I am going to give a shameless plug to The Athletic and print an article in it’s entirety. That’s generally a NO-NO, but I am doing it so that you can see how good they are and how valuable they will become.
Pedro Moura wrote the following this week:
Pedro Moura: Why I’m here, and why I think you should be, too
I started today at The Athletic. I left the 137-year-old Los Angeles Times to join a 24-month-old startup. I will always believe in The Times’ importance to its city, but this was no difficult decision.
By now, you’ve read a version of this already, so I will be brief. You are probably a fairly fervent fan of some baseball team. You just don’t care to read inane quotes sprinkled into that team’s play-by-play or cliché-ridden drivel rushed to print. The Athletic does not offer that, and I will not provide that. I will supply insight, the best I can obtain, and context.
I’ve made that my goal for five years now, covering baseball at the two biggest newspapers in America’s second-largest city. But for me and so many colleagues, it increasingly felt like the structure of modern newspapers conspired to hinder us in the sports department. Happily, gone will be the days of being forced to fill space one night and cut from a compelling story the next. Only the quality of the reporting will influence word count. Restrictive deadlines three minutes after a game’s final pitch, I’m elated to say, will become a relic. As my new colleague Marc Carig wrote in announcing his arrival, we can actually watch the games now.
I think The Athletic’s model, already proven successful in many cities, will offer me the opportunity to do more informing and entertaining and less chronicling of March hamstring soreness. Also, I’m thrilled to be free to include the occasional expletive in a quote. I realize that sounds ridiculous, but I cannot over-stress how many of the best lines uttered in clubhouses include expletives. We seek perspective from ballplayers, above all. When they provide it in the form they know best, newspapers require us to pretend it never existed or sanitize it beyond recognition.
I have joined The Athletic to cover the Dodgers, the team I once helped cover for three seasons at the Orange County Register. I’ll also contribute to our coverage of the Angels, whom I covered on the beat for the last two seasons at The Times.
There, I wrote about Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Andrelton Simmons, whom you’re familiar with, and Yunel Escobar’s massive bat, which you probably aren’t. At the Register, I revealed how the Dodgers taught minor leaguers to forget batting average and how one Angel became consumed with acquiring autographs from his colleagues. I’ve written about my Uber driver at the winter meetings because it turned out he was once a big leaguer, and I’ve written about the scout who downgraded Trout on his draft board because of a rainy day.
In my goal of making everything interesting, I surely will fail. But I promise to engage with your critiques.
This is the start of our movement into Los Angeles. In the weeks to come, the plan is to add many talented sportswriters, from here, from wherever. I’ve called this city or its suburbs home for every day of my life. How that happened, I’m still not sure, but I’m here to stay, and I’d like for this to become a community. Of course, by subscribing in L.A., you will gain access to our continent’s worth of coverage. If you haven’t subscribed, I’m unsure how you went so long without reading Ken Rosenthal’s almost daily assortment of news and notes.
So, here’s to depth. Here’s to analysis. And here’s to an occasional, illuminating curse.
Please, join me for the 2018 season as it begins. To help with persuasion, here’s a special 25% off + free t-shirt launch week offer.
In the days of fast food, slam dunk and homerun highlights, The Athletic is steak and lobster!