George Castle has written 13 books and has been a sports journalist for the Times of Northwest Indiana being the beat the reporter for the Chicago Cubs. Most of his books have been about the Cubs or baseball or general sports history. He also is the historian for the Chicago Baseball Museum and been a host and produce for a radio show called Diamond Gems.
Castle said to stay away from the athlete’s personal life if you don’t need to know it like the deep or personal issues. “Sometimes you need to hold back and that includes sports culture. Stay away from a player’s personal unlike given consent and it is relevant.”
One of his important things he said was to establish relationships with the athletes and the coaches and managers. He used to spend time talking to the manager about anything without taking notes and his closest relationship was with former Cubs manager Jim Riggelman.
He talked about how the media handled the Steroid Era in baseball and in general about reporting with just speculation. “If you’re in a gray area, hesitate, do not rush ahead. Regardless disregard of the truth will get you in legal trouble. Speculation doesn’t fly.”
He also gave advice when you do talk to an athlete about something. “Half your conversations with a player should be informal to show you love baseball and that you care about them.”Castle also talked about the industry, “Writers are like high school cliques. If you can avoid falling into that trap then you can separate yourself from the rest.”
His new project is a book about the Jackie Robinson West team. Where looks at it the second year into not just about the team this year or how they won but doing a story behind the story. I will be a story about the neighborhood and who gave rise to the program of Jackie Robinson West.
He went on to explain about why he picking the direction for this book unlike others that just talk about the team only. “Sometimes the time element of your finished product will have a distance between the actual events and when it is published it is “The second day angle.” The story behind the story appeals to everybody and not just the baseball fans. People will only write about tragedies on the South Side and so JRW shows the positive.”
Castle also talked gave us some more tips for breaking into the field. “Get professional experience, Anything, Part-time wherever you can get it. Make contacts, network, get stringer work. Get to know players and your editor and editor’s editor. Also Relationships are everything. You also should have a different angle and fresh angle something that is needed to sell and last but not least write long, Leave room to cut. Editors don’t want to have to fill in rest for you.”
One thing Castle learned that changed his view on how sports were to him was, “I suspected there was more to this story than just the team.”