Why one sports scribe got out

Dodger Thoughts blogger Jon Weisman got up this morning and realized that the Milton Bradley incident nicely summarizes why he quit being a sportswriter at the Daily News and went to grad school in creative writing.

I was still working toward the long-term goal of becoming a columnist and the more immediate carrot of the soon-to-be-available UCLA beat, for which I was next in line. So I was willing to do the grunt work. For that matter, the belief that once I got a story, even a tough story, that I would tell the story better than anyone else, buoyed me.

Then Fred Roggin got himself in trouble...

[skip]

At times, I had regrets about what happened way back then, and felt I should have toughed it out. I have tremendous respect for those who take on the challenges of reporting, whether it's Milton Bradley or Hurricane Katrina, with diligence and grace. But when I saw the latest Bradley story Monday morning, I was quite happy to be where I was.

He was already on my internal, ever-changing list of top L.A. bloggers. Dodger Thoughts, by the way, is hitting over 300 for the season -- that is, he averages more than 300 reader comments about each day's Dodgers game.