Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
scott@scottlongonline.com
There's no question that sites like Deadspin, With Leather, and similar are popular. I love reading them and often laugh out loud at some of their stuff. I'm certainly no Buzz Bissinger, but the problem I have with the sites is they don't produce much content. If you read them, you're just seeing funny commentary on things happening somewhere else. That's not a bad thing, just a different thing. Will Leitch is a very good writer, as he's proved in his other outlets, and is now moving on to another gig that will allow him more focus on that with New York magazine.
So I was wondering ... how hard is it to do Deadspin style commentary, linking, and even the occasional content. Scott's on some enforced downtime, so on Monday, we're going to turn The Juice into a Deadspin clone for a day. Lots of posts, lots of links, and we'll see how it works. We hope you'll join us for this experiment!
We're open for suggestions and hope many of you will comment, send us links to talk about, etc.
If you're going to try to emulate Deadspin here, you're going to create a very dry product, because Deadspin posts are an example of how the author's tone can triumph over content, and how commenters can be the show. Leitch, et al, occasionally write their own pieces, but by and large, I think they simply set the tone for the comments on a given topic, and the commentariat take it from there, creating the experience.
Will, are you going to do it all yourself, or do you have pieces from others lined up? Will it be all baseball or pan-sport? The calendar has already dictated some of your decisions for you. If you're doing all sports, the U.S. Open needs a reflection, the NBA Finals game will need a reflection, and there're UEFA results, all on top of Sunday's baseball developments.
Just streaming thoughts...
/dick joke
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