Red Sox player starts blog, sportswriter mocks it
Steve Safran March 26th, 2007
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has begun a blog, 38 Pitches (Curt’s #38) where he talks about baseball directly with the fans. On the blog, Curt even broke some news about the Red Sox choice for which pitcher would be their closer this season. Now Schill is definitely an outspoken guy - he calls into sports radio and has posted on Sox forums, and the blog is a logical extension of his persona. So does the Boston media welcome this refreshingly open exchange with a ballplayer? Nope. In today’s Boston Globe, sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy mocks the blog and the people who comment there.
Adds Cory in comments: “Sports is a key section on newspaper sites (and many TV sites), and it draws a ton of traffic. But now the pro teams are creating their own online media destinations with their own video reporting and player blogs. At the same time, the leagues are restricting the video we can show online, and most won’t allow their players to blog for us. You get the picture. They want our users to shift to their sites. They want our eyeballs, yet at the same time, our reporting has promoted their teams and their players for years. So from a personal perspective, let this guy blog. But professionally, blogs like these are a direct competitive threat.”
14 Comments Add your own
1. invitedmedia | March 26th, 2007 at 6:52 am
over the weekend i noticed another boston area guy (brand new to the job i think) post that a youtuber scooped his outlet with video of an apartment fire.
i wondered how long that story would last on their homepage.
not too.
it’s gone.
good job, neil.
2. saundra | March 26th, 2007 at 7:14 am
I always cringe when the “media elite” live up to that name. There should be room in the information exchange for a player’s blog as well as commentary from sportswriters. However, when those sportswriters are so arrogant and condescending to real fans, maybe it IS time to cut out the middle man.
3. Anonymous | March 26th, 2007 at 7:35 am
I can’t seem to load the link from Boston.com, maybe its down?
So while I have not read Dan’s column (anyone who is a Sox fan knows he can be really bombastic and a bit whacked at times), why can’t Schilling blog?
Is Schilling’s direct feed to the world a threat to hardworking sports reporters who trudge around the nation seeking quotes every day of the season? Yup. But so what?
Schilling’s gonna talk and he’s gonna blog. I for one and gonna read it alot. As will, I suspect, any MLB scout who wants to get better understanding of his approach to each critical at-bat in any given game. Could be really useful, but maybe no more than the complete video archive every team has of every at-bat in the league, ever. (Ok at least over the past couple years, anyway.)
4. meatballretorts | March 26th, 2007 at 8:05 am
who’s Dan Shaughnessy?
5. Cory | March 26th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Sports is a key section on newspaper sites (and many TV sites), and it draws a ton of traffic. But now the pro teams are creating their own online media destinations with their own video reporting and player blogs. At the same time, the leagues are restricting the video we can show online, and most won’t allow their players to blog for us. You get the picture. They want our users to shift to their sites. They want our eyeballs, yet at the same time, our reporting has promoted their teams and their players for years. So from a personal perspective, let this guy blog. But professionally, blogs like these are a direct competitive threat
6. Jay | March 26th, 2007 at 8:32 am
Of course they are going to mock it…they want the story. Schilling’s putting it directly out there instead of the media.
7. G Man | March 26th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Sportswriting is mostly ‘Monday Morning Quarterbacking’ anyway. A bunch of unatheletic guys who seem to know more about how the game should be played than the guys who have to go out and do it.
8. Steve Safran | March 26th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Sports writers are increasingly bitter that the players won’t talk with them. Fine - that can get frustrating when that’s your beat. But for Shaughnessy to mock the fans is what’s really galling here.
For those who live out of the market, Dan’s a veteran reporter - he wrote the book “The Curse of the Bambino.” He’s a longtime Sox writer. He knows how rabid the fans are. For him to mock us for wanting to chat directly with our ace is a slap in the face.
And yes - it’s another sign that local sports should concentrate on local sports instead of professional sports franchises.
9. invitedmedia | March 26th, 2007 at 9:07 am
yeah, let that guy go out and interview a sweaty 11th grader.
“20 years in the biz and i get this?”
10. Anonymous | March 26th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Steve, one ‘correction:’ this blog will not let Red Sox fans ‘chat directly with our ace.’
That is because our ace doesn’t have a blog. And he only speaks Japanese.
11. Safran | March 26th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
I will confer the “ace” title to Dice-K once he has earned it. Meantime, Schill got us the World Series, so that’s good enough for now…
12. The Tony | March 26th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
You know, this sounds a lot like record companies complaining that people are downloading more music and that CD sales are down.
Or small businesses crying when the new Megamart opens up in East Bumblesburg.
The only problem with Mr. Shaughnessy’s argument is that I don’t care if people don’t read what he has to say and really don’t have a problem with users leaving his site to get the content they want elsewhere.
If Oprah moved to Lifetime tomorrow, her ratings wouldn’t miss a beat…but the stations she left would take a beating.
It’s all about the content, after all.
Sorry, Dan. I don’t feel bad for you, and I don’t care if Schilling having a blog means your kids won’t have a hot dinner on the table. Welcome to a new world where people don’t care about the source of the content…
…only that it’s where they can get to it, preferably when they want to get to it.
13. adm | March 26th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
typical of boston sportswriters. they act like they are royalty up there, but the emperors have no clothes any more.
the way that the boston writers turn on the greats has always galled me.
14. LARRY NOBLE | May 10th, 2007 at 6:32 am
I REMEMBER WHEN SCHILLING FIRST CAME TO BOSTON HE DID A FORD TRUCK TV ADD
HE WAS HITCHIKING AND SAID HE WAS GOING TO BOSTON TO LIFT A CURSE. HE DID IT ! ALL SHAUGHNESSY GAVE US IS THE NEVER ENDING COURSE STUFF FROM
NEW YORK MORONS. I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE “KNIGHTS OF THE KEYBOARD” SHOUD TELL US WHAT THEY SAW AND THEIR TAKE ON IT! NOT PANDER TO THOSE WHO DID THE THINGS TO TELL THEM WHAT THEY SAW. DAN THERE ARE THOSE THAT MAKE THINGS HAPPEN, THOSE THAT WATCH THINGS HAPPEN, AND THOSE THAT SAY WHAT HAPPENED.! DON’T BE #3 LORENZO
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