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Joe Sheehan vs. BBWAA

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by TheSportsPredictor, Dec 29, 2007.

  1. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Apparently Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus (one of the best baseball writers out there, IMHO) won't be invited into the Baseball Writers Association of America anytime soon. Don't know what the BBWAA has been doing to "aggressively self-define" itself, as Sheehan says. But it has prompted this nice little rant:

    http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7017
     
  2. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    Hard to argue with any of that.
     
  3. It's a private organization and - short of race, gender or age discrimination - can make the standards of inclusion whatever it wants to. If Sheehan wants to form a competing club for bloggers and start his own Hall of Fame, he should have a ball. I get sick of people bitching about the BBWAA.
     
  4. PHINJ

    PHINJ Active Member

    Frankly, it's time for MLB and the Hall of Fame to take the votes for all honors away from writers. They're hardly the most qualified group of baseball observers anymore and it's time to stop pretending they are.
     
  5. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Joe Sheehan is not a "blogger". He is one of the founders of Baseball Prospectus, which has grown from a bunch of guys posting on a usenet group to book publishing to a website which has found a way to support itself through a subscription service to a radio program. He writes for that site as well as others. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Southern Cal. And he is not me.
     
  6. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    We knew that.

    He doesn't suck. :D
     
  7. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    He sure doesn't! Pulitzer didn't seem to know it, since he wants Sheehan to start a blogger's club.
     
  8. I think the BBWAA should be dismantled and that Bob Costas should be in charge of all baseball media.
     
  9. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    Finally! A voice of reason!
     
  10. Alan Greenwood

    Alan Greenwood New Member

    "I say these things not to be insulting, but to make clear that the organization, despite its name, is not an organization of American baseball writers."

    Since I am full-fledged lurker here and a member of the BBWAA, perhaps I'm out of place to respond. Still. I would like to suggest that whenever someone disclaims something with a "I say these things not to be insulting" sort of statement, they usually are very much trying to be insulting. And it is almost always counterproductive.
    My point, speaking as someone who toils for a small paper, is that I have been active in trying to make the BBWAA, at least in my chapter, more inclusionary. I am fully aware that there are those who want it to be a good ol' boys club in which only veterans of major metro newspapers are allowed. I have done battle with such folks. Small steps forward are being made. But there are few worse ways to achieve this than to dismiss newspaper writers as dinosaurs in a dying industry; all that will do is inspire a lot of heels diggning in deeper.
    I know Joe Sheehan's work but do not know him, so trying to preach patience is probably an act of futility. But the organization, while tardy, is beginning to recognize the Internet. Spitting in the faces of the older members is not going to make them hatsen the BBWAA's evolution.
     
  11. Look, I don't like the organization's exclusionary practices any more than anybody else. I've witnessed it first-hand. It can be downright juvenile.

    Which is why I don't understand why those being left out want to be a part of it so badly. Pool your resources and start a competing organization. Strength in numbers.
     
  12. PHINJ

    PHINJ Active Member

    Well, I suspect that qualified people who actually know a lot about baseball like Rob Neyer and Keith Law want to have the right to fuck up the MVP balloting and HOF just like guys like Bill Conlin.

    The BBWAA gave some halfass excuse about Neyer not attending enough games last year. How many games does Bill Conlin attend?
     
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