So, apparently I am an idiot. Today's lesson is that I must learn to have patience.
I just missed an opportunity to join the media horde interviewing Antonio Pierce, because I got tired of standing around waiting, and i was overly anxious to get the morning practice report done. Damn! Oh well, not like you won't be able to read about AP in a million other places, and I'm sure at some point his remarks will be available to me.
Requested an interview with Ramses Barden today, too, and apparently have been blown off by my first player. Seems Ramses must have wanted lunch more than he wanted to answer my unbelievable questions.
At least today I was not the first media member out on the practice field. First to the press room before practice, yes. But to the field, no. I need to get on 'Ralph Vacchiano time.' Ralph, apparently, does not believe in 'Coughlin time.' He strolled up to the field for the 8:35 a.m. practice some time shortly after 9:00, asking other reporters if he had missed anything.
Maybe Ralph is the smart one, though, since he arrived prior to the 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 stuff. Mental note: Be like Ralph -- sleep in and show up only for the good stuff. By the way, I still haven't technically met Vacchiano.
Peter King was here Tuesday. Want to know my first thought when I saw King? No, it wasn't 'take a hike.' It was, 'whoa, that's a funny-lookin' dude.' King has a big head (sorry, Peter) and a barrel chest, which is what you see on TV. what you don't see is that he has skinny little legs. I was wondering how those legs propelled that body, to be honest.
King, by the way, gets what he wants from players and team officials. I learned that when watching Eli Manning, who wanted to go to lunch, stop to talk to King first. More impressively, King made Eli wait 2-3 minutes without even acknowledging him until he had finished the interview he was conducting with Mario Manningham. Nice to have power.
Happened to walk the rope line to the practice field this afternoon about the same time Jeff Feagles was doing so. It will warm cj's heart to know that fans -- including one particularly boisterous one -- greeted Feagles with calls of 'Hall of Famer.'
I met Patricia Traina of Inside Football today. Patricia, you might recall, did an off-season chat with us a few months back. Perhaps we can get her to come on again.
In making the rounds, I chatted up New York Times Giants' beat writer Joe LaPointe. Joe didn't know who the heck I was, but I told him I had written for the Times NFL blog The Fifth Down a couple times and that seemed to impress him. Yippee, points for me.
Tom Rock of Newsday is another reporter whom I met today. Nice guy. We chatted about his days covering the New York Jets. Let's just say Tom does not sound like a big Eric Mangini fan.
Also met David Sanchirico of Bleacher Report. He makes me feel old since he is a college kid just figuring this stuff out. It is great, though, that the Giants are giving access to sites likes this one and BR. It's a brave, new world.