Good morning!
Chelsea Janes was born and raised in Longmeadow and her dad is a Springfield attorney. As a youngster she fell asleep listening to Yankees announcers John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman on WCBS Radio. She learned how to keep score and her favorite player — no surprise here — was Derek Jeter.
She attended Longmeadow High School, was accepted to Yale and played on the Bulldogs’ softball team. “I caught and played a little outfield,” she told me one day outside Roger Dean Stadium where the baseball talks were happening in Jupiter.
Asked about New Haven’s famed pizza she said, “I’m not convinced. It’s all thin crust.”
When I asked what newspaper she was with Janes said she covered the national baseball beat for the Washington Post.
“I don’t think I expected much fortunately,” she said of getting the beat job in 2014. After all, she’d majored in history and international studies at Yale.
But one day during her freshman year a classmate was tangled up in homework and didn’t have time to write a story for the Yale newspaper. Janes volunteered and a career was born.
“I liked writing and I liked sports, but I never considered putting the two together,” she told Mike Gambardella, Yale’s associate AD for strategic communications, on an episode of This Is Yale: The Official Podcast of Yale Athletics.
After she graduated in 2012, her bags were packed and she was on the move. Janes started as an associate reporter for MLB.com covering the Padres, and spent her next year at Stanford getting a master’s degree in communication. The same day she got her degree she was on a red eye back to the Capital to cover the local nine.
Writing baseball for a top national newspaper was her dream job, but after the 2018 season her editor called her into the office. “How’d you like to be in Iowa in January?” he asked.
Janes was stunned. “It was so far off my radar I took a second to think about what that meant,” she said.
In Iowa and later across the nation she covered the presidential campaigns of Democrats Pete Buttegieg, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. “It was bruising but incredibly energizing to be that close to the center of where things get done and see how everything works, for better or worse,” she told Gambardella.
She wasn’t particularly thrilled, however, about what some perceived to be an upward trajectory. “It became clear to me that, like baseball, if you’re going to cover politics full-time you have to really love it.”
Quite frankly, said Janes, “I missed baseball. I am obsessed about baseball. Spring is baseball time in my brain. It’s how I think about the year. It’s instinctual.”
Last spring she resumed her passion. “I’m lucky to be here for sure,” she said, even if “here” was sitting outside a locked ballpark.
Her small Reporter Notebook was filled with hastily scrawled notes from recent pressers. I asked a friend to send me the 1,200-word story she filed before the first deadline to save the full season.
It was precise, crisp, intellectual and informative.
The players, she wrote, were “stuck and furious… stuck in a more existential sense — stuck between what is best for the sport and what is best for each side, stuck between hopes they will feel compelled to give a little for the good of all and the reality that big business is no place for teamwork.”
After two years in the political trenches, Chelsea Janes was back in her wheelhouse.
No spring training games meant no $44 tickets to watch Single A players in St. Louis Cardinals uniforms. Instead I drove to Palm Beach Gardens and watched Dwyer High School host St. John Paul II Academy on Tuesday.
The anxious parents behind the backstop included a Westfield State alumnus. “I played for Howie Burns,” smiled Bill Jackson, a Weymouth native who stayed in Florida after his brief stint as a pro ended.
His son, Bryce Jackson, plays third base for the Panthers and has committed to the University of South Florida. “He’s one of three sophomores who’ve committed to USF,” said Jackson.
“What does Bryce do for summer ball?” I asked.
“Travel baseball, TBT out of Boca Raton,” he said.
“How much does it cost, and how far do you go?”
“North Carolina, Georgia, New York, Fort Myers and Sarasota. The league fees are $2,000, there’s hotels, gas, equipment…”
Another player’s mother overheard us and said, “We put all the baseball expenses on one credit card last summer. It was $8,000.”
Dwyer won the game, 11-7. I was long gone before the final out but did see Bryce Jackson walk and score on a three-run home run by Kris Blanks. The season is on. Next stop, Gainesville.
The Kentucky Derby is eight weeks from today and usracing.com’s futures book lists Corniche, Messier and Epicenter as the lukewarm favorites at 12/1.
Last weekend at Gulfstream Park, Simplification under Jose Ortiz won the Fountain of Youth Stakes by circling six wide around a pileup on the turn for home. Two horses clipped heels and went down, including High Oak owned by former WFAN host Mike Francesa. Both the men and their beasts walked away unscathed from the mishap.
At Aqueduct last week, Steve Asmussen’s 3-year-old colt Morello won the Gotham Stakes, and at Santa Anita Richard Mandella’s Forbidden Kingdom won the San Felipe Stakes. Both steeds went off at even money.
Today at Tampa Bay Downs, Classic Causeway will be the likely favorite to win the Tampa Bay Derby under jockey Irad Ortiz.
Sixteen Bob Baffert trainees were nominated into the Triple Crown by their owners. Baffert’s Kentucky training license has been revoked, but insiders expect he’ll file a lawsuit shortly before the race and the court injunction will enable him to saddle his prep race survivors.
SQUIBBERS: Patriots owner Robert Kraft found out what kind of guy Vladimir Putin is the day he showed him his Super Bowl ring and the super creep put it in his pocket. … Talkmaster Dan Patrick explains the genesis of the best known scouting tool: “Punts are 40 yards. Paul Brown wanted to know how fast a player could run downfield. That’s why we have the 40-yard dash.” Brown owned the Cincinnati Bengals. … Angels slugger Mike Trout hasn’t played a big league game since May 17. His strained calf never healed. The 30-year-old Trout is a career .305 hitter with 310 home runs … The Bradley OTB and sportsbook is having fan appreciation day on March 16. Patrons will receive free T-shirts, coffee and donuts and an “official handicapping pen.” … Kudos to coach Adam Bouchard and the GHS hockey team on its 13-7-2 season, and to NMH coach Kevin Czepiel for an 18-win season at frosty McCollum Arena. … DA finished 8-16 and was swept four straight in the prestigious Flood Marr tournament, not a good look for the Sons of Bob Merriam. … The NY Post’s Larry Brooks on Alex Ovechkin posing with Vladimir Putin for his Instagram avatar: “Those who continue to wear his jersey and chant his name after he scores a goal, their ignorance is noted, their behavior is sickening.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com