DBAP/ DURHAMYour intrepid Indy Bulls reporter has seen thousands of baseball games, has written about baseball plenty (my Bulls season preview can be found in today’s print edition) and is generally an unflappable sort. So although my metier is generally literature and the arts, it was with a fair amount of nonchalance that I walked into the DBAP for yesterday’s annual Media Day in order to see and hear what there might be to see and hear.
I had never attended such a function. I collected my press pass and Media Guide from the office, and asked where to go next. The fellow at the desk directed me down a long corridor and through two sets of double doors. “It’ll be obvious from there,” he said.
I did as instructed and emerged at a light at the end of the tunnel. That light turned out to be the sky as seen from… the Bulls’ dugout, in which I suddenly found myself. I ascended the two steps and there was David Price, the celebrated young Rays pitcher who shined in last year’s playoffs but who has been reassigned to Durham to start the season. He was politely but distantly answering questions from a couple of reporters, looking not so much impatient as transient, like a man waiting for a very important train.
I stood there, probably staring, and listened to the rest of the questions and answers (all of the rather innocuous, sports-interview variety). Then I managed to introduce myself to a couple of the Bulls’ media guys. I wanted to interview Adam Kennedy, a successful major leaguer trying to play his way back to the show (he’s been slowed by injuries). I tried to recognize the different players, whose uniforms and identifying numbers were covered by warmup jackets in the unseasonably cold April evening.
But before I could get a word with Kennedy — he was taking batting practice — I had to leave to go see Neko Case, where I was on much firmer footing.
But this Bulls season is gonna be fun, including my journalistic learning curve. See you at the DBAP.
