Thanks, Maury. There are over 700 writers there, and maybe 5-10 that I would actually take the time to read. Thomas Boswell (who is great), Murray Chass and a few others. The ratio of heat to light (or noise to signal, if you prefer) in the print medium is way, way higher than on the internets.

My Kinks reference on the previous page got the song going through my head, which I realized could easily be adapted to an official anthem for the BBWAA:

We are the Jerry Green Preservation Society
God save the clubhouse spread, folding chairs and Glenmorangie
We are the Elastic Brace Preservation Society
God save fedora hats and all the different varieties
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Rejecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?

We are the Counting Stat Preservation Society
God save the pitcher win, stolen base and the RBI
We are the Sac Bunt Appreciation Consortium
God save the three out save and all those who were awarded them
We are the Bill Plaschke One Sentence Paragraph Admirers
Help save The Detroit News and Philadelphia Inquirer
We are the Stathead Persecution Affinity
God save Italian beef, cheap cigars and obesity
We are the Weblog Condemnation Affiliate
God save Miller Lite and the lobby bar at the Marriott
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Rejecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?

For those interested, I will be publishing an article on the BBWAA process later today on The Biz of Baseball. I have been in discussions with Bob Dutton all weekend for the piece, which will not address all concerns, but does answer many.

I uh don't actually visit your blog that often, i'm almost sorry to admit. Could you link it here after you've posted it? Thanks.

One aspect that I have published in advance of the article is a list of all badge members as of May 2007.

Badge #318 - Jason Whitlock, Kansas City Star.

Um, Mr. Dutton, since you're an employee of the Star as well and can therefore personally attest to the fact that Mr. Whitlock attends perhaps 2 Royals games each year (and thus clearly doesn't need a BBWAA credential to do his job), would you care to re-think that whole "gotta be at the games" argument against Neyer and Law?

Actually, Erik, from what I've read (again, god knows how true) he was actually kind of impossible to be around. I hope that's wrong, but I doubt it.

Did you guys ever see his commentaries years ago on the Sci-Fi Channel? Highly entertaining, but he came across as extremely arrogant.

Wow, a party over the weekend and I'm not finding out about it until Monday morning. It's like high school all over again. ;-)

I skimmed the last 200 posts or so, so I don't know if this has been brought up or not. The success of the "internet/sabermetric writers" has been almost entirely because they have made the best of not having access to players, front offices, etc. They worked with the people & things to which they had access - most notably the rich statistical record of MLB. It is as clear as it can be that such writers have not needed BBWAA credentials to do what they have done. It could also be said that the lack of BBWAA credentials has not prevented Peter Gammons from doing what he has done - heck, he won the Spink award without it, didn't he?

Note that I stated everything in terms of what they've done: past tense. Where things get interesting is if you move to what they're doing, or what they will be doing going forward. It is pretty easy to see that Gammons' job becomes a little easier with the BBWAA credentials: though he seems to have generally unfettered access already, having the kind of access the credentials bring fits in with his role. With the Neyers of the world - as though there's really more than one Neyer - it's considerably less clear that it fits.

That said, in theory there's so much more Neyer could do with that kind of access, isn't there? He's already demonstrated that he can make great use of the table scraps* he has available; imagine what paths he could take if he could more easily tap into the collective wisdom of baseball personnel as a starting point for his analytical endeavors. Still, if they were to grant access on that basis - that one could do one's job better with access - it'd be hard to keep out anyone more qualified than I. And that's a lot of people.

So... I'm perfectly comfortable with Neyer and Law being excluded from the BBWAA on the basis that they don't need it to do their job. I am uncomfortable with the notion that the BBWAA alone should hold the keys to the Hall of Fame for the first 20 years after retirement. Certainly the BBWAA should be involved, but that particular subset of society is not nearly the only fountain of knowledge. I suggest the HOF consider its rules for election to include something other than just the voters who the BBWAA deems appropriate for membership.

The BBWAA still serves an important role, but that role is not something the public sees from day to day. All the ways in which the public sees the BBWAA, they are contributing to the diminishing of their own relevance.

*If statistics are the table scraps, I'd hate to see what the BBWAA members are eating.

anyone notice who #600 is????!!!

and i can tell all yall fer SHER that #586 is not a baseball writer and has never written one single baseball article EVER. i got no idea why he would even need to go to ANY sports game to do his job.

so this stuff about neyer needing to go to so many baseball games is a lot of icky poopoo

I own The Essential Ellison and Angry Candy, which are collections of Ellison's stuff. I don't really care if he was an insufferable jerk; he could write a hell of a story.

Including one in which a sitcom laugh track trapped the soul of the people who were originally recorded for it, condemmming them to an everlasting purgatory in which they're subjected to many According to Jim-type lame sitcoms forever.

For those interested, I have published my interview with Dutton on The Biz of Baseball. I have made it known to Repoz and am hopeful it will show up here as a discussion thread on BTF.

I'll stand up for Tracy- he didnt agree (or understand) one of my unclear posts and sent a polite email.

I dont read the newspaper, so I have no idea what he's like but best wishes and hope he posts agian (and like all of us, as I tell my kids, "think before you speak (or type)

Perception, Perception, Perception -it can make or break

A quick scan of the BBWAA list reveals these 2 writers.

Wayne Scanlan Ottawa Citizen
Don Campbell Ottawa Citizen

I subscribe to this paper and have read it for many, many years.

I don't know why these two have BBWAA credentials, because like, we have no big league team. The nearest big league team is in Toronto which is 250 miles away. These guys rarely write about baseball. They both like baseball - Campbell coaches in fact - but to consider them "baseball" writers is a huge stretch.

Andere, nice work.

Dear lisa:

Thank you for changing our nom de site back.

The other was . . . unpleasant.

Wow, a party over the weekend and I'm not finding out about it until Monday morning.

Man. . . can't believe I worked all weekend and missed this!

ballfan: Best cowboy hat on the internet.

srul

laughing

what can i say

mennnnnnnnnnn
often imitated never duplicated...