Box Scores? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Box Scores!

My first newspaper job was as a sports agate clerk. 

(Agate, for those of you at home, refers in printing as a roughly 5½-point font size. Roughly 1/16th of an inch. Your normal writing program defaults at 11 or 12 point, so it would be something printed at half the size of what you see when writing a formal paper or letter.) 

It was my job at the daily Anaheim Bulletin to compile all the day’s box scores, standings, and other sports statistics into the space designated for that day (usually a half of a page). I did my best every day to make sure we had every game in there, and always found room for at least some of the daily transactions. One of my favorite things to do was to make sure the most obscure things would get in there whenever I could. World Team Tennis, sure. Indoor soccer, definitely. Hockey, always (remember, this is 1990, we’re talking about). 

The agate page was always one of the pages I looked at daily as a youngster when I’d grab the newspaper at home. I read the paper daily. Sure, it was the sports section and comics, but I was at least looking at the paper. As a young sports fan, the agate section was where you went to check on your favorite teams and players, and how they were doing on a daily basis. And if the paper had room to run daily updates on how the roster was stacking up statistically, even better. 

So, yeah, count me among the disappointed to see the Los Angeles Times drop its agate completely. Ditto, the New York Times cutting its sports department and ceding control of it to The Athletic. (Side bonus, I realized that I have access to The Athletic through my NYT subscription.) 

Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no. 

Think about it. Where are you reading my opinion column about this? A blog post online, either from your laptop, desktop, or handheld computer (or smart phone, whatever). With that device, you can look up any box score of any game on any myriad of sites on the internet. And they’ll probably have highlights and advanced statistics and a full write-up for you, too. All in the palm of your hand. And all of it without getting ink stains on your fingers. 

Of course, that’s the point. Holding and reading the paper is a tactile experience that can’t be replicated by looking at a box online. For example, I really wanted to read the book Ready Player One (and Two), but I really didn’t feel like I had the time to do it. Instead, I got them both as audio books, so that I could listen to them while I worked out. Only problem was that I never was able to get into the flow of the book that way. So I went ahead and bought the two books, and had them read in the span of two weeks. 

What this boils down to is that the population of people who are actually reading a physical paper is dwindling. Generation X is probably the last that grew up with the newspaper, and knowing the importance it carried in our day-to-day life. But as the years have gone on, the importance of the newspaper has declined at a steady pace, to the point we reached this weekend, with the elimination of sports agate, and a sports staff. 

And it’s not going to get better – ever. 

Just wait – the daily print edition of most newspapers is going to be next. And probably sooner than any of us are willing to admit.