The Editors (not the music group) ask: Where’s Gary?

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BEIJING -- Sitting here in the Tribune office at the Beijing Games, listening to Hersh and Plaschke bat opinions back and forth -- namely that Hersh is probably going to move Michael Phelps up to No. 4 on his list of all-time Olympic athletes -- and thinking Phil is positioning himself nicely for that Chicago slot on Plaschke’s TV show.

These guys don’t need any encouragement to write columns and/or blog. You throw out an idea and it’s done. Plaschke just cranked out two blog items and went out to shoot another video and came back to the office.

Gary Hall Jr. is a little different. He’s a fabulous writer and we’re thrilled to have him on the relay team. But I was chatting in the mixed zone with the Arizona Republic’s Norm Frauenheim, another longtime Gary beat writer, and we were both agreeing that Gary’s writing schedule was a little inconsistent, just like his training.

This was a few days into the swimming and Gary hadn’t weighed in. Sent him an e-mail and he responded with a nice message, saying he was getting adjusted and that he owed us an article and ‘it’s been eating at my conscience.’ (Note to self: Might wanna use that line with the editors next hockey season.)

Then Mike Cavic, a training buddy of Hall’s at the Race Club, grabbed the top qualifying spot in the 100 butterfly after the semifinals Friday morning and immediately became a story when he declared to a group of us that it would be better for the sport if Michael Phelps lost and he won.

Was this a Serbian version of Gary? Well, not quite, because Cavic was born in Anaheim and raised in Orange County and went to Cal, training there under Hall’s mentor, Mike Bottom, who will be the coach at Michigan, replacing Bob Bowman, who coaches Phelps. Try keeping track of all that.

Asked Hall to put together a few graphs on Cavic, trying to walk that fine line between desperation and encouragement. Within two hours he filed and predicted Cavic would win.

Now that Cavic has lost to Phelps in an epic, and a controversial one at that, we’re all wondering what Hall has to say now. I e-mailed him almost two hours ago and am still waiting for a response. Meanwhile, Plaschke is off with a translator working on yet another story and Hersh is racking up dizzying Web hits in Chicago, Baltimore and L.A.

Lot of pressure here being Gary’s quasi-assignment editor and getting a just little nervous that Randy Harvey is going to ask me about Hall again. I’ll take a deadline write instead after a Phelps gold medal. Well, maybe a West Coast deadline write.

-- Lisa Dillman