Marc Topkin chats with pitcher Alex Cobb before the game
BY TAYLOR WILLIAMS
NNB Student Reporter
“I was lucky enough not to be good enough to have my name in the paper that much, so I did it,” he said, smiling at the memory of his start in journalism.
The little leaguer is 52 now, the senior writer at the Tampa Bay Rays for the Tampa Bay Times. He has been at the paper since 1983 and its lead baseball reporter since 1987, long before St. Petersburg landed a team and 11 years before the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ inaugural game in 1998.
He has been to the All-Star Game and World Series many times. He blogs, he tweets, he talks baseball on the Rays’ radio network before every game, and he appears regularly on television. And, of course, he writes thousands of words – many of them on tight deadline – for the paper.
In the press box at Tropicana Field, his competitors seem to regard him highly; one calls him “a legend.” (For the record, they are not being sarcastic – noteworthy in a profession known for snarky jealousies.)
Topkin was born in New York and moved to South Florida when he was 12. He graduated from Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa, with a degree in journalism and mass communications.
“I worked for my high school newspaper and liked it. I worked for my college paper and liked it. I got a job and liked it,” Topkin said. “It’s good that I found something I liked and stuck with it.”
His favorite part of the job? “Being at the games and finding a way to tell people about stuff that they might not know from watching the game,” he said. “That and breaking news, which is harder and harder to do” in an era of social media.
One story that Topkin broke earlier this season was pitcher Matt Moore’s decision to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.
“I was the last writer in the clubhouse (after an April game) and I asked him about it.” Topkin said. At first reluctant, Moore disclosed his decision.
“I had to go back to the press box with a poker face,” Topkin said. “I didn’t want to tweet about it too early so the other writers could get it, and I didn’t want to tweet it too late because I didn’t want it to break and have been sitting on it.”
Topkin ended up tweeting it out at the perfect time. “We had it in the paper and the other paper (the Tampa Tribune) didn’t,” Topkin said. “Which is rare. It’s rare to have a scoop in the paper.”
On a typical day at Tropicana Field, Topkin takes his seat in the front row of the press box and readies himself for long hours at the ballpark, a day in which time is of the essence.
“You have to accept the fact that you’ll be here all day,” Topkin said. “If you have plans after a day game, they’ll probably change.”
For the June 17 game against the Orioles, Topkin arrived at 2:45 p.m. Once there, he spent 45 minutes or so reviewing game notes and writing a short preview of the June 18 game.
“All of the minutiae you hear on TV, radio, from us, that makes us sound smart, comes from them (the Rays),” he said.
At 3:25 p.m., Topkin headed down to the field to talk with Rays manager Joe Maddon and some of the players. At this game, Topkin and the other members of the media were greeted with a change in schedule. The Rays put in some extra work and the media had to catch players when they were done.
Waiting around is one of Topkin’s least favorite parts of the job. “The tremendous amount of waiting around and the travel time… it’s dead time,” he said.
The Rays stretched and did their extra work at 3:25 and took batting practice at 4:25. Topkin’s first interview was with Rays pitcher Alex Cobb, at 4:05 p.m. It lasted 10 minutes. His next interview, at 4:30, was with pitcher Brent Honeywell, the Rays’ third overall pick in this year’s draft.
Honeywell spoke of his hopes for the future and simply said, “Hopefully one day I’m a pitcher in the big leagues.”
At 4:35, Maddon chatted with the media. The talk ranged from the Rays’ extra work that day and their on-field performance to third baseman Evan Longoria’s new hairdo, a blond Mohawk.
At 4:50, it was Topkin who was interviewed. In a chat with Rays’ radio play-by-play announcer Dave Wills, he was asked about relief pitcher Grant Balfour’s recent struggles and the Rays’ on-field improvements. The interview ended with jokes about Longoria’s hair.
At 5:05, Topkin and other reporters chatted with Longoria on the field. They asked him about the Rays’ extra workout and the reason for his new ‘do. “I did it because of the World Cup and to show my support for Team USA,” said Longoria.
At 5:30, Topkin returned to the press box to transcribe the interviews, which he had recorded. He then had a bite to eat, and at 7:05 he was back in the press box for the first pitch at 7:10. He put the finishing touches on a “Notebook” piece for tomorrow’s paper, which previews the upcoming game with half a dozen short items like injury updates and notable statistics. Then he began to work on the game story for that night.
“To meet deadline for a night game, I write a filler story and then anticipate the quotes,” Topkin said. “Now we’ll write it as a Rays lose story and send that in after the O’s are done batting (in the top of the ninth), then we’ll work on a top that has a dramatic Rays win.”
Evan Longoria, sporting a blond Mohawk hairdo, chats with Marc Topkin before the game
The deadline for the first edition, which goes to subscribers in Pasco and Hernando counties, is 10:40 p.m. Deadline for the second edition, which goes to readers in Pinellas and Hillsborough, is 11:40 p.m.
“If it (the story) doesn’t make the 11:40 deadline for the midnight edition, that’s when people get mad,” Topkin said. “Sometimes I cheat a little. I’m usually clean on editing, so I can push it (the first deadline) to 10:45, 10:46, maybe 10:47,” Topkin said. “The 11:40 can be pushed a little.”
This night’s game ended at 10:41 p.m., and Topkin headed to the locker room to interview Maddon and key players for the second edition story – Matt Joyce and David DeJesus, outfielders who didn’t make key catches, and Erik Bedard, the starting pitcher. He had a rough outing.
“The locker room is supposed to be open within 10 minutes of the game ending; sometimes it’s longer,” Topkin said. “Every minute is working against me.”
“That’s the danger of these deadlines,” he said. “In the old days, we had a better deadline, so we could wait around for whoever we want, but now we can’t.”
Topkin’s plan is to interview Joyce, DeJesus, Bedard, and Maddon. But with the clock ticking, he might have to settle for Maddon’s thoughts on the three players. “We’ll ask Maddon the questions because we might not have enough time to catch the players,” Topkin said.
Once inside the locker room, Topkin and other journalists went to Maddon’s office, where the manager addressed their questions. On Bedard’s start, Maddon said, “It wasn’t a loss (overall); we just didn’t have the starting pitching.”
On Joyce’s missed catch in right field, Maddon said, “He will say he should have caught that.”
Asked about DeJesus’ play on a home run that clanged off the left field foul pole and sent DeJesus crashing into the fence, Maddon was not critical. “Not an easy play. Jesus … DeJesus … Even Jesus couldn’t have caught that,” he said with a laugh.
At 10:59, Topkin interviewed Bedard, who simply said, “(I) tried to throw strikes and it just didn’t work.”
At 11:03 he interviewed Joyce and, seeing DeJesus emerge from the shower rooms, walked over to talk to him at 11:04.
“I only needed Joyce’s answer to the first part of the question,” Topkin said. “Then I saw DeJesus and he was in his underwear. He was either going to shower or to his locker and we couldn’t let him get to the shower.”
DeJesus was direct. “I was asking the guy (a server) at the wall there, ‘Where did it hit?’ And he said the wall. I looked up and saw that Sean (Rodriguez) got it (the ball) and made sure I was okay.”
After hustling back up to the press box, Topkin worked to meet his second deadline. He put on his headphones and transcribed the interviews in order to finish his story and work on notes for the next game. He left the ballpark around 12:30 a.m.
Tomorrow he will race against time again.
The Heater
Marc Topkin’s blog on the Rays is at http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/rays/