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Post Watch: Harlan Would Rather Write About the Real Hot Dogs

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By Harry Jaffe Published Monday, March 23, 2009

Photograph by Matthew Worden.

The new Washington Post reporter covering the Nationals baseball team would rather be writing about something else. Food, preferably.

“I don’t like sports—I am embarrassed that I cover them,” Chico Harlan says. “I can’t wait to stop. It is a means to an end and a paycheck.”

Harlan’s candor might come as a shock to his editors and serious baseball fans, but his distance from the Nationals might make for tough reporting that’s sometimes missing in Post coverage of local teams.

Tom Boswell, the veteran columnist who writes often on baseball, runs either hot or cold on the Nationals. When Major League Baseball came back to DC in 2005 and the city built a new stadium, Boswell wrote like an infatuated high-schooler. When the Nats started losing, he sounded like a jilted lover.

Harlan, 26, came to the Post last year; he’s starting his first full season covering the Nationals.

“My approach might drive hard-core fans crazy because I might not get inside for that nitty-gritty play-by-play,” he says. “The passion I can drum up is wanting to capture what is unique about each game. I am interested in the characters more than anything.”

Harlan on Adam Dunn, the Nats’ new slugger: “He’s very Will Ferrell-ish in his humor. He has that half-amused smile on that big body and that curly hair. It’s hard not to look at that guy and laugh.”

Harlan has no smiles for the Nationals owners or top management.

Of the Lerner family he says: “They’re running this team, and they remain a mystery. It drives me crazy. Cracking them will be one of my true goals of the year, my daily mission.”

Mission one might be getting past Stan Kasten, Nationals president and general manager. “Stan is a bit of a control freak,” Harlan says. “He wants to control every piece of information the Nationals put out.

“He hates sportswriters and agents, but he watches out for his employees. If I owned a sports team, I would want Stan involved. As much as he’s a ball buster, he knows how to run a team.”

When I read Harlan’s quotes to Kasten, he says: “I will plead guilty to watching out for my employees.”

Chico Harlan started loving newspapers while growing up in Pittsburgh. “I would get up at 6:15 in the morning just to run out in my bare feet to get the morning paper,” he says. “I clipped and saved baseball stories.”

At Mount Lebanon High, he went out for baseball but realized he’d be best at keeping score. His grandmother suggested he try writing for the school paper. He did, started loving the news game, and wound up getting a journalism degree from Syracuse. After graduating in 2004, he got a job with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He covered sports for two years, news for a third, and then quit.

Harlan was working for the Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Australia, last year when Eli Saslow phoned to say that the Post’s baseball beat had come open. Saslow, a rising star at the paper, was Harlan’s roommate and best friend at Syracuse.

“Eli facilitated the sell,” Harlan says.

Can Harlan sell his brand of baseball reporting to readers? Without doubt he’s a talented writer of features.

“I never want to be obvious,” he says. “I never want the reader to say nothing in my story caught him by surprise.”

Don’t be surprised if next year you read Harlan writing about food.

This article first appeared in the April 2009 issue of The Washingtonian. For more articles from that issue, click here.

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Comments

Harlan is my hero, destroying sports fanatics from the inside out.

Posted by: Ruk, Nov 19, 2009 05:11:09 AM

Fact: I love baseball.
Fact: I’m on the school newspaper staff, & I do a damn good job.
Fact: This guy presents a fair opinion.
When you write a story, especially a sports story, you’re supposed to be unbiased. The Washington Post spends too much time gushing like 14 year old fan-girls instead of giving the plain old facts with plain old color. Having a writer that isn’t full of BS is so refreshing.
Good luck.

Posted by: bo-bellie, Apr 19, 2009 03:14:06 PM

Unbelievable hubris on this guy to give this interview, and just as much on WaPo’s part to keep him employed. http://adhocdaily.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-newspapers-are-failing.html

Posted by: Matt, Apr 19, 2009 01:19:09 PM

Why can’t the Nationals tell the paper they have no use for this asshole and find someone that is interested in the job they do. You have to be nuts to leave Australia to cover sports in that shit city.

Posted by: Frank, Apr 19, 2009 12:54:19 PM

What I would give to be in Chico’s shoes right now. As a Northwestern grad (among other institutions of higher learning), I worked for the Post when baseball was in Baltimore only. Not that I would have ever gotten those assignments. I wasnt good looking or male enough and I wasn’t someone’s buddy.
And in a day when jobs are difficult to find, it’s amazing that the Post was not more selective. Just more of the good ol’ boys network.

Posted by: catmomma, Apr 19, 2009 12:04:31 PM

Douchebag is too kind a term for this twerp.

Posted by: syracusesucks, Apr 03, 2009 10:05:08 PM

As an aspiring sportswriter myself, I am embarrassed to think you are currently in my desired profession. How can you not like the sport you are covering?

Moreover, you are covering them for the Washington Post for crying out loud. This is one of the biggest newspapers on the globe and you come out and say "I hate sports."

Shame on you, Chico. You are a disgrace to sports journalism.

Posted by: Chris, Mar 28, 2009 09:02:23 AM

Chico Harlan, you suck. Did you seriously just tell everyone that you don’t care?

As for me, I’d rather have my journalists come from a real j-school, like Northwestern or Columbia. Syracuse has a much bigger problem with putting out a consistently worthwhile product (obviously).

Thanks for another reason not to read your crap-lousy paper.

Posted by: MNorgard, Mar 25, 2009 12:50:34 PM

Another smarmy SU douche who thinks a lot more highly of himself than anyone else. Let’s not forget about that boy, Chris Snow, as another SU grad with an over-inflated self value. Chico should ask off the beat or resign. There are so many out-of-work sports writers who love covering baseball and would die for the opportunity to take over that beat.

Posted by: CardinalFang, Mar 25, 2009 07:30:01 AM

Something you might get out of a non-fan writer is a storyline a little closer to the objective truth. There are enough hot/cold beat writers out there who can’t seem to develop a consistent theme from Spring training to September, and end up delivering the story with a seltzer sprayer and a joy buzzer. To say nothing of the jock-sniffers...

Posted by: GW, Mar 25, 2009 06:13:19 AM

A rather interesting choice for a baseball beat writer, even if he does have prior experience in Pittsburgh on a sports beat (and he did not last long in that job). I will set aside his looking down his nose at his fellow sports writers. Arrogant, but not fatal. However, does the Post really want to hire someone to do a job that they really don’t like? Not exactly a receipe for success or longevity.

Posted by: Paul, Mar 24, 2009 08:24:15 PM

I was a former aspiring sportswriter and I don’t have any beef with Harlan saying he doesn’t like sports. I honestly got a bit deluded with them. But it’s when he says he’s embarrassed to cover them that I get irked. It’s a cheap shot not so much at fans as it is at sports writers, some of whom have been difinitive voices of our culture. Shirley Povich, Hunter S. Thompson, Dan Jenkins, Frank DeFord, just to name a few. It’s basically saying, I’m ashamed at being considered a part of this lower class of journalist. Sure, he’s got the newhouse degree and a lot of diverse experience, but just to assume that makes you better than nearly everyone else in the field is the type of arrogance that contributes to the denial within newspapers that is eroding their insides, all while finances erode their outsides.

Posted by: DCU4everton, Mar 24, 2009 02:24:34 PM

This guy is going to be a terrible sportswriter. I don’t care which players resemble his favorite saturday night live characters or which players wear the most fabulous socks. A beat writer needs to be a sports guy. A columnist doesn’t necessarily have to be one but this loser is the beat writer.

Posted by: Johnny, Mar 24, 2009 11:32:46 AM

I say fire him and get someone who actually wants to write about the Nats.

Let the guy write stories about being unemployed and eating ramen.

Posted by: JB, Mar 24, 2009 09:48:21 AM

Curb the smarm, Chico, get over yourself (you’re not DFW), and be glad you have a job.

Posted by: adviser, Mar 24, 2009 08:59:45 AM

A prime example of the Syracuse mafia at work. Of all the passionate and talented writers out there who are clamoring to take over an MLB beat, they tab this metrosexual clown? Doesn’t like baseball? I didn’t know there were any communist baseball writers left in America.

BTW, since when is being a food writer the pinnacle of journalism? I think I’d be more embarrassed writing a review of Chad’s Fusion Bistro than I would recounting how Chipper Jones singlehandedly beat the Nats.

Posted by: jb, Mar 24, 2009 07:40:00 AM

Harry, nice job. I’m sure by now you’re aware your feature stirred up quite the furor over in Nats Town, including over 90 posts in the Post’s Nats Journal blog hosted by Harlan, and over a 110 at the Nats Fan Forum (wnff.net) on the subject. Considering the April issue also featured a piece comparing Adam Dunn to Frank Howard, and a confession by Wilbon that he has yet to set foot inside Nats Park, a strong effort all around!

Posted by: tomterp, Mar 24, 2009 07:38:03 AM

To: Chico Not The Man:

So all SU Journalism people are douches, eh?

Bill Safire?
Steve Kroft?
Bob Costas?
Dick Stockton?
Mike Tirico?
Pete Thamel?

Please.

Posted by: Bill Orange, Mar 24, 2009 05:35:32 AM

hilarious chico.. i’ve never met a Nats fan, but anyone who is truly upset that Chico doesn’t care about that subpar quasi baseball team or sports in general needs to get a fucking life...

Posted by: D Ray, Mar 23, 2009 02:07:55 PM

Bravo, Chico! Who among us has never done a job simply for the paycheck? Let him cast the first split-fingered fastball at Chico. The proof of Mr. Harlan’s skill will be in the doing, not on whether he wants to do it. Here’s hoping that Chico has a great season covering and uncovering the Nats, and that he is eventually able to get paid for engaging in his true passion.

Posted by: tim, Mar 23, 2009 01:00:04 PM

Little twit needs to be slapped, as do most Syracuse journalism grads. They are doushches.

Posted by: Chico not da man, Mar 23, 2009 12:59:22 PM

Yes, but what happened in the GAME?!

Posted by: Fan, Mar 23, 2009 11:35:32 AM

Refreshing candor.

I, for one, am glad that we don’t have a fan covering this team. His coverage of the Rijo/age changing scandal was first rate.

Also, it is abundantly clear that as far as his writing goes, he’s more than a little talented.

Posted by: baseball1, Mar 23, 2009 11:06:04 AM

Congrats to Messrs. Harlan and Saslow for their accomplishments!

Posted by: Brew 3, Mar 23, 2009 11:02:09 AM

This cultural elite nonsense he decided to share not withstanding, where he is willing to go on record looking down on sports, in times when coworkers of his are being let go, and the paper edition is shrinking, it is beyond repugnant for him to publicly cop to just doing something for a paycheck - especially something that people take so seriously - get so much enjoyment out of - give needed distraction during this tough time for many.

Posted by: Baseball Fan, Mar 23, 2009 10:41:05 AM

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Posted by: Hot Dogs, Mar 23, 2009 07:45:59 AM

Like jazz, baseball can be rendered (or translated) into other American experiences. And some of the best writers on the subject have always done so.

Posted by: Candadai Tirumalai, Mar 23, 2009 06:47:22 AM

Post Watch: Harlan Would Rather Write About the Real Hot Dogs

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