Jeff Bradley
Jeff Bradley isn’t going to miss reporting on the Yankees for the (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, which laid off employees last week. He was hired as a columnist but his bosses switched him to the pinstripe beat after the previous writer left.
I was not happy. I have two teenage sons who like having a dad to make them breakfast in the morning. I have a wife who works full-time.
When I was the columnist, I’d often walk through the door after 2 a.m. after covering a game in the Bronx or Flushing. But at least I’d be home. A baseball beat writer spends about 150-170 nights per year in a hotel room between the months of February and October.
Had the Ledger been looking for a Yankee beat writer when I was on my way out at ESPN The Magazine, I would not have even filled out an application. I wouldn’t have done that to my family.
Bradley writes he “learned to take a punch” doing scut work as a news clerk for the Associated Press in the ’80s. But that still didn’t prepare him for his job dissolving, even if he disliked it:
As I walked into the streets of Newark, packet in hand, I did not feel any anger or sadness. I’m not sure what I felt, probably because I’d never felt unemployment before.
Bradley says he doesn’t know what his future plans are.
Previously: Layoffs at Star-Ledger, other Advance papers in N.J.
