Like many, I came to look at baseball different because of Rob Neyer. His folksy style and knack for explanation made it comfortable for me to question everything I knew about baseball. I've called Rob the 'gateway drug' for performance analysis. If you like his stuff, you'll probably like what he recommends and he does a great job of handing his readers new material, giving back to the community and giving writers like me a shot.

Rob probably gets a lot more email than me, but one of his FAQs is one of the same I get. I remember reading his response to "You have a great job. How do I do what you do?" and taking it to heart. Rob's is a populist answer and one I closely approximated for the past few years.

I'm changing my answer, not because I've gotten more elitist or think I'm some great stylist. I've just decided that maybe I shouldn't be so encouraging. Looking around at the online arena, there's very few jobs that pay. Even among hobbyists, few stay around and that ones that are good seem to burn brightly and then fade away.

If you're ready to sit at a keyboard for eight to ten hours a day and never run out of things to say, try it. If you stare thirty teams in the face and don't draw a blank on the twelfth Molina brother, try it. If you think you're better than someone that's doing this, try it - you need that kind of ego. Can you put together a column every day - every day - for the next ten years without rehashing or crutching? Will you be the one to step up with 1000 words on the Tigers at two in the morning? Does it bother you when people reject you, publicly, and try to poke holes in everything from your personality to your competence? Go ahead, try it.

At best, my Isherwoodian style helps me run through obstacles because what I do is describe, not create. I've got my next three books after this one written in my head, twenty-seven Team Health Reports (that's right, three are already done), and 150 UTK's locked and loaded while I'm typing away on "The Juice." As Steven Goldman once said "Writers block? I had it once - worst twenty minutes of my life."

Go ahead, try it.