Last year I had a subscription to Baseball Digest. Supporting a print baseball magazine felt like a good thing to do. At the same time, though, it highlighted the very well-publicized shortcomings of the printed page in a web-based media environment. Baseball Digest describes itself as “the oldest and only baseball magazine in the country.” [...]
Entries from January 2009
January 22, 2009
A perfect paper world: My ideal baseball magazine in a less than ideal magazine-starting world
January 16, 2009
bigPumaLinks: The good king Kaufman edition
Interview with Josh Wilker, of the inimitable Cardboard Gods blog. Scott Simkus
For the first time ever, The MLB Network broadcasts the unveiling of this year’s HOFers. Awful Announcing
King Kaufman is tired of the smug ignorance in baseball writing. Salon.com
Kaufman also enjoyed watching Larsen’s perfect game on the MLB Network for reasons similar to my own. [...]
January 14, 2009
Reading into the micro-narrative: The hot stove league then and trade rumors now
ru-mor
-noun
1. a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts.
2. gossip; hearsay.
3. Archaic. a continuous, confused noise; clamor; din.
-verb
4. to circulate, report, or assert by a rumor.
According to baseball historian Lee Allen in The Hot Stove League, “No one knows when baseball followers first began to gather in winter around [...]
January 9, 2009
Knowledge-able in an infinite world: the navigation of the decentralization of baseball stats
The Baseball Encyclopedia, published first in 1969, blew peoples’ minds. The baseball public had never before seen every baseball stat gathered in one place with such authority and finality. Players from the old days that had been entirely forgotten were suddenly right there, on paper, in this impressive fat book that staked an unprecedented claim [...]
January 5, 2009
Can baseball get a witness?: Umpires, computers, and the space between
“this is why ive been saying for years.. let k zone and all the computer things we see on espn and fox etc. call balls and strikes… this way it would always be acurate” – comment from a forum user on OperationSports.com
“It ain’t anything ’til I call it.” – Hall of Fame upmire Bill Klem
Rule [...]
January 2, 2009
bigPumaLinks: MLB Network debut edition
MLB.com provides a broad set of reactions to the new MLB Network. MLB.com
Awful Announcing weighs in on the MLB Network debut. Awful Announcing
Wrigley Field gets a temporary makeover to blow your crossover sporting mind. Chicago Tribune
A wrap-up of the year in sports advertising from columnist Dave Darling. Orlando Sentinel
Rob Neyer looks at the new hotness [...]
January 2, 2009
Adam Gopnik on Baseball
excerpts from a May 19, 1986 New Yorker article on aesthetics and baseball, “Quattrocento Baseball” by Adam Gopnik:
“Baseball can’t be grasped by a formalist aesthetic; the appeal of the game can’t be understood by an analysis of its moments. As in painting, the expressive effect, the spell, of baseball, depends on our understanding of context, [...]
January 2, 2009
MLB Network Debut: Year-round baseball on TV
So the MLB Network has launched itself. I scanned through the Comcast guide to find it and there it was, channel 5,349 or something like that (516, in fact). I am very excited. During the MLB off-season, it’s a challenge to find any baseball on TV. There is baseball chatter, hot stove excitement and what [...]
