THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wow.  I had some respect for Bob Costas; I didn’t think he was that ignorant.  And I certainly didn’t think he’d be a “bloggers live in their mother’s basement and need to get a life” type.

My sympathy for Barry Bonds just increased a little bit.

I don’t understand the claim that bloggers have no accountability. We all comment on each other’s blogs and link to them and praise/criticize in turn, and the people who don’t want to be held accountable or don’t say anything interesting or worthwhile in the first place are just marginalized. The same is not true of newspaper and magazine writers.

Not the least bit surprising.  I’ve never met a guy that loves himself more than Bob Costas.

He stopped being relevant some time in the late ‘90s.

I think it’s even worse than Costas realizes.  Some of these pathetic get-a-life losers are actually getting FEATURED in the local papers, and not just in the comments sections.

Recently
and
Last Summer

Talk about a disaster. Why can’t we go back to the day when the only people who could write about a team were card-carrying members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
-j

There’s also FJM’s Junior who wrote an SI article a few weeks ago about Jimmy Rollins and Juno. Nate Silver and another BP writer often write mini-articles for Sports Illustrated.

Question: Would Bob Costas ever write anything about sports without being paid for it?

Yes, I thought that Costas was smart and insightful as well.  I guess not in this area or in this instance. 

Anyway, there is no doubt (in my mind), at least in sports, and probably in politics (and other areas) too, that the “blogosphere” is WAY more insightful, intelligent, and cutting edge than the mainstream media.  That is so true in sports that it is not even funny.  And OF COURSE, bloggers are accountable (at least held so by the readers), whereas for the most part, mainstream sports writers are not, unless they choose to participate in sites like BTF, which 99% do not.  In sports, if you want to read about “technicalities” (like who was traded, who said what, who won what and how, etc.), read the MSM.  If you want some REAL insight into the game or sport, read a blog (or the occasional MS journalist like Posnaski or Neyer).  It is as simple and as CLEAR as that.  Anyone who thinks that blogs are for the most part garbage is operating on a very ignorant and neanderthal level.

To be fair to Costas (which we don’t really need to be), there is an awful lot of crap out there.  A lot of the top-hyped sports articles on Ballhype are often from blogs that focus on sports babes, rumor mongering, etc.  And the comments sections attached to local papers often are filled with the rants of the ridiculous.

But the quality stuff isn’t rare nor difficult to find.  And the best quality stuff is very, very high quality--certainly on par with what you see in peer-reviewed academic journals, much less mainstream media.  Costas clearly hasn’t looked very deeply into this...and therefore really shouldn’t be ripping on something that he hasn’t taken the time to even begin to understand.
-j

If the local village newspaper is crap, does that mean the Wall Street Journal is as well?

Costas is operating on the same tried-true-and-tested neanderthal view that racists operate under: paint every person in a group with the same brush.

Well, Tango, it is a proven fact that all Canadians are inferior to us Americans

Tango, Gammons is much more into blogs than Costas.  He may not always agree with them, but reads them and promotes them on his ESPN page.

David, I thought so as well, but Gammons also used the “basements” or “robots” argument just a couple of months back (twice I think).  It was highlighted elsewhere in my blog.

The blog world reacts to Costas:
http://ballhype.com/story/sports_bloggers_weave_a_tangled_web_03_14_2008/

Some 20 blogs already…

Not to kick the two ton elephant in Costas’ office (because frankly elephants and clowns scare me), but while the blogosphere may not be “accountable” in the sense that a journalist is, it also doesn’t have to whore itself for ratings and sales either....

What bothers me about the writers/commentators who make this argument is that nothing except a long time following the game qualifies them to be experts (and don’t most basement-dwelling bloggers, like, follow the game?). The expertise for guys like Costas is in broadcasting or writing or some other media-related skill. So what makes them more qualified to have an opinion? Or is it just the expression of the opinion (usually in written form) that makes them feel threatened? Are they worried that this “low-class” journalism is going to overtake them?

The players, coaches, and ex-players who hate sabermetrics seem to feel threatened that they’ll end up losing their jobs to “robots.” Seems like guys like Costas feel threatened because a site like FJM is more popular than the local paper.

In the end, it has very littel to do with credibility or journalistic responsibility.

What’s funny is, the argument isn’t that stats are bad, it’s simply these new stats that sports writers don’t understand are bad. And when they defend the stats they use, it’s the old “we’ve been using these forever” argument which implies that progress is evil and the status quo should never be changed.

Costas clarifies and addresses his comments on Deadspin:

http://deadspin.com/368648/bob-costas-addresses-last-weeks-comments