Daily Times sports editor asked to leave Ricketts Park press box over Twitter dispute

FARMINGTON ? Rivalry on the field was almost eclipsed by a dispute in the press box at Saturday evening's Farmington Scorpion Invitational Baseball Tournament.

John Livingston, Daily Times sports editor, was asked to leave the press box by Don Lorett, Farmington High School athletic director, over a tweet.

"Overheard in the Ricketts press box: it must be nice for PV softball to beat up 2A and 3A teams.....ill let u take care of the response...," Livingston said in a tweet during the Farmington-Piedra Vista high schoolbaseball game.

Word of the tweet was spread among Farmington's coaching staff, Livingston said, culminating in a text message from Lorett.

"Tweeting about stuff said in our pressbox is unacceptable for me," Lorett said in the message. "I can put (you) next door if need be. Your call."

Livingston, who had been outside interviewing another coach went back into the box to gather his equipment.

"If PV would have said it, I would have tweeted it too," he said.

Livingston did not reenter Farmington High School's press box for the remainder of the tournament.

"Kicked out of the Farmington High press box for tweeting that "overheard',"he said in another tweet. "Then called "real professional' for tweeting it.It's my job."

Livingston said he had been asked to leave press boxes before by school administration in Aztec.

"(Those times) it was late and they wanted to go home," he said. "It's called a press box not a school administration box. I'm

entitled to a seat in there. I have no problem with an athletic director backing up their coaches, but when they start sending threatening texts..."

In a series of tweets about the incident, Bob Moore, Editor at the El Paso Times, expressed his surprise over the turn of events. Moore oversees news operations for a chain of newspapers in Texas and New Mexico that includes the Farmington Daily Times.

"Did you really get kicked out of the press box over a tweet?" he asked in a tweet to Livingston.

"Maybe I'm missing something as an outsider, but seemed like an innocuous tweet," he said in a later tweet.

Lorett declined to comment Saturday evening.

Greg Yee may be reached at gyee@daily-times.com; 564-4606. Follow him on Twitter @GYeeDT

Source: http://www.daily-times.com/farmington-news/ci_22809169/daily-times-sports-editor-asked-leave-fhs-press?source=rss_viewed

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