouting Bob Fontaine and a scout talk about the kid. Then the PR people get the draftee on a conference call for five minutes and we're outtathere. Not Thursday. It took Custer less time to forfeit to Sitting Bull at Little Big Horn than it took us to machete through the jungle that was the draft. First, ESPN decided to make the draft into an Event, much like it does with the NFL draft. First, it did away with each team's glorious practice of announcing its selection as soon as it can get the league office on the phone. Now, ESPN demands a five-minute window between picks, which slows the draft to a tortured crawl on chards of glass. The draft began at 11:15 a.m. The estimate was that the M's would make their first selection at about 12:50 p.m., or roughly the time we ordinarily would have left Safeco, written our stories, had lunch and finished Tolstoy's War and Peace. Fair enough. So we had to hang around a while. Everybody has to put in a few hours sometime. Even sportswriters. An added element of the day happened the previous night. The day was largely overshadowed by M's manager John McLaren's obscenity-laced, postgame tirade Wednesday night, which rivaled Lee Elia's thunderous hissy fit against Cubs fans in 1983 and anything that comes out of Ozzie Guillen's mouth on a weekly basis. Add to that M's president Chuck Armstrong's pre-game closed-door meltdown at McLaren and the coaching staff, heard by media members hanging around in the locker room. That's the way it's gone for the Mariners in this lost season. And the unwitting victims of all this have been the team's haggard, overworked PR people. It's already been a long year for them. Working PR for a losing team is about as pleasant as a spinal tap. Players are as cooperative as a rabid porcupine. And it gets worse as the losses mount. So this was the background as the Mariners made their top pick, University of Georgia closer Joshua Fields. For the haggard, overworked PR department, the mission was to contact young Mr. Fields for a teleconference. They began at about 1:30 p.m. The assumption was we'd get him in about five minutes, as per a haggard, overworked PR rep's announcement that he talked to a UGA media guru. By 1:40 p.m., we're thinking Fields' agent, the evil Scott Boras, must have something to do with his client's absence. A haggard, overworked M's PR rep says he has an idea that the UGA media guru is taking care of the Georgia media first, then us. At 1:45 p.m., two haggard, overworked PR reps run into the conference room and turn on a television, explaining that Fields is on ESPN. We'll be next, they say. At 1:47 p.m., one writer attempts to pass the time by playing McLaren's outburst on his digital tape recorder. At 1:49 p.m., other assembled writers attempt to make a G-rated version of McLaren's rant. At 1:50 p.m., a haggard, overworked PR rep delights the writers by announcing that pizza is on its way and should be there in 10 minutes. At 2 p.m., a haggard, overworked PR rep says that, instead of working through the UGA media guru, they have to work through Fields' "representative," which could mean anything from Boras to Billy Graham to Fields' parents. At 2:10 p.m., one of the writers asks, "D'ya think we could talk to their second-round pick?" Still no pizza. At 2:15 p.m., one of the writers wonders, "I wonder if they can get Fields signed now and get him into Boston for the road trip." At 2:18 p.m., someone notes that Fields has played first base in his career, leading to the obvious Richie Sexson link. No pizza yet. At 2:30 p.m., the food arrives, leading the writers to stage the equivalent of a benches-clearing brawl in attacking the pizza boxes. At 2:45 p.m., a haggard, overworked PR rep says that, obviously, Fields is hard to get hold of, so they'll try to reschedule for 2 p.m. Friday. Writers pull a verbal McLaren. At 2:55 p.m., a haggard, overworked PR rep says they can get Fields on the phone in an hour. At 2:56 p.m., the Herald columnist leaves. Sports columnist John Sleeper: sleeper@heraldnet.com. For Sleeper[`]s blog, "Dangling Participles," go to www.heraldnet.com/danglingparticiples.

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