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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 
 

Tuesday’s baseball playoff pages

By Charles Apple  |  8:02 p.m. Oct. 16, 2012

Here’s a look at today’s baseball playoff pages…

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SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS 7, ST. LOUIS CARDINALS 1
Series tied, 1-1
Next game: Wednesday, 4 p.m. EDT at St. Louis, FOX

The Giants buried the Cardinals on the back of second baseman Marco Scutaro. Scutaro — who was injured when the Cards’ Matt Holliday slide into him in the 1st inning — hit a two-run single in the 4th inning which eventually led to a 5-1 lead by the end of that inning.

Two innings later, Scutaro was pulled from the game and sent for X-rays of the injury and the Giants cruised on to a series-tying win.

—
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
San Francisco, Calif.
Circulation: 229,176

The Chronicle put the game into the space atop today’s nameplate. The photo — by staffer Carlos Avila Gonzalez — is of Scutaro hitting his bases-loaded single in the 4th.

—
EXAMINER
San Francisco, Calif.
Distribution: 200,000

The same play was featured on the front of today’s Examiner.

The picture is by Thearon W. Henderson of Getty Images.

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SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
San Jose, Calif.
Circulation: About 225,175

The Merc today built its front around a picure of centerfielder Angel Pagan, who scored on a Cardinal error in the 4th.

The picture is by staffer Susan Tripp Pollard.

 

On the left is the Oakland Tribune (circulation 52,459); on the right is the Contra Costa Times of Walnut Creek (circulation 67,464).

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PRESS DEMOCRAT
Santa Rosa, Calif.
Circulation: 56,003

Remember that collision in the first inning that caused the injury to Scutaro? This great photo by staffer Kent Porter of the Santa Rosa paper shows that moment.

Wow. What a picture.

—
DAILY JOURNAL
San Mateo, Calif.
Circulation: 14,800

The San Mateo paper also led with Scutaro’s hit.

The picture is from Reuters.

—
DAILY POST
Palo Alto, Calif.
Circulation: N/A

And the Daily Post went with a post-game celebration shot from the Associated Press.

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ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
St. Louis, Mo.
Circulation: 187,992

In St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch led today with a picture of a disappointed Yadier Molina after he popped out in the 3rd.

The photo is by staffer Chris Lee.

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NEWS-DEMOCRAT
Belleville, Ill.
Circulation: 46,883

The Belleville paper led with an AP shot of outfielder Jon Jay losing his glove while attempting to field a double by Ryan Vogelsong in the 6th inning.

_____________________________________
AND A FEW BONUS PAPERS  YOU SHOULD SEE…

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DETROIT FREE PRESS
Detroit, Mich.
Circulation: 232,696

It was an off day in Detroit, so the Free Press took the opportunity to a) write about how everyone is suddenly a Tigers fan, and b) to punch up a nice file shot of Justin Verlander.

That page was designed by Jason Karas.

Sports designer Ryan Ford — who sent us these pages and who designed this next one himself — writes:

Another day, another chance to hype Verlander…

Verlander, of course, will be tested in tonight’s game. You’ll find two more pics of him on today’s sports front.

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NYC TABLOIDS
New York, N.Y.

And the Big Apple tabloids were awfully quiet today. The big talking from this past weekend is gone. Other stories occupied page one. The sports fronts in both the Daily News and the Post seemed awfully negative.

 

The Daily News (left, circulation 579,636) picked on whiny right fielder Nick Swisher — who has, in fact, been benched for tonight’s game — while the Post (right, circulation 555,327) bemoaned the odds of trying to top Verlander.

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WASHINGTON POST
Washington, D.C.
Circulation: 507,615

And while the post-season is long gone for the Washington Nationals, my admiration of the gorgeous baseball playoff coverage by the Washington Post will never fade.

Deputy design director for news Greg Manifold sent us another huge care package of pages from late last week.

Let’s start with Friday. Here, again, was the Post‘s front page the day after right fielder Jayson Werth smacked a home run in the bottom of the 9th to break a 1-1 tie with the Cardinals.

That picture — by Robb Carr of Getty Images — was used by a number of papers that day.

On page A17, this wonderful shot by Post staffer Jonathan Newton showed Werth rounding the bases for his walk-off homer.

You know the drill: If you have a great picture, run it big and get the hell out of its way.

The Friday sports front led another picture of that same play — also by Jonathan Newton — of the reaction by Werth and his teammates just after the ball sailed clear of the wall.

An interesting little graphic at the bottom right of the page shows how Werth coaxed 13 pitches out of the Cardinals’ Lance Lynn before taking the ball for a ride.

Yet another picture by Jonathan Newton graced page D9.

That is pitcher Ross Detwiler.

The picture on the game agate page (left) of Werth is by Jonathan Newton.

 

The picture of Werth getting a hug from Bryce Harper (right) is by staffer John McDonnell.

And here’s yet another depth-of-field shot, showing the Nats’ Adam LaRoche‘s solo home run.

That picture is by John McDonnell.

Saturday, I wrote in the blog:

Sadly, the game was too late for the Washington Post. It had to settle for a nice shot — by staffer John McDonnell — of a five-year-old Nationals fan and an acknowledgement that the result didn’t get into today’s paper.

However, Greg tells me that wasn’t the case. Yes, the page one left is the one we got here in Virginia Beach. Yes, the page on the left was the one filed at the Newseum. But Greg tells us:

One small clarification on your post about the result not making Saturday’s paper. It did in fact make it to a good chunk of our subscribers.

In fact, the paper on the right was the one most Post readers saw, Greg says.

 

Here’s a closer look at the front page, featuring a picture of catcher Kurt Suzuki and starting pitcher Gio Gonzalez by Jonathan Newton.

The sports front was built around this great shot of a dejected Bryce Harper hanging around the dugout.

That picture is by Jonanthan Newton.

Page D5 featured fans filing into the stadium, reflected in a decoration. The picture was by Jonathan.

The picture at lower right is from the same set of photos that ended up on page one of the earlier edition Saturday.

Here are pages D6 and D7.

 

The agate page features a picture of Gio Gonzalez. On the right is a picture of reliever Craig Stammen, who was yanked in the 6th. Both pictures were by Jonathan Newton.

And Sunday , the Post led its sports front with a reflective portrait of reliever Drew Storen, who came within a strike of winning the game and the series for the Nationals.

That’s yet another wonderful shot by John McDonnell.

On the doubletruck, Storen faces the post-game press conference.

Great detail No. 1: The back of Storen’s T-shirt.

That large photo is by John McDonnell.

Great detail No. 2: The expression on the faces of these fans, after the game.

That picture is by Jonathan Newton.

The Sunday agate page featured a picture — by John McDonnell — of shortstop Ian Desmond chasing down a two-run single that tied the game at 7 in the top of the 9th.

Let me point out that graphic at the very bottom of the page, however. This data comes from a web site called FanGraphs that uses historical data to track the possibility of a team winning throughout the game.

So when that play — shown at the top of the page — happened with two outs in the top of the 9th, the Nat’s chance of winning this game — and the series — suddenly dropped from somewhere around 85 percent to less than fifty-fifty.

The chart is very cool. But admittedly, it’d be difficult to understand without all the text above it.

That’s the funny thing about baseball. You can chart so many different aspects of the game. But understanding the charts — or helping the reader understand them — can be a problem sometimes.

—

The pages from Washington, Detroit and New York are from those papers. The rest of  these images are from the Newseum. Of course.

Previous coverage of the 2012 baseball playoffs, here in the blog…

This entry was posted 8:02 p.m. Oct. 16, 2012 and is filed under A look at the day's fronts, Gannett studio/Louisville, News page design, NYC tabloids, Photojournalism, San Jose Mercury News, Sports design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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