On the subject of linking, I'm on the horns of a dilemma. I recently read a piece that seemed to me to be an interesting idea. Not original, but interesting. It's an interview with a team official and I love seeing these, whether it's Gary Huckabay's "anonymous GM" or Jonah Keri's amazing interview with Kevin Towers or even just someone getting a line into the front office like Batter's Box has with the Trio (Ricciardi, Law, LaCava).

So this interesting but unoriginal idea has to have some information in it that tells me something for it to be successful. I want to hear something I haven't heard or an angle that hasn't been covered. I want the writer to be different than some talk radio angle or beat writer. Heck, I'm often just curious to see how a team official treats a writer. Anything.

But with this one ... nothing. It took a while to even find a quote from the official. I can't tell if it was intended to be a narrative interview - a form I've used before with mixed results - or whether the interview was much shorter than the writer expected. Did he get cut off or was this puffed a bit to make a few quick questions seem like an actual sit-down.

I'm not sure what this accomplished and while I believe in giving credit where credit is due, I'm also going to go Dragnet and say "names have been obscured to protect the innocent." We all have bad days, bad columns, and ... still, I worry. There aren't enough good writers to lose one in our small universe.