Jeff Pearlman talks to Tom Verducci about working a clubhouse and other intricacies of baseball reporting. My favorite answer starts with: "Patience is a requirement. Anybody with a credential and a pen or a microphone can get "a" quote. You’ve seen it, Jeff: the scrum around the star of the game and the stock questions that typically feature phrases such as "how surprised were you . . . ," "the mindset," and "what pitch." The worst are the non-questions. They almost always start like this: "Talk about . . . ." It’s sheer laziness. The point is that you ask a stock question you get a stock quote."