The life of a baseball beat reporter can be taxing. There’s the endless days of Spring Training, the long regular season that rarely has breaks, and if the team you cover is good enough, there’s the playoffs. It’s a grind, to be sure. Though, of course, your job is to watch baseball all the time. There are worse fates.

Oh, and then there’s David Wells. As New York Daily News Yankees beat writer Mark Feinsand explained to NY Mag, he had a special way of treating reporters:

I’ve had the misfortune of covering several (jerks) during the past nine years — Kenny Lofton, Chuck Knoblauch and Tony Womack come to mind — but I’d have to say David Wells tops them all. I know fans love him for what he did on the field (other than costing the Yankees the 2003 World Series, anyway), but he treated most reporters like absolute garbage.

We don’t really ask for much from players other than to treat us with respect. You don’t have to be a good quote to be liked by the media; you just have to not be a clown. Wells would routinely spray his deodorant in the direction of writers and shout to the room, “Reporter repellent!” or answer a question with a belch — which he would then blow in your direction — and walk away, so respect clearly wasn’t in his vocabulary.

Now, this may sound like an awful thing to do to another human being, but what if Wells was a good enough belcher that he could burp out an entire response to a question?

That would impress you, no?