A great Q&A with Tyler Kepner of the New York Times

While newspapers aren’t what they once were and while newspaper scribes are often thought of as a bitter lot because of that, there are several notable exceptions. Perhaps the biggest exception is Tyler Kepner of the New York Times. He approaches his job with a freshness that is, well, refreshing, his writing and reporting are top notch and, based on my own personal experience, he is one hell of a nice guy.

Today Jeff Pearlman has a Q&A with Kepner, and you can totally see why Kepner is the way he is. My favorite exchange: after Pearlman admits that he came to hate baseball toward the end of his time covering it, he asks Kepner how, after all of these years, he continues to keep his interest. Shocking answer: he loves baseball:

... it’s all out there to discover, and I’ve just always been interested in everything about the game. Like, every single aspect, on and off the field, from the mechanics and the strategy to the esoteric stuff like the uniforms and the stadiums. All of it. Never gets boring. I’ll get in my car after covering a game, and I can’t wait to put another game on the radio.

There are people who got into the baseball reporting business because that’s where their journalism background happened to lead them. Then there are people who got into the baseball reporting business because they loved baseball. You can see which guys are which from a million miles away.