'Lessons from the Baseball Trade Deadline' (Grantland)

[bigh0rt]

If you haven't discovered Grantland yet, you're really missing out. This makes two plugs in a single week, after Art Vandelay mentioned it himself in another thread. Awesome, intelligent, funny, leisurely reading on sports and pop culture from Bill Simmons and a lot of other talented writers that have me reading daily. No, I have no reason to plug this, it's just the most interesting web site I've found myself reading regularly in some time.

It's six o'clock in the morning, and Buster Olney's already tweeting. The Pirates are kicking tires on relief pitchers. The Tigers would like to add a starter. The Yankees might get Ubaldo Jimenez, Carlos Beltran, Albert Pujols, Roy Halladay, Ty Cobb, and three of the 17 percussionists from Arcade Fire. He does this all day, every day, until the wee hours of the night. If anyone's going to beat the laws of nature and find a way to give up sleeping entirely, Buster Olney's the guy. Him or Ken Rosenthal, whose own 18-hour days have prompted his followers to dub him Robothal.

Why do they do it? Why do baseball reporters harangue GMs, agents, and anyone else who might have scraps of information, their Blackberries surgically attached to their skulls, hands, feet, and in Robothal's case, his snazzy bow ties?
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SOURCE - 'Lessons from the Baseball Trade Deadline' by Jonah Keri