A not-so-fond farewell to 2008 from the newspaper industry

Another newspaper press gone silent in 2008

The year is drawing to a close, and I daresay for most of us in the newspaper industry it’s time to say “good riddance” to 2008. According to the trade journal Editor & Publisher, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that 21,000 newspaper jobs disappeared over the past 12 months. That report totals 3,000 jobs lost at Gannett, 2,500 at McClatchy and more than 1,000 at Tribune, which is now in bankruptcy proceedings.

These cuts decimated newsrooms, back shops and virtually every department in between. That 21,000 figure doesn’t take into account others who have fled the industry on their own, scattering to academia, public relations and other fields, or early retirement.

In tribute to our departed colleagues, I post the photo above of my “PRESS” cap sitting on the control panel of a newspaper press that was decommissioned a few months ago. My wife bought the cap at an industry meeting a year or two back, which in retrospect seemed like the good old days.

It’s doubtful those “good old days” will return to the newspaper industry, at least if you consider only its ink-on-dead-trees incarnation. Newspapers are evolving online, however, and here’s hoping that 2009 will bring better results.

A new cap for the Big Unit

Randy Johnson has signed a one-year contract with the San Francisco Giants, and that’s good news for baseball fans by the bay. Even at 45, The Big Unit has some good games left in that 6′10″ frame. The move to the Giants will be a bit of a homecoming for Johnson, who grew up nearby in Livermore, Calif. He’s aiming to reach 300 career victories (he needs five), and I suspect the Giants hope in between starts he’ll be able to tutor Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and the other young pitchers on staff.

Johnson is a thoroughly modern superstar in that he’s hopped from team to team in this era of free agency. He came up with the Montreal Expos and spent several years with the Seattle Mariners, although I can’t recall ever having seen him pitch in the Kingdome when I lived there. He played briefly for the Houston Astros in 1998 (a stretch of his career I can’t remember at all) before signing with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He had some great years there, jumped to the New York Yankeees for 2005-06 before returning to Phoenix.

The MLB Web site didn’t waste any time posting a picture of Johnson in his new orange-and-black threads and cap. The Giants will have an excellent pitching staff in 2009. Now if they could only add a power hitter or two, then they’d really have something.

Presidents and baseball caps, 18th Century division

Thomas Jefferson, wearing Virginia Cavalier ball cap

This isn’t, technically speaking, a cap in my collection. But it’s too cool not to count.

My mother-in-law and I have traded gag gifts at Christmas over the years, and yesterday I received a University of Virginia T-shirt with the crossed-saber logo on the front. But the back is what really matters. It depicts our third president, Thomas Jefferson, winking and wearing a UVA baseball cap.

What could be more perfect? Jefferson founded the university and drew up the plans for its first buildings. Although I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting the campus in Charlottesville, it’s now officially on my list of destinations.

And in case you’re wondering, I sent my mother-in-law a deck of cards with my picture on the back of each card. I got the better end of the deal.

Leukemia patient gives the gift of hats

Here’s a delightful story from North Dakota about a 3-year-old boy battling leukemia who, as a Christmas present for those working at and being cared for at the hospital where he’s been treated, donated about 500 hats that people all over the world had mailed to him. According to the AP story, the boy’s illness is in remission. He asked that people donate new hats by mail, and he delivered them to the hospital in the past couple of weeks. Here’s a picture of little Hudson Francis surrounded by many of the baseball caps and other hats he received.

Caps I have known — and lost

I’ve been a bit lax in posting of late, so to get back on the board I leave a short note in tribute to my old Weyerhauser “tree-killing” cap. I always wore it when I did yard work around our Seattle home, especially when a tree needed killin’. The cap was simple: a green crown and brim, with the Weyerhauser tree logo stamped on the front panel.

The Weyerhauser cap was extra special because we lived in the city of Federal Way, which incorporated a year or two after we moved there in 1989. Weyerhauser, the big forest products company, is also based in Federal Way, in its unusual “horizontal skyscraper” set into the Northwest landscape.

What happened to the cap? I haven’t a clue. But it served its purspose well for a few years, and it lingers fondly in memory.

Amid the great outdoors, indoors

In search of a Christmas gift for a relative, my wife and I trekked to the new Bass Pro Shops store in Manteca, Calif., today. The store is, simply put, amazing.

Racks and racks of merchandise are on display amid scores of stuffed bears, deer, boars, wolves, buzzards, sheep and pretty much any other critter you can imagine killing with a rifle, shotgun, crossbow, blowgun or slingshot. All those weapons are for sale, of course.

Fish swim in a huge tank fed by a waterfall cascading from the upper level of the cavernous store, outfitted as a gigantic wilderness lodge. All manner of rods, reels and lures with which to hook the fish are also available, as are the cast-iron pans in which to fry them.

My recreational tastes tend more toward nine innings in the bleachers than nine hours in a duck blind. Yet I still enjoyed our visit to the BPS store, which I was surprised to learn from the cashier is the smallest shop in the chain. We lightened our bank account a bit by buying some snacks, a rack for our smoker, a fleece jacket for my wife and assorted gifts that will find their way into Christmas stockings and packages.

And yes, the store does sell caps. They’re mainly for hunters and fishermen. See if you can spot the camouflage model above.

Let’s keep the stinky socks off the cap, please

The Boston Red Sox have revealed new alternate uniforms and, alas, the dreadful “hanging socks” cap at left. Methinks the Beaneaters should stick with the standard “B” that has served the franchise so well over the years. I suppose it’s OK for fans to wear the socks lid — after all, you can’t have too many baseball caps. But I pray fervently that the team never takes the field wearing this cap, either on the road or, heaven forbid, at Fenway Park.

Keeping my head about me, thanks to a Giants’ batting helmet

While dangling Christmas lights from the tree on our front lawn this morning, I was reminded of how a few years back my giveaway plastic San Francisco Giants batting helmet saved my head.

I had to trim a branch from a tree in our backyard in New Jersey, and I stuck the batting helmet on my head to save my scalp from the small branches poking out of the tree. But the big branch I sawed off was what clobbered me, splitting the helmet in two. Fortunately, I stayed on the ladder and didn’t even get a scratch.

This past season, you had to be a little touched in the head to stick with the Giants. But there is hope since the team has acquired Edgar Renteria and two good arms for the bullpen.