APRTW wrote:

I wasnt bash Strauss.

You weren't the one doing it.

"I don't follow twitter and gossipy blogs, and Strauss might be a raging asshole."

Asshole is probably too harsh. Probably more of an equal combination or traditionalist and  cynic. And I don't think he's particularly fond of Twitter and blogging, so that's why - as AP suggests - he probably considers those media an evolved requirement of his employment that's beneath him.
I have no doubt that back in the day his morning started with reading at least a half-dozen paper copies of newspapers over a very long cup of coffee.

"I had no idea that any of these guys might have a reputation outside of St. Louis.  I kind of had the opinion that Bernie was the P-D sports section's biggest star, and he is pretty good.  Self-promotion is part of the game of being a big columnist, so I don't begrudge him that."

I think you've got the part about Bernie right. Hummel is Ed Norton to his Ralph Cramden.
Burwell's bounced around the country for about 20 years, and his mug has been on TV a lot.
The other guys I know only from following the Cardinals.

Max wrote:

FWIW I just checked P-D and Hummel is not listed among their columnists, and is listed along with Strauss and Goold as the Cardinals "Cardinal Beat" writers.

http://more.stltoday.com/columnists#sports

artie_fufkin wrote:

Max wrote:

FWIW I just checked P-D and Hummel is not listed among their columnists, and is listed along with Strauss and Goold as the Cardinals "Cardinal Beat" writers.

http://more.stltoday.com/columnists#sports

Fair enough, I was looking at this (see the quick links, on the right):

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/

And this (see the description of Cardinal Beat, on the right):

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/cardinal-beat/

Max wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

in the $60K-$70K range.

I consider that decent money.  You can raise a family, more or less, on that.

Not in a major city. Not if you want to send a kid to college or actually take a vacation that involves getting on an airplane. And that's the high end.
Besides the lousy pay, it's a wonderful profession. You're regarded somewhere in between a drug dealer and the fungus the grows between people's toes, considering every TV show and movie from Rugrats to Harry Potter portrays everyone in your profession as a self-absorbed scumbag intent on trampling everyone else to further your career.
Every time you make a typographical error, you get six phone calls or emails from people who are only too happy to call you a moron. And another call or two every day from cranky spoiled brats who think you have an "agenda" because what you write doesn't exactly match their particular point of view. Even your friends whisper when they're around you because they think their conversations about where they're planning to eat dinner might end up in the paper.
If I had it to do over again, I would have trained to become an archery target.

tkihshbt wrote:

$60-70K per year in St. Louis is good, especially if you're a two-income family. You'd probably have enough money to hire some Bosnians to come clean your house.

Ok, then, a major East Coast city. One where $200,000 gets you a 4-room house in an inner city neighborhood where the rats have gang wars with the cockroaches for food, and you have to send your kid to a private school because every time it rains, the roof of the public school in the district serves as a backdrop for an educational re-enactment of the Johnstown Flood.
Got about $400,000? OK, that gets you out of the city ... waaay out of the city. An hour commute isn't so bad, I guess, but remember there are four zillion other people in your real estate price range who make the commute from West Bumfuck every day and you can add another 30-45 minutes onto that ... each way.
So to live in a half-decent community with a good school system that's close enough that you can actually see your family after they wake up in the morning and before they go to bed, you're looking at about a half-million. Try swinging that mortgage payment on a $60K-$70K a year salary ... not that it's anywhere close to what I make.

It's OK. You just convinced me that St. Louis isn't all that bad.

tkihshbt wrote:

$60-70K per year in St. Louis is good, especially if you're a two-income family. You'd probably have enough money to hire some Bosnians to come clean your house.

Indeed,  TK has nailed it here.

New York, Boston, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, forget it.  $60,000 is chump change.  But in St Louis it'll get the job done.  I haven't lived there in 10 years, but i am guessing you can be a one income family, live in a little house somewhere out in the suburbs, or a refurbished brownstone in the city.  It wouldn't be a plush life, but it's probably better than a police officer or school teacher gets for the first 10 or 20 years on the job, anyway [God forbid we ever again live in a country where a person could be a police officer or school teacher and have the effrontery to expect one income to be able to support children!].  Two incomes and you drive new-ish cars, take vacations on airplanes, etc.

My main point, regardless of how much Strauss earns (which I contend is likely to be "decent", meaning sufficient to raise a family), there are probably dozens of people who are as competent, or nearly as competent as Strauss (at least in their own eyes), and who earn a lot less: writing for Yahoo, VEB, or just blogging, and it has probably occurred to some of them that if they run Strauss down behind his back that a position just might open up at P-D.

In a similar vein, the same is likewise true for La Russa, Mozeliak, Luhnow, etc.  Human nature + conducive environment = lots of sniping.

Last edited by Max (10/28/2010 8:27 am)

Max wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

$60-70K per year in St. Louis is good, especially if you're a two-income family. You'd probably have enough money to hire some Bosnians to come clean your house.

Indeed,  TK has nailed it here.

New York, Boston, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, forget it.  $60,000 is chump change.  But in St Louis it'll get the job done.  I haven't lived there in 10 years, but i am guessing you can be a one income family, live in a little house somewhere out in the suburbs, or a refurbished brownstone in the city.  It wouldn't be a plush life, but it's probably better than a police officer or school teacher gets for the first 10 or 20 years on the job, anyway [God forbid we ever again live in a country where a person could be a police officer or school teacher and have the effrontery to expect one income to be able to support children!].  Two incomes and you drive new-ish cars, take vacations on airplanes, etc.

My main point, regardless of how much Strauss earns (which I contend is likely to be "decent", meaning sufficient to raise a family), there are probably dozens of people who are as competent, or nearly as competent as Strauss (at least in their own eyes), and who earn a lot less: writing for Yahoo, VEB, or just blogging, and it has probably occurred to some of them that if they run Strauss down behind his back that a position just might open up at P-D.

In a similar vein, the same is likewise true for La Russa, Mozeliak, Luhnow, etc.  Human nature + conducive environment = lots of sniping.

I'm not sure what St. Louis TK lives in, but it isn't the one I live in.  I make a fair amount more than $60,000, but my wife doesn't work.  We have the house in the suburbs, but I'm still driving the same car I bought when I started practicing law in 1999 and drove to Myrtle Beach for vacation last year because I can't afford the plane tickets.  My checkbook presently has less than $30 in it.  When I get paid tomorrow, after the bills are paid and groceries bought our checkbook won't have much more than $30.  There isn't anyway in hell $60,000 supports a family with kids in St. Louis.

"My main point, regardless of how much Strauss earns (which I contend is likely to be "decent", meaning sufficient to raise a family), there are probably dozens of people who are as competent, or nearly as competent as Strauss (at least in their own eyes), and who earn a lot less: writing for Yahoo, VEB, or just blogging, and it has probably occurred to some of them that if they run Strauss down behind his back that a position just might open up at P-D."

I think we're getting into that "Any-job-looks-easy-until-you-do-it" territory. A lot of what has been written here is true, but keep in mind that a baseball beat reporter doesn't just show up five minutes before a game and leave when it's over like a fan does.
I realize Strauss isn't breaking rocks in the sun all day, but he has a responsibility to represent how many ever people read the newspaper every day and find out information, be as accurate as possible and ask questions on their behalf. It's not just sitting there watching "free" baseball and sipping margaritas and smoking cigars with Bill Veeck anymore.
I've mentioned the friction between beat reporters and columnists before. You work sometimes for years to cultivate good sources who give you reliable information and some columnist who sits in an ivory tower all day blows you out of the water because he's bored one day and decides to write a rip job.
About 15 years ago, during my first stint at this lovely publication, I finally got a very cautious mayor of the city in which I work to respect me enough to occasionally slide me information, or at least give me a head's up when something big was going to happen. It was a good deal for him, a good deal for me, and a great deal for our readers. Then he hired a new fire chief and one of our columnists ripped him, and for the rest of the mayor's term I got the "If the phone doesn't ring, it's me" treatment from him.

artie_fufkin wrote:

I think we're getting into that "Any-job-looks-easy-until-you-do-it" territory.

That was not my intent.  Rather, it is perhaps the case that any of the people who write for the various websites and blogs, (VEB), might look enviously at the salary a guy like Strauss earns, and might think, "I could do that."  Likewise, it would occur to some of them, at least, to try to advance a rung up on the ladder of success, relatively speaking, by knocking Strauss down one or two.  It happens the same everywhere. If P-D fired Strauss tomorrow and put an ad on Craiglist for his job, I'll bet you'd find people with reasonable qualifications willing to to do it for half of what Strauss earns.  That's the nature of the economy and also of any field where a lot of people think, 'that would be a cool job.'

As for St. Louis, my info is out of date, but with regard to Fors, many of us buy our way into better schools and safer homes and streets and economize elsewhere (cars, vacations, etc.), and there is virtually no limit to how much income you can dispose of in the pursuit of living in a "better neighborhood".  But years ago, time period 91-95, I knew students who were buying homes in places like Dogtown and Hanley (North-ish of U. City, correct?) on their grad student stipends, which I know were in the ballpark of $14,000 per year.  True, from 1995 to 2000 I know there was a property market boom, and prices doubled in those five years, but I assume that things have fallen back again some.

And FWIW, I live 6 miles from the ocean and if you want to live in a manufactured home, they are available for under $100k.  There are no jobs, of course.  But the cost of housing is a bit below coastal Massachusetts.

forsberg_us wrote:

I'm not sure what St. Louis TK lives in, but it isn't the one I live in.  I make a fair amount more than $60,000, but my wife doesn't work.  We have the house in the suburbs, but I'm still driving the same car I bought when I started practicing law in 1999 and drove to Myrtle Beach for vacation last year because I can't afford the plane tickets.  My checkbook presently has less than $30 in it.  When I get paid tomorrow, after the bills are paid and groceries bought our checkbook won't have much more than $30.  There isn't anyway in hell $60,000 supports a family with kids in St. Louis.

I dunno, I know some people living in south county who are in that salary range and they are doing decent. Not jetsetting across the world or anything, but not living paycheck to paycheck either.