The weekend has arrived, but the blogosphere does not take a holiday. There are no holidays in the blogosphere. The same cannot be said for various other online news sources. Once Friday afternoon rolls around, ESPN tells its staffers to stop what they’re doing and relax, even if they’re in the middle of producing yet another vital Top 100 Everything Ever in Sport list. That pisses me off, because while I never enjoy those silly lists, I’m just bonkers about non-traditional collectives like “Sport” and “Coin”. Page 2 has gone down the tubes, ESPN -- it used to be interesting and even a little funny. Where have you gone, Bill Simmons? I turn my lonely eyes to your weekly ESPN The Magazine 800-word column and can hardly read it through the tears. Three times a week, you used to write. Now you work for a show that in all honesty I’d rather read you write about than actually watch, and your posting on ESPN has slowed more than ours will after May rolls around and we come to our senses. Bill, I implore you: save us from Shanoff and this strange Hollywood Jock guy. Team up with Wiley and make the world a better place, which it will be if there is one less Hot/Not chart produced every week.
But while we wait for a sign of the Sports Guy’s return to prominence (could a venture into blogging, however brief, be the ticket?), at least we’ve got blog posts to keep us busy on the weekends of the offseason’s offseason. I’d like to show you some of my recent favorites, because let’s face it: in a couple of years, all we’re going to be doing is posting about how posting makes us feel, using the word blog entirely too often, and directing our ennui-ridden visitors to check out a self-indulgent skein of site references so we don’t have to come up with original content that day. I’m just getting a jump on the ball.
(By the way, I know that most of you have found us through one of these sites – except if you’re the guy who typed in "ben cherington picture" and found us, more power to you – but I’m writing this because maybe for some irrational reason like a purpose in life or a family who loves you, you haven’t checked out all the worthy links on our sidebar.)
My first stop is always Baseball Musings by Dave Pinto, who in my limited but nonetheless relevant view is the Vito Corleone of the blogscape. He posts several times a day when baseball news permits, directing the lesser denizens of his crime fami – ok, that’s stretching the metaphor too thin, but he always provides great links to whatever is going on. He’s also funny, which counts a lot with me:
The union proved with the veto of the A-Rod deal that they won't let the CBA be violated, and my bet is they will see a sign and trade as a clear violation of the CBA, and stiff I-Rod, too. (That would leave a month to stiff E-Rod, O-Rod, U-Rod and Sometimes Y-Rod.)
He’s also done a lot of work on a probabilistic model of defensive range which I think is cool. Here’s the link to his defense-related columns, where after scrolling down a little you’ll find tables charting the performances of fielders at all positions this past year, and further down, a little more information about the model itself. That’s worth a good ten minutes or so, at least long enough to compare Roger Cedeno to Mike Cameron. (I told you, this guy can make you laugh.)
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As Stuart Scott might say, in a way that is not annoying at all, if ya don’t know who Eddie Kranepool was, now ya know. I figured anyone referencing such an ancient figure in the Mets early pantheon must be a pretty sharp customer, and in my mind Steve Keane of The Eddie Kranepool Society fits that bill. I check him out for his timely, frequent posts on the latest Mets’ bungles, as well as down to earth, shot from the hip analyses of other important baseball stories. Like this wickedly barbed remark aimed for the reliable Roger Clemens:
And Roger please spare us the bullshit Ward Cleaver act, “My boys gave me an Astros hat so I knew they wanted me to play again” Please. You still wanted to pitch. You wanted to be an Olympian and that bubble had burst. Your best buddy joined the team that plays in the area you call home, after being dissed by your former team so you went into “we’ll show them mode” then you thought about sharing a hot shower with Andy Pettitte again and you were sold.
Ouch. Just, ouch. Check this guy out, he’s got a million of those.
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Eric of SaberMets is another of my mainstays. He puts together well-written, detailed posts covering Mets issues from all angles, and as the name suggests, supports them with the appropriate statistics. Also, while his dapper Movable Type site looks very professional, don’t think for a minute that he’s above cracking wise about stupid, stupid baseball players. For instance, in this look at Grant Roberts’ chance of cracking the Mets’ rotation in 2004, he jabs:
The Mets are giving him another shot at starting, and Roberts is reportedly very excited about this opportunity. After all, as a starter, he'd be able to smoke pot four out of every five days and not have to worry about pitching in a game. Woo-hoo!
Anyone who shares my love of poking fun at Roberts, and additionally gets our site more hits than old Grant enjoys daily, is a must-read in my book. Also a nod for being the only one I saw to mock the Mets’ 2004 slogan of “Catch the Energy!”.
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A quick, but no less impressed shout-out goes to “k d” from Flushing Local for being the only Mets writer in recent days to make me laugh outwardly instead of just in my vapid, empty head. Here’s the sarcasm what done it, from his/her/its post announcing the impending Zeile signing:
As part of their movement towards youth, speed and defense, the Mets have signed 38 year old corner man Todd Zeile. Zeile will replace the now-retired Jay Bell as Designated Veteran on the Mets 25-man roster.
Although two months older, a couple of steps slower and noticeably less agile in the field than Bell, the Mets are confident Zeile will mesh well with their youth movement. Apparently, the idea is to make the players on the team who actually are young, fast and good defenders appear even more fearsome to opponents when observed next to Zeile during pre-game warmups.
Zeile is also expected to spend time with his good friend Mike Piazza, teaching him the myriad intricacies of playing first base, as well as providing tips on how to make the most of his own slowness and clumsiness with the glove.
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And finally -- until the next day I have little to say, at least -- another recent favorite of mine is Metsblog, who, with honorable mention to Always Amazin', seems to get more scoops than Mo Vaughn at a...at an, er...when he visits a...(Wow. I didn’t think it would happen yet, but I appear to have just run out of Mo Vaughn jokes. Sorry.) At any rate, Metsblog is always good for a unique take (really) on the Mets’ moves, well-written and beautifully showcased in what is without doubt the finest-looking Mets site around. The most ingenious part of their blog is their weekly-updated chart of fans’ confidence in the Mets. The votes range from 1-10. Here's a practical idea of what the range means:
[1] – My barber, once a diehard fan, now an embittered shadow of his former lively self. He took clippers to his passion for the orange and blue after the strike-shortened season in ’94. Since then my haircuts have been torturous blocks of silence occasionally broken by me saying “so, gonna break down and watch some Mets this week?” and then my invariable squeal as he jabs me with something sharp. I bleed, he bleeds, my hair keeps growing, and the cycle begins anew with familiar yet uncomfortable regularity. Maybe Reyes can do something about this. I doubt it.
[4.3] – The average rating as of this posting. These would be well-educated, informed fans who have been following the Mets for a number of years and are cautiously optimistic if they are optimistic at all. I would lump myself in with them except that my 4.x would come from the average of a vote of 8 (after we signed Kaz) and a vote of 1 (after we lost Guerrero). My confidence this year vacillates like a hanged man in a stiff breeze.
[10] – This lofty vote is reserved for the sugary sweet spun-sugar-on-a-stick optimist who firmly believes that Piazza and Floyd will stay out of the infirmary, that Cameron is so fast he’ll be inducing the infield fly rule, and that Glavine’s problem is QuesTec and a mound angle, instead of Father Time and an unwillingness to face the worst decision of his life absent a petulant sneer and an omnipresent whine. I don’t think these fans are aware of the Internet yet, actually, so we can probably eliminate votes of 10 as products of the same bot that sends me Nigerian banking propositions.
Whatever you choose, I think it’s pretty obvious we’ve got the most well-informed or pessimistic fan presence online. Three cheers for the blogosphere; we must be playing a part in that.
Number of times I used the word blog in some form: 10
Number of times I considered ending it all: 8. If that seems low, just turn it on its side. I couldn’t find the symbol for infinity.
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