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Brad Ausmus Carefully Navigates Media, Remembering When Twitter 'Wasn't A Factor'

By Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid

Brad Ausmus, manager of the Detroit Tigers, is cordial but careful, obliging but often oblique.

At least that's the impression he gives the media.

It's a persona he has crafted over 20-plus years in the MLB as both a player and a manager. The time he's spent under the microscope has taught him how to accommodate reporters without necessarily indulging them, how to answer their questions without giving away his hand. Ausmus always antes up, but he'll rarely raise the stakes.

The one time he went all-in, of course, he didn't exactly take home the pot.

In discussing the relationship between reporters and their subjects, Ausmus presents a unique perspective. Where he once fielded questions in front of a locker, he now does so behind a desk, having made the transition from playing to managing.

Back in 2007, when he was a member of the Astros, Ausmus wrote a piece for ESPN Magazine about the growing number of reporters in Major League locker rooms and the general intrusiveness of the media. It's a story worth reading – Ausmus must have aced creative writing at Dartmouth – but in short he condones reporters for doing their job while bemoaning their constant presence.

The title says it best: "You guys just can't get enough."

But if Ausmus felt swarmed by the media as a player, it hardly compares to the onslaught he takes as a manager.

"There's a big difference now, doing this. The big difference is I have to talk to you – twice a day, every day, from the beginning of spring season to the last game of the season," Ausmus laughed.

"Drip, drip, drip," he wrote in his ESPN piece. "Drip, drip, drip."

"And you get off-days from me. I don't get off-days from you. The president doesn't talk to the media as much as I talk to the media," he quipped.

The alarming thing is, Ausmus is right. He receives an inordinate amount of press attention given what he does, which, when twisted in a certain manner, amounts to chaperoning recess. And he has to answer for everything, everything, that happens on the playground.

Did so-and-so scrape his knee?

Was there a spat between this guy and that guy?

Will recess be rained out tomorrow?

"I am not a meteorologist," Ausmus clarified on Friday.

But his job description necessitates that he answers such queries, mindless as they may be. Moreover, it stipulates that he faces the music day after day, week after week, no matter how tired of the noise he may become. Reporters know this, and Ausmus feels that it emboldens their work.

"It's why people don't rip players as much as they rip managers, because if you rip a player you can't go back to that player for a quote. But you can rip a manager and he's gotta talk to you," Ausmus explained.

This wasn't something he said out of frustration. It doesn't seem to be a rule he resents. And because of his level-headed nature, it's not like Ausmus is often sparring with reporters and creating enemies. Still, it's a point that illustrates how closely managers are bound to the media, their personal feelings be damned.

The advantage of Ausmus' situation is that he can control which of his words are recorded. Players don't have this same sense of security. With reporters mingling in the clubhouse before and after games, anything a player says – to a teammate or otherwise – is liable to be overheard and filed away. (Not that this is professional or anything, but it happens.)

In his ESPN Magazine piece, Ausmus recounts an episode in which a New York Times reporter, listening in on a phone conversation between Brad Lidge and Russ Springer, claimed to have heard Lidge congratulate Springer on plunking Barry Bonds. Ausmus claims it was a "complete fabrication;" the Times stood by their story.

In the end, Ausmus explained, it was likely a result of the reporter hearing something and jumping to a conclusion, making a connection that didn't exist.

"That's shocking," Ausmus smiled, his voice drenched in sarcasm. "I can't imagine a writer doing something like that."

Regardless of the truth, the incident highlights the liability of granting reporters constant locker-room access. This is hardly a complaint, mind you, nor a suggestion that baseball does otherwise. But it creates an interesting dilemma, whereby the players' safe haven is pockmarked with peril.

Ausmus doesn't face the same threat in his manager's office. But perhaps he longs for the old days. As he said on Friday, ruefully so, "Twitter wasn't really a factor back then."

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