Distinguished Senators, the Washington Nationals Blog That Is Great

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Hogsheads and Hectares and Drams

Spring Training! I say this every year, because every year Spring Training happens to fall within my three months/year blogging schedule: I hate Spring Training. The only thing worse than no news is meaningless news. Piles and reams and gallons and British thermal units of utterly content-free reports from sunny Florida. It gets worse every year. Or maybe I just get older and crankier every year. This time, at least, I'm going to do something about it. If you hate Spring Training like I hate Spring Training; if you don't feel like plowing through the preseason's fortieth article about some busted up, no hope pitcher who's going to anchor the rotation or about how Nook Logan's going to bunt his way to usefulness, look over to your right. I'll let you know if there's anything worth paying attention to. Most days there won't be, but if there is, I'll summarize it so you can take a quick look at it and get on with your day. I guarantee that the turn-around time on these stories will be no more than one month, so you won't have to worry about going anywhere else for your Nats news from Viera. Also from Viera: my new favorite roller derby team, the Space Coast Slashers. I'll keep you posted on them, too.

Blogging is like any other obscenely lucrative, personally fulfilling pastime: success breeds imitation. I started by ripping off defunct video game site Old Man Murray, lifting the editorial approach and several word-for-word jokes from it like a nice watch from a corpse. I was followed, of course, by innumerable imitators, each one adding something distinctive to the template. Timeliness, for example, or diligence or not being a jackass. But now the pros are moving in. Could it be that even as bloggers dream of doing the work of journalists (im in ur internetz, stealin ur jobz!!1!), journalists will prove once and for all just how useless we are?

We may be about to find out. Following the Post's Sports Bog establishing a niche as a sort of a local Deadspin except funny, the Washington Times -- the journalistic world's answer to the LA Clippers -- moves in on our territory with Nats Home Plate. There's already an opening day counter, mad links, a weather report, and a link to a chat with Mark Zuckerman that's due to start in negative eight hours. The blog -- Chatter, which is totally what I'd call a baseball-themed high-end fusion cuisine restaurant -- promises to feature contributions from the Times' all star roster of Nats covering guys, which, if nothing else, could prompt me to figure out who they are. So good luck with that, Times guys, and let me give you some advice: nothing gets the old web traffic going like a knock-down, drag-out, get-someone-fired blog fight, and I'm always up for it. Something to think about, you drooling morons. BRING IT!

3 comments:

Chris Needham said...

It's a good thing that you haven't taken the time to get to know the Times writers' names. That way, when you attack them, it can't, by definition -- at least by what I've learned recently -- be personal.

Anonymous said...

Nats Home Plate got Cordero's arbitration request wrong -- it says $4.5 mill, while the Nats website (1/16/07), says $4.15. Although if a multi-year contract is on the table, the request and the Times report may be beside the point...(other than to make me wonder whether I picked the right name on the Times list to send the note for a correction.)

Cathie said...

Does the Times realize the team is in its third season now? I mean, why are they just setting up a site for the team?

To be expected from that rag anyway.