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Before the microchip and gigabyte, before wireless and live chats and YouTube, before there was Mark Cuban, sportswriters roamed the earth with impunity, and, lo, it was good.

When Grantland Rice came down from Mount Sinai, he had first dibs on all the best press boxes. He wrote what he saw. But he never descended where the heathen dwelled, deep in the dank bowels, for the stairs were steep and the tablets heavy. Verily.

And then a new generation of sportswriters came along. Guys who had read a lot of Runyon and Parker. They figured that characters populated locker rooms, too. They'd make good copy on deadline, when the brain goes blank.

The men who squeezed stories out of these rich, ripe subjects were elegant, erudite rascals who went by handles like Jimmy and Red and Blackie and Mickey. If you grew up reading their stuff, you were fortunate. You marveled at the worlds they moved in and the language they used to paint them.

Unfortunately, the men and women who succeeded these giants didn't always measure up. Chipmunks, the old guard called us.

Whether it was Watergate or out-of-whack player salaries or irregularity, we didn't find locker rooms as colorful as our predecessors did.

Consider a scene from the late '70s, when a young UPI stringer was dispatched to the Phillies' clubhouse after they'd been shut out by a journeyman Astros pitcher, and the first guy up was Pete Rose.

Me (warily): "Pete, could I ask you about Randy Niemann?"

Pete (disgusted): "I ain't talkin' about no pitcher."

He then slapped some cologne on his naked butt and turned to offer me a better view.

Figuring that wasn't the quote or image my editors were looking for, I sought out Bud Harrelson, recently signed off a softball field.

"Sure, I'll talk about the pitching," Bud said, kindly, "but let's go over here, and let's talk real quiet."

Negotiating a locker room requires skill. The late Will McDonough out of Boston became legend when the Patriots' Raymond Clayborn took a swing at him, and McDonough dropped him. If you'd been near any press box when the news broke, you'd have thought they'd discovered filet mignon in the buffet line.

No athlete or coach has ever tried to deck me, for which I'm grateful. I've never thrown a punch in anger. More important, I've never received one, and I'd like to preserve the streak.

But there have been close calls. Once, in a Philadelphia locker room, Herschel Walker drew to within a few centimeters of my prominent nose. Docile by nature, Herschel had been fed some bad information by an Eagles teammate. Given his latest psychological evaluations, maybe Herschel just wasn't himself that day.

When it comes to locker rooms, players feel we violate their personal space. Frankly, I agree. Who wants to walk out of the shower and into a camera? For most of us, mirrors in restrooms are intrusive enough.

But the alternatives aren't satisfactory, either. Precious minutes are burned up waiting on players to report to news conferences. And when they show up at all, they come reluctantly, with little to say.

A trade secret: Athletes hate to answer tough questions in front of a large room. But ask in private, and they're more likely to answer honestly. Forget that, on a good day, a couple of hundred thousand people might read their thoughts from the previous night. This probably goes back to high school. When delivering a speech, you're taught to imagine that your audience is in its underwear, not vice versa.

Access to players and coaches is important. What happens on a floor or a field isn't as obvious as it might seem.

Or at least that's what Roy Williams always says when we ask if he got the number of the last guy who blew past him.

Injured parties also deserve an avenue to vent when something is inaccurate or unfair.

This is what separates journalists from amateurs. For the most part, we're accessible, accountable and responsible.

Bloggers don't have to practice any of the above. Not the ones who do it for free, anyway.

Cuban made no distinction between the pros and amateurs when he recently banned both from the Mavs' locker room. He explained in his own blog that it's a matter of housekeeping; if he allows one blogger access, he has to let all of China in.

Cuban also noted that we screwed up. By labeling some reporters as bloggers, we failed to distinguish ourselves from guys writing in their pajamas. Call them "RealTime reporters," Cuban counsels, and wisely.

But it's also beside the point, which I'm getting to, thanks. If you have Internet access at all, you want constant updates. Never mind that it cuts savagely into time reporters could spend gathering facts. What matters is what's happened since the last post, in the last half-hour, the last five minutes.

Mark Cuban might be right about newspapers. But if we're going to continue to evolve, we have to blog. If we want credibility, we must have access. There is no going back. Grantland Rice is dead, and Blackie Sherrod is retired, and us remaining chipmunks are hanging on for dear life. Yea, verily.