In one of my favorite baseball stories ever, we were at the Opryland Hotel back in 2002. I was randomly wandering the halls, meeting some of my idols -- Peter Gammons, Joe Sheehan -- and meeting people. One guy I met had recently graduated from college and was looking for a job in a minor league front office. He had one offer from a Double-A team, then got one at nearly the last minute from a Triple-A team (Albuquerque, I think.) He was torn and asked everyone for advice -- including Dusty Baker, who just happened to be wandering by. Baker listened and quickly said "It's Triple-A, baby!" then smiled and walked off.

On the heels of a blog report that Ned Yost would be fired on Monday and it being picked up with glee by Tom Haudricort, the old school but very solid Brewers beat writer in his (irony!) blog, it's being used as one of those wedge issues. "Look! Blogs have no credibility!" we're already hearing. No, the problem isn't blogs. It's the people writing blogs, just as it's the people on TV, writing for newspapers, or anywhere. The issue is credibility.

Five years after the Pete Rose story, I still get asked about it regularly. There's always one asshole per chat that gleefully points out that I was "wrong." Yes, I was wrong, in the sense that the story didn't happen in the way it was written, that by writing the story, it changed. But I don't want to get in that debate. What that tells you is that people have a long memory and no matter how many times I've been right since, they'll always bring up the things I did wrong.

Credibility is a tough road, but is really the only way we have to judge information. We assume that our local newspaper, or any newspaper, is a credible place that employs credible people. By saying "New York Times", we immediately assume that Murray Chass or Tyler Kepner or Will Leitch is credible. We don't go checking their bona fides. But it's not always the case. Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, and others remind us of this and while sports is hardly an area where things can be made up out of thin air, one of those things is an "anonymous source."

Once again, I have to look to myself. Most of my work is by need based on anonymous sourcing. The reason for that is that medical personnel are precluded, both by league rules, team policy and Federal law, from speaking with me. The only way for them to do so is anonymously. They have to trust that I will protect their identities. The reader then has to determine my credibility based on my information and the results of that information. It works the same for everyone, no matter their medium.

The issue with blogs is that there's no editor -- I have one at BP and SI, but don't have one here. There's no check beyond the reader and no way to, at sight, check the credibility, record, or reputation of a blog. In the past, I've called for some sort of BBWAA-like organization to help build the credibility as well as making sure that blogs are held to a standard, building to a point where discussions like this are unnecessary and that teams give access to those that need and deserve it.

So if we acknowledge that blogs are the "minor leagues", is it possible to set up a voluntary, user-monitored system that puts blogs in some sort of category? A new blog could be considered "Rookie League" at the start, but would voluntarily adhere to the standards. In essence, they would be saying "Hey, I'm new but I understand the rules and am working on my game." After a period of time and no gross violations, they could move up to "Single-A" status. Let's say it's six months or a year. That badge or icon would show people that they've been around a while and have some level of credibility. It would continue on up to "Triple-A", where a long period of credible writing would get you on the cusp of the major leagues.

The problem of course is that there would need to be some sort of standard setting body and as yet, I haven't seen any organization that could do this. Maybe the FSWA, though they've shown little regard for the smaller voices. This type of system wouldn't fix things, but at least we would have a fighting chance at realizing quickly when a blogger is spewing crap in hopes of generating hits. I like to think that like Baker, many of us could gleefully say "It's Triple-A, baby!"