![]() In other words, a stat that’s very compatible with the world of the futility infielder. The better the record without, the higher the Index. Named after stathead whipping boy Neifi Perez, he of the career 686 OPS, the Index measures a team’s winning percentage with and without a player in the lineup. Kaufman’s even made minor sabermetric splash with his own contribution, the Neifi Index. One thing that’s worth noting is that Kaufman’s own style is very blog-influenced his column went daily back in June, and unlike many mainstream columnists, his work is full of hyperlinks most established media entities (the publications, not the writers) sweat in fear that if you click on a link - gasp! - you’ll vanish into the ether of the Net, never to return to their site. Punters aren’t even included! Where have you gone, Ray Guy? On the other hand, Baseball-Reference’s historical pigskin counterpart, Pro-Football-Reference, is a thin gruel by comparison, listing only ballhandlers who meet certain qualifications and ignoring the guys in the trenches who give the game its character. You can track down the box score of your first major-league game, sponsor a favorite role player‘s stat page, analyze the numbers until your eyes cross, or discuss and debate recent news articles with intelligent fans. Baseball history is a river of statistics, and its vast body is accessible online via Baseball-Reference, Retrosheet, ESPN and the like. You don’t stop drinking it just because it’s December.Īnd there’s the stat thing. For those of us in the world of baseball blogs, this stuff - whether it’s spring training, the dog days of August, the World Series, or the Hot Stove League - is as essential as the morning cup of coffee. ![]() We do this every day.” I think that hits the nail on the head. He pulls a couple of great quotes comparing the two sports, including this one from the Washington Post‘s Bob Thompson: “Baseball is a fat Victorian novel, replete with colorful minor characters and discursive subplots, into which a fan can disappear for months football is a series of quick- cutting TV cop shows.”Īnswering Kaufman’s premise, Belth is even more succinct, drawing upon one of my all-time favorite quotes from Oriole managing legend Earl Weaver, as told to the Post‘s Thomas Boswell years ago: “This ain’t football. That’s a scary vision, but anybody who saw the Tigers lose 15-5 to the Yankees last night knows that in terms of the dark oddities of the Web, Tiger blogging has to be right there with fantasy fishing, midget porn, and trepanning cults.īased on interviews with bloggers from both sports (including some recognizable names, such as Bronx Banter‘s Alex Belth and Bambino’s Curse‘s Edward Cossette), Kaufman cites four reasons baseball outpaces football on the web: the game’s literary tradition, its season length, its daily nature, and the popularity of sabermetric analysis. After quite a bit of searching, I know of more blogs devoted to the Detroit Tigers than to the NFL.” There might be a few around, but you’re not tripping over them. ![]() As he writes, “earching for football blogs is like looking for Metallica fans at a Clay Aiken concert. Pointing out that while there are no fewer than 155 blogs linked via Baseball News Blog, he notes that the pigskin sport is quite neglected online. writer King Kaufman, whose work I’ve dug for a long time, has an excellent article today about the dearth of football blogs compared to baseball ones.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |