This routine was very much like holding up a gummy worm and saying, “Food is terrible. I mean, look at this thing.”

This made me spit out pop when I read it last night.

I love gummy worms. For some reason, they're better than gummy bears, though I can't figure that out. Aren't they made of the same stuff?

Posnanski with his usual nuanced, reasonable take on an issue.

I think gummy worms are better because you can line them up along your teeth and chew them with your whole mouth at once.

Has Bissinger been heard from since the HBO appearance?
I'd like to think he's been in some press box, where a bunch of his grouchy peers gave him some "Attaboys" for taking on that punk blogger.

Ken Tremendous at FJM said very nearly the same thing yesterday:

"Picking a random blog comment and wielding it as a club to bash "blogs" is like picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, "This book sucks. #### you, Tolstoy -- your medium is worthless!"

Well, I know Leitch writes well, but if you wanted to set up a blog to represent intelligent and thoughtful sports writing on blogs and as a comparison to intellgent and thoughtful sportswriting elsewhere, Deadspin works beautifully for that purpose simply because it is snarky and not particulartly thoughtful. So that's actually pretty deviously ingenius by Costas.

LEO TOLSTOY'S BLOG

April 27, 1908: i'm so sleepy today
April 28, 1908: is the ferment of the peoples of the west at the end of the 18th century and their drive eastward explained by the activity of louis 14, 15, and 16, their mistresses and ministers, and by the lives of napoleon, diderot, beaumarchais and others? is the movement of the russian people eastward to kazan and siberia expressed by details of the morbid character of ivan the terrible and by his correspondence with kurbski? or what?
April 29, 1908: cubs lose again that chance is a freaking idiot TOTALLY lucked his way into the ws win last year small sample size if you ask me

BDMG, I think I just stole your handle.

Posnanski said that WC Heinz would blog today. Now, as Shredder said in one of these recent threads, if you want your blog read, you need to have fresh material every day and probably more often. If writing is pretty much going to go digital as the print media disappears, will there be a spot for writing talent that doesn't necessarily write something new all the time?

I'd like to think he's been in some press box, where a bunch of his grouchy peers gave him some "Attaboys" for taking on that punk blogger.

I was imagining the same thing. I'm sure there are people that thought he masterfully won the debate and exposed Leitch for an idiot.

Posnanski with his usual nuanced, reasonable take on an issue.

This was hilarious:

**Remember in War Games, at the end, when it looked like the danger was over, and then Joshua the computer decided to find the launch codes. They went to Barry Corbin, the general, to tell him and he said, ”Well just unplug the damn thing!“ I suggest that whenever someone starts ranting about the Internet and blogs and people writing in their mother’s basements, we say that he’s ”Corbinating.“

"Corbinating" is officially entering my lexicon.

Does anybody understand what Bissinger hoped, or hopes, to accomplish with this schtick? Does he think people will stop saying snarky or snide things because he's telling Will Leitch he's full of ####? Does he think Internet writing will improve because of that? Was he trying to make bloggers reform through a weird parody of their behavior?

I really don't see what he could accomplish here beyond releasing some spleen.

If writing is pretty much going to go digital as the print media disappears, will there be a spot for writing talent that doesn't necessarily write something new all the time?

I don't know if there will be in a sports context. But one example from the political realm is Billmon, who, near the end of his(?) run, would post very infrequently, like once ever few weeks or month, and it was always lauded as a must read as soon as it was published. So I suppose it's possible, suppose. Same for fafblog, which went away for a year or two, but was big news when it came back recently (at least, in the very small community of people who read lefty political blogs). But both of those example started as blogs that published very regularly before dropping off.

It should be noted that with subscription feeds, it's easier for people publish irregularly to get read than it used to be. You just read something new when it eventually pops up. You don't need to keep visiting the site hoping for new content.

If writing is pretty much going to go digital as the print media disappears, will there be a spot for writing talent that doesn't necessarily write something new all the time?

You team up with other writers to have a source where there's constant product, but individuals write at different paces.

I think a good analogy would be clipping out a ribald personal ad and using it to assail all newspaper writing or even all of print media.

I'd never seen a picture or read a bio of Buzz Bissinger before and after reading about this bit, I assumed the man was in his 70s or 80s. I'm kind of shocked that a 55-year old man is that out of touch.

Huh. Joe Pos is on Facebook. I had no idea.

BDMG - that was some truly brilliant well-paced funny writing in #8 and made me giggle to tears here at work.

Me neither, I just tried to add him.

Leitch should have asked if Buzz had read Pos (or someone else if you prefer). Good writing is good writing. If you're not discerning enough to cull the good from the bad, that's your fault, hombre.

"Me neither, I just tried to add him."

Yeah, me too. I'm almost sorry I pointed it out, because he'll probably get swamped now. I was just too surprised to really think about consequences.

BMDG - Congrats on #8. Brilliant.

I've never watched Costas's show before. Is that normally how he "moderates"? I mean, it was no surprise that Buzz behaved liked that, but for Costas not to reign him in was inexcusable.

Costas's goal was to look like the voice of reason while someone else made all the attack dog points for him, so of course he wasn't going to try to reign Buzz in.

Why blame Buzz? Costas or the shows producer set up a situation meant to or was likely to produce idiocy.

Idiocy happened.

Costas or the shows producer set up a situation meant to or was likely to produce idiocy

that's not fair - they invited Rhodes scholar and noted academic Braylon Edwards to the panel!

Does anyone actually want to argue with Bissinger's description of Deadspin? I agree, of course, that Bissinger is a clown (the NYTimes Play story, as well as his reaction to people calling him out on talk radio, was enough for me to realize that he is a schmuck), and I agree that he is obviously totally unaware of the solid work created by the many, many good online-only journalists and writers, but I have to say, I enjoyed seeing Leitch being called out for the crap that he produces and hosts.

For me, there were 3 losers in that segment, with Braylon Edwards being a winner for simply staying out of the whole thing.

If writing is pretty much going to go digital as the print media disappears, will there be a spot for writing talent that doesn't necessarily write something new all the time?

There are already examples of popular sites where this is going on today, such as The Hardball Times, or even BBTF. Between sites that are composed of multiple writers, and content aggregating sites, there will always be a place for writers who don't update constantly, provided their output is of sufficient quality.

And as far as Buzz Bissinger goes, he's a perfect example of how the ability to turn a phrase is completely unrelated to the ability to provide cogent analysis.

It's weird. I wouldn't really consider THT a blog, although they do have that THT Live feature. I suppose that I have a narrower definition of a blog.

Deadspin, in some ways is like the Newslbog here or the old Clutch Hits.

I guess that when I think of a blog, I think of a one person site that's more idiosyncratic, like the stuff they have at Baseball Toaster or Dave Pinto's Baseball Musings.

I'm just curious why is Buzz, a professional writer, not really a sports journalist or anything of the sort, being the one to go after a blogger? blogging is a lot closer to being a columnist or journalist than it is to being a "writer".

This just made no sense to me. Heck why would Bissinger be vehemently against bloggers to begin with? I mean they aren't intruding on his turf, I know that Bissinger is trying to set himself up as the anti-Michael Lewis, but this is ridiculous. Joe Morgan has more of a right to comment on bloggers than Buzz.

of course it's Deadspin and I think I've read one thing I've liked from them over the years.

Cheers guys :)

I stopped bookmarking Deadspin after a few months of reading it every day, just because it was frequently inane and either so micro or so meta that I really stopped caring. However, two small points: Leitch himself is an excellent writer (his novel Catch is very good indeed), and he sometimes gets excellent writers to write for Deadspin (Pat Jordan's Chasing Jose is terrific stuff; I wonder if Bissinger thinks that Pat Jordan is beneath his notice).

And, for the record, Friday Night Lights is an exceptionally good book too. And Costas isn't a bad writer himself. I don't understand why so many talented people are at each others' throats. But there still seems to be a huge gulf between Internet and print writing cultures, which is hard to figure: you'd think text would just be text, but people see an enormous apparent distinction.

I don't understand why so many talented people are at each others' throats. But there still seems to be a huge gulf between Internet and print writing cultures, which is hard to figure: you'd think text would just be text, but people see an enormous apparent distinction.

Status and money. Some people believe that making money off of your writing and having a company believe that you can help them generate a profit makes you a better writer than someone who gets set up on a site and just starts writing. If I'm writing on a blog on blogspot, and I'm not making money, I would therefore be below people like Bissinger, and it probably angers him that people well below him in his opinion mock him for being stupid or being a terrible writer.

And it's really not that different from any field. I doubt that someone with a PhD in biology wants me to talk about how much of an idiot he is because my high school experiment showed something different from his study.

I don't personally read Deadspin, and I don't care to. It's not my thing. Nonetheless, I did read "Chasing Jose," and as BDMG mentioned, it was exceptionally good stuff.

My guess is that some of the print guys view stuff posted on the internet as something slapped together rather quickly, not painstakingly handcrafted like their stuff. This wouldn't apply to beat writers, of course, but even their stuff gets edited. Whereas alot of stuff that shows up in the blogosphere doesn't have much editing. Look at the articles at BTF.

Now there have been some print writers who had little interference from editors. Bill James and Hunter Thompson come to mind. But most writing benefits from having a fresh set of eyes look at it. Lord knows that mine does.

My guess is that some of the print guys view stuff posted on the internet as something slapped together rather quickly, not painstakingly handcrafted like their stuff. This wouldn't apply to beat writers, of course, but even their stuff gets edited.

Given so many writers' contentious relationship with editors, you'd think they'd be all over the direct-to-reader aspect of blogs. As Bob D. said, it's text, take it for what it is, don't blame the medium.

I'm just curious why is Buzz, a professional writer, not really a sports journalist or anything of the sort, being the one to go after a blogger? blogging is a lot closer to being a columnist or journalist than it is to being a "writer".

I wondered the same thing cfb. Buzz seemed like an odd choice to be the voice of the mainstream, since his particular position is not one shared by many others. Of course, if the objective was to find a hysterical anti-internet voice, they obviously hit the mark. I thought HBO and Costas would have been above that.

Up until a month or so ago, I thought Deadspin was a political site. I clicked through, was unimpressed and left. But good on them for entertaining some people and (seemingly) making a buck.

I don't understand why so many talented people are at each others' throats. But there still seems to be a huge gulf between Internet and print writing cultures, which is hard to figure: you'd think text would just be text, but people see an enormous apparent distinction.

Which is why this is a strawman/fake story created by the show. If there is a divide, I would think it is not too wide; and would only be smaller if each sides "best" shared or communicate in a better situation.

"I doubt that someone with a PhD in biology wants me to talk about how much of an idiot he is because my high school experiment showed something different from his study."

Particularly if he's, y'know, wrong.

I know that Bissinger is trying to set himself up as the anti-Michael Lewis

I thought it was interesting listening to Bissinger flame-out on that sports talk show where he called a guy a "slimeball", that he was actually arguing for pitchers to remain in the minors, and for organizations to watch their pitch counts, to protect their arms. That's something the sabermetric crowd has been saying for year (the pitch counts at least, not sure about the time in the minors). His critical error however, was assuming that pitchers these days are rushed to the big leagues, unlike the "good ol days" because that's what Tony LaRussa told him, instead of, you know, doing what journalists are supposed to do and researching whether that's factual.

I still think the gulf is primal -- sportswriters were our eyes and ears into sports and what they wrote could hardly be questioned. They were reasonably well paid and worked for prestigious organizations, more or less. Well nowadays, the print media business is circling the drain and with the explosion of data, sportswriters are being held to a level of analytical standard that they never had to attain previously. Some are equipped and some are not; as in any profession, some are willing to learn new things and others can't or won't. Only the equipped and willing will thrive (Joe Poz leaps to mind), the rest are struggling as never before.
So you are a print writer. Devoted 25 years to the profession. You've won some local awards, you have written a few articles in your past that are pure gold, phrases dancing in the air like nervous hummingbirds. You know Jim Rice belongs in the HOF because you saw how feared he was and his numbers match some HOF entrants. You looked at some Bill James book a years ago but thought he was a guy just trying to back door into your profession.
Slowly, there starts appearing some new kind of writing. You look at a couple examples sent you by your buddies and conclude these new people are idiots, or at best, wannabes who couldn't get into J-school. But they keep popping up -- suddenly your expertise, your reputation so carefully honed, is up for question, indeed up for ridicule. Maybe you should have taken that Intro to Statistics back in J-school, but dammit, you're a writer, not a math geek. You know what a good ball player is and what one isn't.
These on-line people, uh bloggers?, are everywhere, like a thousand annoying little brothers. They are allowed to fight any way they want, they're everywhere and you don't know where another incarnation is going to pop up. They are held to no journalistic standards and you, as MSM, cry foul. So much of the writing is juvenile, sarcastic, personal, hateful and overbearing. Lashing out is understandable as a first reaction.
But after the first wave of reaction, there is no excuse for Costas and others, bright people I believe, for deliberately misrepresenting the current environment and setting up false scenarios. If they are the enemy, shouldn't you know them and what makes them tick? This is competition on very different terms than you bargained for. It has happened for many occupations. You know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer should be what you are doing. Figure out the key differences and learn them and incorporate them in your work.
You know, I read the daily newspaper, including all the baseball writers. The Philly Inquirer baseball writers are pretty average on a whole, I think. They now know Prospectus and I think Pinto's gotten a reference once or twice. (Conlin writes for the Daily News, so my only contact with his eminence is through here).
For example, if someone gets promoted from the minors, I have no faith that the Inq. writers can tell me about what to expect from the promotee. I will jump immediately to the Transaction Analysis and see what Symbronski (ASIDE: Nipplerent, he never complains when his name is mispelled) and ZIPS have to say and hope that Mike Emeigh (sp? again) drops a line. And I dig out Prospectus and look at the writeup and stats so I can get a sense of the player. I don't expect that Sam Carchidi design his own ZIPS, but why not talk to some projections like I can get on-line? Adding that ability to use the plethora of new tools to expand one's skills seems to be lost on most of the traditional media. You know, I'm in the age range of many of these guys and I've always taken the meaning of the message of the The Who to heart: "I hope I die before I get old."

EDIT: Cleaned up spelling and formatting.

"I doubt that someone with a PhD in biology wants me to talk about how much of an idiot he is because my high school experiment showed something different from his study."

Particularly if he's, y'know, wrong.

Well, its not quite like that. That would be the case only if your high school experiment was attracting nearly as much attention, if not more, than the work of the biology PhD. I can kind of understand why a biology PhD would be miffed at that.

I enjoyed seeing Leitch being called out for the crap that he produces and hosts.

I guess I just don't see why everyone views Deadspin as some competition for newspapers and tv. I don't even view it as "sports", I view it as a comedy website. It's not meant to be serious journalism.

Status and money. Some people believe that making money off of your writing and having a company believe that you can help them generate a profit makes you a better writer than someone who gets set up on a site and just starts writing. If I'm writing on a blog on blogspot, and I'm not making money, I would therefore be below people like Bissinger, and it probably angers him that people well below him in his opinion mock him for being stupid or being a terrible writer.


That, and before the blogs, the "common man" didn't have a voice. No matter what, the writers could write what they wanted, the tv guys could do what they wanted, and people had to listen. I believe there's a big part that these guys don't like being criticized (who does), don't like being taken to task, and don't like that their viewers and readers have a way of voicing their displeasure.

Well, its not quite like that. That would be the case only if your high school experiment was attracting nearly as much attention, if not more, than the work of the biology PhD. I can kind of understand why a biology PhD would be miffed at that.

You mean like when a patent office worker turned the entire physics world on its head?

If Will would have only stuck it out with The Black Table and didn't have gawklah moolah behind him...none of this would have happened!

One meaningful difference between traditional (i.e., newsprint) sportswriting and the "blogosphere" is that the average blogger is willing and able to draw inspiration and even content from the work of other bloggers. This is viable and appropriate because this blogger can build on what the others have said, and even if he doesn't, he may draw attention to something that readers might otherwise have missed (who knows what blogs your readers will see?). Take for example Rob Neyer, whose blog generally starts with an article he's seen elsewhere, and then follows with Rob's take on the subject. Or his "Mendozas", "Wangdoodles", and "Filberts", which are almost entirely link dumps, where he tries to point his readers towards other writing that he finds entertaining or important, and certainly have pointed me to things I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

On the other hand, in the print medium, a writer wouldn't or couldn't draw attention to the articles in a competing publication, and certainly couldn't do it on the day of their publishing. And drawing attention to other writers in your own paper would be useless, since your readers obviously had access to them in the first place. Print writers tend to draw their material from observation of an event, or discussion with a player, as opposed to drawing from the writing of another writer.

I think this may be part of what causes the great "divide". It's not to say there aren't blog writers who are talking about what they've seen or what they've heard, and it's not that there aren't print articles discussing something that was written, but that there's a willingness and ability to share in the online media that's not present in print. In some ways, it takes the place of the editor, because you know what you write is going to be critiqued and discussed by other online writers. But it's different from what you see in print, and it's definitely one of the big differences between print sportswriting and online sportswriting.

I've always wondered why paid, MSM political pundits don't rail against political blogs the way sportswriters do. What's the difference? I mean, apart from the respective IQs of political writers over sportswriters.

ALSO: while Joe Posnanski is the usual go-to reference for a sportswriter who "gets it" (and make no mistake, I love Joe P), it's worth noting that there are many out there who do. At ShysterBall I get hits, emails, and approving comments from guys at newspapers almost every day. These guys don't see blogs as a threat. If anything, they read the stuff bloggers write and use it as inspiration. In other words, they work off of us just like we work off of them, and everyone manages to get along. Imagine.

I've always wondered why paid, MSM political pundits don't rail against political blogs the way sportswriters do.
Willful ignorance among some in the MSM towards the tools available to them so they are getting out-analyzed by the bloggers?

EDIT: Ugh, made comment coherent (I think).

Given so many writers' contentious relationship with editors, you'd think they'd be all over the direct-to-reader aspect of blogs.

Heh. Most of my work for BioProject has ended up nothing like my original drafts. This is mainly a good thing, but sometimes the stuff that gets cut out was material that I really liked. For instance, the fact that Billy Southworth's brother killed the last passenger pigeon probably wound up getting scrapped from my Southworth bio due to space constraints.

I've always wondered why paid, MSM political pundits don't rail against political blogs the way sportswriters do.

They do quite a bit initially, until it became clear how effective blogs were at spreading message and raising money.

I wonder how many people were asked to do the panel and said no. They could've asked Curt Schilling, who at least can claim to be both an athlete and a blogger, and isn't exactly busy on the field right now. If nothing else, Bissinger wouldn't have been able to get a word in with Schilling on the panel.

I tend to think the producers picked Leitsch just so they could turn the "debate" into this bloggers as adolescent rumor-slingers strawman they wound up with. Still, Bissinger seems like an odd choice, based on the points everyone made already. One of the more frequent columnist targets, like Conlin or Mariotti, would've made more sense.

Or how about this: a panel with Joe Morgan and the guy from FJM. It would have been a more interesting trainwreck than the trainwreck they wound up with, anyway.

I've read Three Nights in August, and believe me, Bissinger has good reason to feel threatened. His prose is excrutiatingly bad: full of cutseyisms, showy self-impressed flourishes, and ill-informed know-it-all asides. People think highly of Friday Night Lights, but after suffering through the LaRussa book and hearing his contempt for how young people read and communicate, I wouldn't go near it.

"It is wrong to say that the new breed doesn't care about baseball," he wrote. "But it's not wrong to say that there is no way they could possibly love it, and so much of baseball is about love. They don't have the sense of history, which to the thirtysomethings is largely bunk."

He actually wrote this in the Tony LaRussa book? That's just an insult. What, does he think that today's baseball front-office drones are all in it for the big big money? The fame?

And in the service of idolizing such love-filled, jolly old-timers as Tony LaRussa, no less.