Down here, in the parents’ basements that is the blogosphere, we despise sportswriters. No matter how long you’ve been around, either a long time or a short time, someone is going to make fun of you. Heck, there have been entire sites devoted to how bad some are (granted, the namesake was an announcer, but you get my point).
So imagine my surprise when I find myself regularly enjoying a column by someone who writes for one of The Big Boys.
This morning I perused Joe Posnaski’s article about Mike Jacobs and found myself fully enthralled. He writes with the knowledge of an old scout, somone who has been around the game for forever. He’s been in the locker rooms, on the spring training fields, and in the press booths for more games than he probably cares to remember. He seems like he should be in that class of writer who would despise blogs.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he writes with the fun and passion of a fan. He recognizes that there are parts of the game, which most people take way too seriously, that are just fun. He just enjoys himself as if he were sitting in the bleachers with us normal folks.
He writes like a blogger.
I’m not saying he is purveyor of fine dick jokes or uses pictures of sexy ladies to drive up page views. I’m saying that he seems like he got into his line of work because he loved baseball so much that he couldn’t not talk or write about it. Just like all of us that took up the keyboard on this thing we call the internet. We have a passion for sports that couldn’t be contained. Doing that is a lot easier nowadays. Starting up a blog is so simple an idiot could do. In fact, most people that do it are in fact idiots. So that makes me love Posnaski even more. He apparently loved the game so much that he toiled and worked until his fan voice could be heard by as many people as possible.
And this isn’t the first time I’ve been draw in by Joe’s work. Am I late to the party on this guy? Probably. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who love and respect this guy’s work already and think I’m the idiot for not having heard about this guy sooner. And they’re probably right. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to give kind words to someone in a world of people we usually crap all over.
So good job, Joe.