Hey everyone! In case any of you were unaware (which I'm
guessing is most of you), today, December 10th 2010, is the first ever BBA
(Baseball Bloggers Alliance) day.
The BBA is a wonderful group of the best baseball
bloggers on the internet, about 230 of us, with at least one representing each
team. As some of you may have noticed, I voted for many of the annual
awards the BBA has, and there were even more than that (results can be found here.
In addition, every year the BBA votes for who they think should be
inducted to the Hall-of-Fame, and who should be in the All-Star game. In
fact, the BBA was asked by the BBWAA to change the names of our awards, as they
were too similar. Since then, Goose Gossage has allowed us to use his
name for the "reliever of the year" type award, and we use other
famous players names, however none of the have contacted us directly,
giving us permission. In addition to being a wonderful website, the BBA
also has a blog talk radio show, and an app for the iPhone/iPod, and the Droid,
which there is a link for on the left side of this site.
Really though, the BBA can be summed up with this
question and answer from an interview that BBA founder Daniel Shoptaw.
Q: What are your ambitions for the group? In terms of influence,
changing the nature of baseball blogging, and the impact the award voting might
have?
A: I’d love to see our awards widely reported. I never expect that
the BBA awards would supplant or even rival the BBWAA (no matter what their
cease-and-desist letter from last year might imply), but I could see them
getting the same type of coverage as, say, the Players’ Awards or the Sporting
News’ awards.
I’d also like to see this group be a force for breaking up
stereotypes on blogging, for recognizing great writing, and maybe becoming an
organization that has the cache, as it were, that the BBWAA has. Covering
baseball has changed a lot since the formation of the baseball writers’ association. Back then, the
only way you knew anything about the game was to read it in the next day’s
paper. Now, you can watch almost every game live, you can watch post-game press
conferences, you can do your own research. Not to say that the writers aren’t
important in this–they most certainly are–but it does allow you to draw your
own conclusions, which may be just as insightful and relevant as any printed in
the paper."
Have a good weekend, and a happy BBA day!
Like what
you read? Follow us on twitter here, and be come a fan on facebookl at become a fan on facebook. Questions, comments or even suggestions for posts?
Email us at phightingon@gmail.com. Never want to miss
a post? Subscribe to our feed.