Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
May 19, 2008
Talking to the Shyster

SpliceToday talks with Craig Calcaterra, author of Shysterball. This rings very true for me as well:

ST: As a (mostly) baseball blogger, do you think the national sports media concentrates too much on the East Coast teams like the Red Sox and Yankees? That's a common complaint in ESPN chats with Rob Neyer and Buster Olney, among others.

CC: I certainly used to think that, and still believe that it would be a good thing for the media to remember that there is baseball west of the Hudson River. That said, since I've been blogging I've noticed something: whenever I write something about the Red Sox or Yankees, the hits are substantially higher. I do not believe that this is merely a function of ESPN-created demand. There are 10 times as many Sox and Yankees blogs out there, and all of them do pretty well from what I can tell.

There are more fans of those teams and, as much as I hate to say it, those fans are more passionate than your average Brewer backer. For as much as I'd like to see equal time for Oakland and Kansas City, it's helpful to remember that ESPN and the other media companies are businesses. There's a reason we see the Sox and Yankees so much, and that's because they bring in much higher ratings and attract more eyes to online content. Do I like it? No, but that's just how it is, and it will continue to be that way until either (a) those teams crater competitively; or (b) someone in the Midwest figures out how to make the places where all the people happen to live in this country care about the Twins.

It's been easier this season to write about other teams because the Yankees aren't doing well and a number of young teams wound up competing.


Posted by David Pinto at 04:18 PM | Interviews | TrackBack (0)
Comments

It's easy to be passionate when your team is always winning.

Posted by: calig23 at May 19, 2008 09:00 PM
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