Kurt Mensching has blogged about the Detroit Tigers since 2006, starting with his own blog, the Mack Avenue Tigers, then joining SB Nation’s Bless You Boys blog in 2009. He is now the senior editor of SB Nation’s news desk. He also writes a weekly column on the Tigers for the Detroit News. Mensching spoke in Dow Journalism Director John Miller’s sports-writing class on Feb. 5.
What were your first experiences with baseball? Why did you choose baseball over basketball, for example?
Well you can see how tall I am, that pretty much influenced most of it.
I picked up watching baseball in the late 80s, early 90s. I was young, it was after the Tigers were good. It was kind of like during their downfall, but I just enjoyed watching baseball. So it was just something me and the neighbor kids did. I lived up north at that point, the town of Manton. It was kind of a farm town, a hick town, where everyone has front yards that go on for acres, and some of us just had baseball fields. That’s what we did, we went out and played baseball every chance we got. I played Little League, played high school ball, just that kind of thing.
I started blogging about base- ball because I didn’t think there was any good Tiger’s blogs. I said, I want to write about baseball because I can’t read what I want to read, so I’ll just have to write it myself.
Have you always been a Tigers fan?
I was always a Tigers fan. I’ll root for four teams total. I’ll root for the Tigers, I’ll root for the Pistons, I’ll root for Michigan State, you know football lately since our basketball team stinks, but our football team is awesome, and the U.S. men’s national soccer team. I will live and die with the soccer team, I’m insane with that team. But that’s about it. Anything else is a sport that’s happening and I don’t have any preferences.
Are you expecting any break out performances from Tiger players this season?
Justin Verlander has to show he can bounce back, I think Justin’s going to bounce back, I think it’s entirely health related. He’s as competitive as they come, so Justin’s going to, as long as he has a healthy off-season. They have to get a better season out of Nick Castellanos, both offensively and defensively.
I’m really excited to see what Cespedes does. I think he’s going to be really exciting for fans. This is the kind of player you want to pay to watch. And then you got the catching situation. That’s going to be an interesting question. For Avila, the injuries from the past couple of years have added up and can he go the whole season? Is he going to get knocked out again?
What do you fill your time with during the Tiger’s offseason? What do you write about?
I cry. No, I try my best to figure something to write about every week, but it’s not easy.
Sunday nights when I write my column, it’s a dreadful time of the year because in November you’ve got stuff to write about. In December you’ve got the winter meetings and you’ve got stuff to write about, and then it falls off a cliff. You beat the story lines to death, you got nothing left to say and you gotta keep saying something— preferably something new. It’s just really, really hard. Me personally, as a fan, I just watch the Pistons. I don’t like how hard it is to write a column in the offseason, on the other hand, I don’t mind a little break from baseball.
Do you see yourself doing this for the rest of your career?
I’m a writer, but I’m not necessarily a sports writer. I’m a writer who likes to write about people. I think at some point I’ll write more about people and it might not have anything to do with sports. Right now though, you take the career that is successful in front of you and you just run with it as long as it goes.
Just as a writer, I feel like I’m going to go in another direction eventually.
