COLUMN: Media advice from Cardinal to Redhawks

After spending a year in Cape Girardeau, the one thing that has pleasantly surprised me about this place is how many athletes currently compete at Southeast Missouri State who have aspirations for a career in journalism.

Chandler Davis plays on the SEMO women’s basketball team and recently covered the football team as a reporter for the student newspaper, the Southeast Arrow. When Mackenzie Williams is not setting new personal heights in the weight throw at indoor track events, she is interviewing athletes both at SEMO and high school as a reporter for KFVS. Jacob Blassingame, a distance runner for the track team, started contributing to the Southeast Missourian as a freelance photojournalist and sports reporter.

While “new media” is a term coined by professional athletes hosting their podcasts and adding their voice to the commutative sphere, these SEMO athletes are trying to go pro in “old media”. Among the handful of current and former St. Louis Cardinals players who arrived at the Osage Centre for the annual Cardinals Caravan was a man who made the transition from playing baseball to broadcasting.

KFVS reporter Mackenzie Williams, also a Southeast Missouri State track athlete, interviews Cape Central basketball player Marquel Murray after winning the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament championship on Dec. 30, 2023, at the Show Me Center.Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

Xavier Scruggs is a broadcaster for ESPN, has a show on MLB Network and recently started the new year with a podcast, “Show N’ Go with X”, where he sits down with current and former players for an extended conversation. While his form of media is not quite the same as being a beat writer covering a team both good and bad, the advice he shared is very valuable.

“I would say find ways to differentiate yourself,” Scruggs said. “That's trying to find the little intricacies or details within the industry or within your sport that maybe other people aren't attacking and try to work on those things and put them out there using the content. If that's social media, if that's writing, whatever that may be, but practicing putting that content out there and trying to be as different as possible so you can stand out in a positive way.”

For his new show to be successful, Scruggs needs his guests to be open with him and for that to happen, trust needs to be in the equation. He said “a lot of it is building trust early on,” which is important for journalists because trust is hard to build, easy to lose and nearly impossible to build back.

“I think guys are willing to be open as long as you build trust,” Scruggs said. “I think that's one thing that even if I don't know somebody personally, I think once I kind of sit down with them or even beforehand, I want them to know that there's a trust there. I want them to trust me and I want to be able to trust the answers that they're giving me.”

Scruggs hit only one home run in the big leagues, as a member of the Miami Marlins in 2016, but that one home run symbolizes the journey that started with being drafted by the the Cardinals in 2008 and making his MLB debut in 2014.

“There was a lot of motivation behind that and the moment was indescribable,” Scruggs said.

He had more plate appearances with the Marlins (69) than his two seasons in St. Louis combined (61). When he was a Marlin, he was in a clubhouse led by Don Mattingly, coached by Barry Bonds and with JT Realmuto, Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich and Ichiro Suzuki as teammates.

“It was a special moment but also special people around that moment too,” Scruggs said. “It was a pretty cool experience and I was on cloud nine after I hit that home run.”

Scruggs’ playing career ended internationally with a season in South Korea in 2018 and finally in Mexico in 2019. When the coronavirus pandemic struck the world in 2020, Scruggs found an opportunity to reinvent himself as a broadcaster.

“It was more so me trying to find those opportunities, “Scruggs said. “It was 2020, there was no baseball in the beginning. ESPN was playing KBO baseball, I played in Korea, so I got an opportunity to talk about those experiences. Then that kind of led to more opportunities talking about my experiences and ultimately ESPN gave me an opportunity to broadcast a game, share some stories.”

Scruggs described his journey from the batter’s box to the booth as a matter of “one foot in front of the other”. Unlike the aforementioned SEMO athletes with early aspirations, Scruggs wasn’t aiming for a career in media, but the desire to communicate his passion for baseball and build a platform off that was there by the time to pivot was there.

“It's something that I tried to take advantage of once baseball was over,” Scruggs said.

So far he’s enjoying his second career as a broadcaster.

“I see it from a different lens now,” Scruggs said. “It's fun. You get an opportunity to kind of break down the game and in a way that the audience can digest it, and try to do it differently than somebody else.”

Through his podcast, Scruggs has been told things from his guests that he wished he knew while he was a player, similar to how I wish I had the camera equipment I have now when I started my career a decade ago.

“I think if I knew a lot of what I heard from [Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow] on my first episode of “Show N’ Go”, I might be a better hitter because I would kind of understand more how they think,” Scruggs said. “I think a lot of it is to how analytics has come into play for baseball and how data has come into play. So seeing how those pitchers specifically have taken that in and how they can use that, that’s something that is a whole new world for me and I'm learning a lot about it.”

Scruggs brought up athletes’ trust in media during his recent episode with Gary Sheffield, who shared this advice: “Always go into a situation being your authentic self.” The same advice should go towards the flock of Redhawks who are trying to go pro in journalism.