****This might seem like an obvious point, but it’s not. In press boxes across North America, I’ve watched sportswriters surf the Web, email, text, download music, listen to music, play games, watch movies, talk on the phone, talk to each other, make origami frogs and cranes, design and build a perpetual motion machine, sleep, doze, nap, catch forty winks, cut their fingernails, not cut their fingernails for years, and eat a whiffy homemade sandwich filled with what I’m pretty sure was cat food. Every now and then, you should remember that there’s a game going on, in front of you, and you need to be watching it, closely, at a level that’s beyond the watching undertaken by mere mortals. That’s why you have your name on a seat in the press box, and they don’t.*****

Everyone who thinks that beat writers should be die hard Mets fans need to read rules 1, 2, 3 and 5.

THE YOUNG REPORTER’S GUIDE TO PRESS BOX DECORUM AND ETIQUETTE