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Issue Date: August 19, 2007
Inside baseball
Player-written blogs are a hit.
By Frappa Stout
As the pennant race heats up, fans can follow their teams into the locker room with the help of SportsCenter. But player blogs take you where even the press can't go, like inside the head of a pro athlete.
There are at least 15 player-penned baseball blogs right now, more than double the number from last season. The authors range from newbies to future Hall of Famers. One of the most well-known is 38Pitches.com, by Red Sox ace Curt Schilling. His blog scores more hits than any other baseball player's, according to research firm Hitwise. Schilling uses the blog to put his spin on last night's game and to answer critics, like beat writer Dan Shaughnessy (who is known blog-side as curly-haired boyfriend, or CHB).
Players also write about life off the field -- everything from all-night Halo 2 sessions to furniture shopping at Wal-Mart. Twins reliever Pat Neshek started eteamz.active.com/patneshek in the minors to compare notes on autograph collecting. He recently posted some photographs of his signed baseballs.
Major League Baseball, looking to take advantage of the trend, has recruited several players to share their thoughts on MLBlogs.com. In June, the Rangers' C.J. Wilson (cjwilson.mlblogs.com) described the scene in the bullpen when Sammy Sosa hit his 600th homer.
Although some may see player blogs as a marketing tool for the sport, a few we spoke to say they post, usually while traveling or in hotel rooms, to blow off steam and connect with fans. The Tigers' Curtis Granderson began posting on MySpace in 2005 and garnered 15,000 "friends" before he was picked up by ESPN.com. Granderson, who fields up to 150 responses a week, blogged in April about a road game in his native Chicago. His friends told him they'd cheer Granderson on at the plate but root for their White Sox to win. "So it's kind of a tricky thing when I have to get my friends tickets to the game," he wrote.
The Web is full of non-players jawing about baseball, too. Rapper MC Hammer (a former bat boy), actress Alyssa Milano (a lifelong Dodgers fan) and the Reds' dance team all have blogs -- to name a few of the more credible ones. But just as comedy fans relish a star-driven alternative to YouTube -- flocking to Will Ferrell's sketch-heavy site FunnyorDie.com -- baseball lovers seem to be ready for a firsthand account of life in "the bigs."
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Other jock blogs
BASKETBALL Ben Gordon (nba.com/blog/ben_gordon.html) The Chicago Bulls guard is all business on his blog, checking in weekly to size up the competition and break down his performance on the court.
FOOTBALL Domonique Foxworth (blog.denverbroncos.com/dfoxworth/) The Broncos cornerback has diary-style entries of his weekly activities, from games of laser tag to local arts fests and teaching writing at the Boys & Girls Club.
TENNIS Andy Roddick (andyroddick.com) The top-ranked U.S. men's player logs in regularly to freestyle about such things as grass courts and his love of TV on DVD.
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