No More Spring Training

Another change of plans, folks.


I was officially told by the Mets today that I will no longer be issued press passes for the locker room at spring training. I originally got them when I was a beat reporter in Savannah, Georgia, for the Morris newspaper chain in southern South Carolina.



That job dried up a year ago, so all I am anymore is just, in the eyes of the Mets, a blogger.


I never did have a clear understanding of this policy, but I started to realize it last year when the head of media relations for the Savannah Sand Gnats denied me locker room privileges there.



Obviously that is the policy of the Mets and someone passed the info that I was no longer a newspaper reporter on to the director of media in Queens.



The policy, as explained to me, seems simple… you write for a newspaper, you get press passes for the locker room. It all seems a little confusing to me, since I’ve been in the locker room with many people that don’t write for a newspaper.



Adam Rubin no longer writes for a newspaper. Have his press credentials been yanked?



I would have liked to have had the opportunity to tell Jay Horowitz myself that I had lost my newspaper job, but I simply was afraid to do so. That doesn’t matter anymore since someone else felt it necessary to burst my bubble.



Don’t get me wrong. I actually understand the policy. Can you imagine 500 bloggers running around the locker room?



The good news is the fact that you won’t have to put up with my panhandling for travel funds.



The sad news is this was the last great thing that I did in life. I lived for this. I would drive there from South Carolina, and always first pay my respects to the Brooklyn Dodgers by spending a few more minutes outside the Dodgertown complex in Vero Beach.



I’d then drive the short hop to Lucy and go to the field even before checking into the hotel. I followed the rules, paid my respects to the beat guys, and stayed low-key, knowing my place in the order of who was important around there.



I found it so hard to leave every day. I’d walk the whole complex, even when just about everyone had gone home, and just soak in being there. It was so special to me.



I always wrote my daily columns there from a corner booth at Duffy’s and had the opportunity to get to know a lot of great people that mingle there.



I think I’ll end here. I don’t feel much like writing about the Mets right now.