I thought he said in the next few weeks he's making the transition and the 11th season was his last. He started in '02 and this would have been that 11th.

My problem isn't so much with Strauss' reporting, rather the way he goes about presenting it. He was shameless when it came to promoting news, like the big "Adam Kennedy wants to be traded" story. And I thought for all his bluster about how great he was, the St. Louis media was often caught flat-footed when it came to big trades. ESPN scooped the hell out of them on the Holliday trade and IIRC, it wasn't the P-D that broke the Rasmus trade either. I thought his profiles were usually a good Sunday read, and I especially enjoyed him shining a spotlight on Albert's disdain for walks last year, but he would override all that with smugness and troll-baiting on Twitter.

It's a little disappointing not just because I think Strauss is a good beat reporter and a capable writer, but the last thing the world needs is another sports media type who renders his opinion.

Well, as Calvin once said, "Poop".  I suppose for Strauss it is a career move and he's earned it.  But we don't need another columnist, to go along with BM, Gordon, and Burwell . . . and I guess Hummel sometimes.

tkihshbt wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

It's a little disappointing not just because I think Strauss is a good beat reporter and a capable writer, but the last thing the world needs is another sports media type who renders his opinion.

Funny enough, he touched on this today on 590. Someone pointed out that after a Rams or Cardinals game they want analysis instead of reporting. Strauss said he and Goold try to go beyond typical reporting or something like that. My opinion is that people want Bernie's take more than anything. There's a lot of analysis in St. Louis and if I had to wager a guess, none of them attract even the tiniest fraction of what he gets. Strauss will get his share of eyeballs simply for his controversial takes, but I agree that the world doesn't need more bluster.

The line between columnist and reporter has become so blurred, especially in the sports section. I've had people who ought to know better refer to my material as "a column." I'm not a columnist. But generally people don't know the difference. Not that they necessarily should. But the media shouldn't make it as difficult as it does.

forsberg_us wrote:

If you read Strauss' Q & A, he states that Goold will take over primary beat responsibilities and Hummel will be contributing more.  That's not entirely a bad thing because I think Hummel does quality work.

But the other thing that I thought was interesting was someone asked if the P-D was adding a columnist or this was indicative of a bigger shake up and Strauss' response was along the lines of "stay tuned" or "more developing."  I think BM has a pretty decent following, so I'd be stunned if he went anywhere else, but Burwell is pretty much despised around these parts.  I wouldn't be shocked to learn that Burwell was moving along.

Honestly Hummel bores me to death.  Rarely do I find anything he does worth reading.  It is kind of just a watered down version of yesterdays news. 

It isnt very shocking that Strauss is claiming there is more to follow.  He likes to bait the hook.

"Bottom line: If Burwell goes, he's been hired elsewhere"

If so, it will at least be partly because he is black, that's the simple ugly truth.

Max wrote:

And he almost never misses the catch.  If he says, "stay tuned" the other shoe will drop.  .

Not really.  Kind of like when he tweeted of coaching moves and the big news was that the bullpen coach was fired.  Wow, shocking. 

Max wrote:

The way I see it is that Jeff Gordon is awful and Burwell is merely despised.  St. Louis fandom is dominated by Hoosiers, as in full up the yin yang of Hoosiers, and PD leadership is astute enough to be aware of "diversity" in the face of mind-numbing Hoosierness.  The fact that Burwell is despised is at least partly because he is black, that's the simple ugly truth.  But no fecking way is he as cluelessly awful as Gordon, and I can't imagine anyone on this board doesn't agree how truly awful Gordon is.  Strauss, for example, is so openly contemptuous of Gordon and "tipsheet" that I would have thought that if Gordon had any pull at all within PD, that he would have gotten Strauss fired.  Also, Burwell is good enough that he has options, I suspect.  Gordon's options are all downward, cash in his chips and try his luck in an even smaller market.

He could be just that bad.  I remeber when I was traveling close enough to pickup St. Louis radio regularly.  He was worst on the radio then on paper.  His selling point was that he had a big ego.

D'Marco Farr isnt the whitest guy in St. Louis.

APIAD wrote:

Max wrote:

And he almost never misses the catch.  If he says, "stay tuned" the other shoe will drop.  .

Not really.  Kind of like when he tweeted of coaching moves and the big news was that the bullpen coach was fired.  Wow, shocking.

Point was, there was a coaching change.  I don't follow Twitter.  But it's not like he sensationalized it in print. 

APIAD wrote:

Max wrote:

The way I see it is that Jeff Gordon is awful and Burwell is merely despised.  St. Louis fandom is dominated by Hoosiers, as in full up the yin yang of Hoosiers, and PD leadership is astute enough to be aware of "diversity" in the face of mind-numbing Hoosierness.  The fact that Burwell is despised is at least partly because he is black, that's the simple ugly truth.  But no fecking way is he as cluelessly awful as Gordon, and I can't imagine anyone on this board doesn't agree how truly awful Gordon is.  Strauss, for example, is so openly contemptuous of Gordon and "tipsheet" that I would have thought that if Gordon had any pull at all within PD, that he would have gotten Strauss fired.  Also, Burwell is good enough that he has options, I suspect.  Gordon's options are all downward, cash in his chips and try his luck in an even smaller market.

He could be just that bad.  I remeber when I was traveling close enough to pickup St. Louis radio regularly.  He was worst on the radio then on paper.  His selling point was that he had a big ego.

Who?  Burwell or Gordon?

"I don't think his columns really resonate with the public. He's a different type of columnist than Bernie."

I don't read Burwell much because he seldom writes about the Cardinals, and I don't care about the other teams the P-D covers, but when I do read what he writes, I often find he's either lacking, missing or stretching a point.
And Max, I don't think there's going to be a bidding war for Burwell's services. Newspapers aren't really hiring these days, and he's never projected well on TV, for the aforementioned reasons. He's pretty much on the back end of his career. I don't mean to offend anyone living in St. Louis, but a move from ESPN to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ain't an indication of an upward career path.

Burwell has written several articles over the years that I have posted here.  One good one was a gifted high school athelete gunned down by a gang member.  The tone of the article was, remember back in the days when the ghetto's gangsters protected the gifted ones?  It was a poignant piece on the persistent decline of values within the black community.  I also think I recall that he spoke up for Pujols, and against the DeWitt machine last year. 

I don't know squat about sports journalism, but I do know that Jeff Gordon is really pretty bad, at baseball at least, but I have argued that BM and he make for a good Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.  Though not as true in the past couple seasons, BM used to be such a whiny pain in the ass that he was wonderful when the Cards stunk and the organization was selling urinals.  During those times, Jeff Gordon read like a shameless shill for the Cardinals organization.  But on the flip side, when the Cards were good, BM's whiny pain-in-ass act was a bit shrill and Gordon sounded like a genius.  So, I guess a part of me would be surprised if they altered the dynamic created by those two.

Maybe Burwell will retire?  I dunno.  But my head tells me that it is hard these days to fire / lay off the most prominent black guy in your organization (PD Sports, in this case) without tossing a bone to political correctness somewhere else.  So, if it is Burwell who is out, I would expect them to make it look like it was his decision to move on, and PD will then make some move to demonstrate their continued commitment to the black community.  That's just my hunch on how the game works.