Blogging about Bissinger and about Blogging

I was late to the party (many hours in the office this week) but I got caught up on the drama between Will Leitch and Buzz Bissinger this morning. I thought Dan Shanoff had a few strong take on the subject. I thought it was pretty aparent that Bissinger seemed like a man who is a bit scared of technology making his craft useless. It also makes one realize even more that change is all around us in this world of internet ‘journalism’ and it’s happening each and every day with every post at sites like Deadspin or The Big Lead or even smaller blogs like Diamond Hoggers.

Blogging is much better than journalistic reporting because it’s a canvas to use your imagination. When you open a post there are infinite possibilities of what could come of that post. For example if you’re writing a post about Adrian Beltre, there’s a small possibility that your very words could touch that player; if he is a player who reads his own clippings on the net. And according to Braylon Edwards, that does occur from time to time. It’s fascinating and it’s one of the main reasons I blog. Not just the player could see it; but who knows who could end up looking at it. About 2 weeks ago I got an email from Jeff Pearlman, thanking me for kind words about his book The Bad Guys Won. When I said that was my favorite book of all-time, I didn’t know Pearlman would ever read that shit.

Since I began blogging in early 2006 I’ve seen this fad explode, and I don’t think it’s going to disappear like Pogs and Magic Cards did. This is where the future is going, and that’s what made Bissinger go buck wild on our boy Willy Leitch. Leitch is the face of sports blogging, and like all great leaders he must take the brunt of the criticism. He handled himself with class and dignity in the face of much hostility. If Bissinger would have asked me if I’ve read Chaucer or W.C. Heinz I’d have probably responded with a resounding ‘get fucked, it doesn’t matter’. Leitch came out of this looking the part of classy.

People who read blogs (and there’s a couple of them these days) usually know why they’re doing it instead of picking up the newspaper. Maybe it is ‘quicker’ like Bissinger said but it goes both ways. If you have a question on a subject often times it’s explained by being linked elsewhere. You can’t do that in sunday’s edition of The Times.

If you don’t like blogs or the people who read them, fine. Just let us have our little niche of fun and keep on doing your thing with the printing press. Just don’t bitch when we say we told you so.