Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
scott@scottlongonline.com
This is not a political piece. It's not intended to be another of my meta-blogging entries. Somehow, it will come out as both.
Point one: The Washington Post attempts to go "fair and balanced," hiring a conservative blogger, Ben Domenech of RedState. Said blogger is a serial plagiarist and gets nabbed in a typical Googletrail from the opposition. It's seen more as a political attack than a plagiarist getting his just due, nor is it noted that open-sourcing the investigation makes this all but inevitable. Try as some might, there's always a trail.
Point two: Colin Cowherd picks up a piece and goes with it on air. He doesn't credit the web site that originated it, likely because he didn't bother to check. That's ignorance, but understandable. He's sent notice, asked to give credit, and here's where he went off the rails: Cowherd sent an email saying that he refused to give credit. That's not just ignorance or even plagiarism. It's willful plagiarism. He deserves the same fate as Domenech.
Point three: Newspapers are blogging. I can't find any major newspaper that doesn't have some form. ESPN is "blogging" as well. Most of these attempts at co-opting are more in name than in spirit. Buster Olney's blog is not a blog; it's a daily feature and linkfest. Calling it a blog is an answer to the zeitgeist; it's marketing.
Point four: I've done a lot of interviews surrounding the Team Health Reports and, to a man, I see in the comments that people say "Cool! Do more interviews!" Funny. Doesn't that require access (for the most part) and doesn't that mean doing business more like the mainstream than a blog?
Point five: Major baseball websites (ESPN, Yahoo) have gotten around the "we don't credential websites" issue by hiring writers who already carry the all-powerful BBWAA card. MLB.com has done this some, though they don't have the problem. Sure, most online writers don't care about access and even disdain it, but as some of the blogs begin moving from community to beat, that will change.
Point six: I read a lot of newspaper writers. The aforementioned Buster Olney does a great job on his daily pointing to some great pieces. He links them and I click and read. All over the internet. I don't get the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Sun-Times, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, or San Francisco Chronicle delivered to my door. I read on the internet. All baseball writers are now internet writers, like it or not. At the World Series, Jim Caple pointed out that "The writers that don't want to give access to guys like us are the same ones that bitch when the wireless is slow."
Point seven: As the mainstream tries to co-opt blogging into its process, the next logical step is to cheaply bring in some bloggers rather than converting its writers into bloggers. It's happening in news and sports.
Point eight: As bloggers attempt to disintermediate mainstream from its normal revenue streams, they're more likely to partner in some way with an established monetization vehicle. Conglomerations have value, but thus far, they haven't reached the proper scale, apart from Gawker Media and Weblogs Inc. It's also likely that once those conglomerations (or, concievably single entities) reach a proper scale or notice that they'll monetize. For examples of this, see the sale of Weblogs Inc. to AOL, MySpace to Fox, and Ana Marie Cox leaving Wonkette for Time and books.
Point nine: We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who bring a brighter day, so let's start giving. There's a choice we're making. We're saving our own lives. It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me.
Point ten: The center cannot hold. America loves its extremes, and compromise is not something that works. Mainstream media might be overtaken by blogs or co-opt them. What we are not likely to find is a middle ground.
Check out this piece by David Sifry (http://tinyurl.com/gm4uc) on the state of the blogosphere. Obscure blogs at the fringe, the long tail of readership seeking out unique content, have more total readership than mainstream sites. As long as people have opinions blogs will exist in some format. The money associated with corporate America will gravitate towards the larger sites but independent sites might still attract money from small precision marketers. And then there are people willing to blog for no money at all - akin to callers like Doris from Rego Park or Jerome from Brooklyn who lived to call into WFAN each day - not to make a profit but to find a voice.
As Craigslist and EBay eat into newspaper revenues more and more, I'm guessing that newspapers will cut costs by using blog content more and more, because it's cheaper. Instead of hiring ten professional journalists, they'll hire 100 semi-pros, and get ten times the content for the same cost. Even the best of journalists will suffer to make ends meet.
Can anything stop this from happening?
When you're down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe, there's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well let us realize oh! that a change can only come
When we stand together as one.
If not getting press credentials makes his JOB harder than it has to be ... isn't there something wrong with that?
Now ... I can see the argument of "joe blow blogger wants a press credential too ... do we give HIM one also?". You have to draw the line somewhere.
MLB WANTS to appease ESPN (and vice-versa) because there is a lucrative biz arrangement in place.
The content and organization of his writing seems almost 100% the same, though that content appears with a lot more frequency since the move to a 'blog'.
To me, this begs the question - does how we/'they' describe the presentation of content really matter? Traditional definitions seems to have been thrown out the window - even the 'traditional' definition of a blog - so I'd have to say no.
I also believe that anyone who regularly writes content about MLB games (ie what happens on the field) for a living (ie, someone pays them to do it and turns around and sells/provides that content to the masses) ought to be eligible to be a member of the BBWAA, even those who write solely 'fantasy' content - it is about MLB after all.
My above statement grew as I considered just how vague my original wording was. Perhaps the complexitiy of figuring out who should be out and who should be in is holding up the process?
1. Must do it for a living. (The BBWAA is, in essence, a union designed to protect the job.)
2. Must have done it for a certain number of years. I say three, but I could be convinced otherwise easily.
3. Must be sponsored in by an existing member. (I think Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, and others would have no problem finding a sponsor.)
1. Must do it for a living. (The BBWAA is, in essence, a union designed to protect the job.)
2. Must have done it for a certain number of years. I say three, but I could be convinced otherwise easily.
3. Must be sponsored in by an existing member. (I think Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan, and others would have no problem finding a sponsor.)
The writers don't strike me as very knowledgeable about steroids. They talked about how androstendione was steroid precursor, when discussing Mark McGwire. They probably don't know that much of it aromatizes into estrogen and has no anabolic effect. Most users stopped because they were getting adverse side effects, such as gynocomastia. McGwire probably got a lot more out of creatine, which is merely an amino acid. I still think there is a good chance McGwire did not use steroids. The changes in his physique was not very dramatic, and he seemed to have a fairly high bodyfat percentage at the height of his career. But I could be wrong.
Also, the authors called Synthol a drug that increases muscle size. It is only a sterilized oil that bodybuilders inject to blow up their muscles like a balloon. No self-respecting bodybuilding will willingly admit to using it. Many fans of Milos Sarchev were disappointed to hear that his brush with death came from injecting Synthol. At least muscles from steroids are real muscles. Synthol is just oil.
Anyway, the book is still an interesting read. Probably, it is 99% reliable information.
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