New Blog Idea

"Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters."

-John Updike

This quote, taken from "Hub Bids Kid Adieu" remains one of my favorite quotes by an American author. As a lifelong fan of both sports and English in the written form I respect and enjoy sports writing as a form of under appreciated art. Sports conjure catharses of raw human emotion. However, as far as history goes, these outbursts of pride, humiliation, never would eventually fade away without the scribes meticulously scribing. The same way that anthropologists trace timelines of ancient civilizations, sportswriters capture emotion which would otherwise fade away. Sure there are box scores documenting that something happened while the game was being played. But to me, humanity thrives on emotion and storytelling, not on numbers and statistics.

This brings me to the shape of my blog. To show my appreciation for sportswriting, I am going to keep a blog documenting daily sportswriters styles, statements, and opinions. I will critique their opinions based on my own, like a music or movie critic, and analyze the way they tell the story of the game. I plan on reading several daily blogs from sportswriter greats such as Joe Posnanski, Peter Gammons, and the distinct sportswriting styles of Bill Simmons, or Buster Olney.

I also plan to use this blog to occasionally list the mental notes I made during Red Sox games that I feel that I'd like to share. For example, I find it interesting that the Red Sox signed Bobby Kielty to a minor league deal with a one week escape clause. I have a suspicion that the Red Sox do not plan on playing Kielty at all and simply plan to give Pena a little motivation to start focusing and hitting. I also may just make mental notes and complaints, who knows. But the majority of what I plan on doing is reading sportswriters as if I were taking an english class and giving my opinion on their successes and failures. So, what do you think?

Project One

The online community that I chose to make myself a part of is sonsofsamhorn.com (SOSH) a Red Sox based discussion community. Sons of Sam Horn prides itself on having the most thought provoking, intelligent, and eloquent Red Sox banter in all of Red Sox Nation. And mostly, it’s true. There are a number of ways to contribute to the Sons of Sam Horn website, as the entire site is run solely on bloggers who post discussion topics and subsequent responses. When trying to “apply” for a registration name, one is redirected to a list of guidelines set out by the webmaster of the site. Sons of Sam Horn take their posting extremely seriously, and are heavily concerned with their reputation as the think-tank of Red Sox nation online. Posting rules not only include the normal “no profanity” and animated/NSFW avatars, but also include “Please take the time to put some thought and substance into your posts/replies,” and “SoSH is not a place for water-cooler discussion of the Red Sox. Fluff topics, like "Favorite Sox Player", and "Thank You, OC" are not looked upon favorably.” Pretty heavy stuff.

Sons of Sam Horn has several working facets to which one can contribute. Along with the blogs/discussion pages, there are chatrooms, a forum for posting any relevant pictures you may have taken yourself (perhaps at a Red Sox game, or when meeting a player.) And a wiki, which, as we all know, is a user updated and maintained encyclopedia. Some of my favorite entries were those on Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, David Ortiz, and my personal favorite on Dan Shaugnessy (or CHB as he is referred to in the wiki.) I contributed to the play by play description of the only walkoff game thus far in the 2007 season. The game against the Orioles where the Sox scored five runs in the ninth inning. The whole wiki is incredible though. With pages such as the Church Of Ortiz. I could spend hours just on the wiki editing and reading. Most of the pages are jokes but they also are great for historical information as well. One can find any information on any Red Sox player, where he came from where he played beforehand. Sort of a centralized baseballreference.com mixed with a mad magazine parody. I love it. Here’s two of my favorite pages:

D’Angelo Ortiz

A modern hero, born unto David Ortiz and a mortal woman. Legend has it that he defeated the lions of Kalahari by barehandedly wrestling them to the ground. A memorial was erected at Franklin Park to commemorate this event.

New York Yankees Franchise History

• 1903-2003: Nothing noteworthy
• 2004: Became the first team in baseball history to lose a best-of-seven series after leading 3-0
• 2005-present: Nothing noteworthy

Here is the most surprising part of my experience with SOSH. When trying to register to the site I discovered that all new users are assigned to the “lurker” group. This means that all new users are only allowed to post in the “sandbox” forum, which is never actually viewable by those just visiting the site. The sandbox forums are surveyed by the webmasters and if you provide enough insightful, introspective commentary on the Red Sox you are considered for a full membership. It’s basically like the minor leagues of the internet. Unbelievable.

After logging in, my membership was subject to approval by an administrator who is going to do a “background check” on me. Most likely by reading what I wrote under “background information” in my membership application (“University of Massachusetts student, lifelong Red Sox fan, future sportswriter hopeful.”)

I don’t know if all websites are this subject to who they allow to post. But I don’t think they are. However, this is why I am drawn to SOSH. The posts are written by people who seem to be more knowledgeable than folks one might see on Baseball Tonight. (Although Baseball Tonight’s quality has plummeted since the subtraction of Peter Gammons.)

Probably the best experience I had with Sons Of Sam Horn was the chat log. The flash driven chatroom has several different categories of discussion where one can log in and actively express his Red Sox opinion with people who are not drunken frat boys arguing that Alex Cora should be the starter over Dustin Pedroia (moronic.) This is especially fun during the Red Sox games. During each game users have the option of discussing absolutely anything in water-cooler fashion. This can be a conversation on Schilling’s last slider’s location. Or a list of reasons why Manny should have crushed that last delivery from Tomo Ohka. Sometimes one will find a running commentary on Jerry Remy’s growing drunkenness (A definite SOSH Chat topic on any double-header) which becomes more entertaining with every promo that Remy struggles through. Or even pointing out things that others wouldn’t notice, like Coco’s strange route to a fly ball, that Taverez is wearing shoes with David Ortiz’s face emblazoned on them, or a cute blonde three rows back and two seats to the left of home plate.

As for the posting discussion experience, the experience has been great in two regards. Being one who wishes to be a sportswriter writing for an audience of highly educated Red Sox fans and gauging their reactions has been invaluable. If I can get these people to agree with me then I probably will be pretty safe in all regards if I’m going to move forward with sports writing as my career.

NPR

"FYI: The Soxaholix site was mentioned in an NPR piece on baseball yesterday. You can listen here. That combined with Matsuzaka's first outing, made for a pretty good day."

Both Great stuff.

American Idol and Tara's first appearance

Building a road in gold

Susan/Circle:
I know it's only against college kids, but Josh Beckett was dominating in his first Spring outing.

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Tara:
21 pitches, 19 for strikes, while allowing one hit and striking out five.

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Susan/Circle:
Mahk my words, Josh Beckett is going to be a pitching stud in '07.

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Tara:
He's bringing sexy back.

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Susan/Circle:
[growl]

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Tara:
Anything and everything is imaginable in the Spring …

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Susan/Circle:
Schilling will drop his wintah weight.

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Tara:
Matsuzaka, under the tutelage of Wake, will add the knuckle alongside his gyro.

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Susan/Circle:
There'll be peace in the Middle East.

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Tara:
After contentious negotiation, Ahmadinejad will agree to halt Iran's nuclear weapons program in exchange for a permanent guest judge position on American Idol.

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Susan/Circle:
Holy 12th Imam, now that'd be funny. He'd make Simon Cowell seem endearing by comparison.

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Tara:
Yeah, picture it … "Infidel number 3. That song was too big for you and you were pitchy like the Zionist dog you are. Exit stage left to your execution by stoning."

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Susan/Circle:
"Seacrest, you disgraceful and wretched homo who shall burn in the fire of Islam's fury, send in the next spawn of Satan … I tell you, Paula the Whore, the real Holocaust is having to endure this dried up and rotten show."

American Idol is constantly a main topic on Soxaholix. I think HB is a secret fan. On a bit of a side note, American Idol is ridiculous. I heard some statistic that if you were to take the next top 5 TV shows in terms of ratings and combined them, they still would not account for half the viewers that American Idol gets. Plus, the show can go on forever, its not like they are going to run out of ideas or write themselves into a corner like on other shows. The only way to stop the beast is to votefortheworst.

Anyway, this strip introduces a new character, Tara. Tara is the outsider of the office, she is a woman in an office of all men (and Circle), an African-American in an office of all whites, and a west coaster in an office of all New Englanders. She also is the intellectual of the office, with MIT degree. This gives Tara an outside perspective on almost any issue that arises, and an important point of view. Tara is to be taken more seriously than any of the other characters.

Feb. 26th

"Day job deadlines and strip creation are not a good mix … Will return when I can. In the meantime, for your contemplation: David Ortiz arrived at spring training feeling more fit and powerful than ever after changing his offseason workout routine …"

I wonder how many bloggers out there blog for a living? I know of at least two out of the three blogs that I check more than 5 times a day do so full time. Dave Pinto of baseballmusings.com and the author of Bostondirtdogs.com. These are both special circumstances however. Dave was the head researcher for Baseball Tonight and Silva was employed by the Boston Globe. Wikipedia only reveals that a female blogger can be referred to as a bloggette. I'm going to continue to look into this.

And we're off

Let's learn about the Soxaholix. According to the description of the website, "A daily comic strip cum weblog set in a generic office/cube farm inhabited by a collection of die-hard Red Sox fans who individually personify a stereotyped and/or caricatured fan personality type."

This is an example of a daily comic strip

One of my favorite features of the website (but also a feature which makes it very difficult to repost the strip on another webpage without doing a prntscreen copy) is that the text bubbles are not image imbedded. This allows the text to be suceptible to all of the ordinary HTML functions. The author ("HB") can insert links, italics, bold, and users can even search for key words in old strips.

One of my favorite features of the website is the references that the author uses. HB will add pop culuture references (and links to pop c. blogs) literary and cultural references (usually accompanied by a wiki explanation) and tie them into the current Red Sox situation. The strips also usually also reference the day's most interesting columns and blog posts relating to the state of the Nation (RSN of course.)

Another feature (and one that makes this a better site to review than BDD) is the comments. Posters like Louclinton or L.C. remark on the post on a daily basis, usually adding their own news and insightful opinions. Soxaholix has been featured in the Wall Street Journal as well as won many blogging awards. Next we will take a look at each post since I began tracking the blog several months ago.

I'm telling you, the ends will justify the means

Disclaimer: So after tracking soxaholix.com (which was my second choice after bostondirtdogs.com. Dirt dogs, though a great website, did not have much of its own content other than photos and headlines and links. Soxaholix' daily posts puts me in a better position to actually write something about the creative musings of another person.) for the past two monthes. It's finally time to start posting on my findings. True I didn't do this in a timely fashion, but I operate better with Deadlineocles' Sword hanging over me. By the end of classes next week I'll have a semester's worth of blogging done. Besides it's not like I haven't been scrutinzing over soxaholix every single day. Myself being a Soxaholic. I just decided to hold off on offering any opinions until I had completed my analysis.

To help maintain the illusion of punctuality, I'm using my secret GodMode blog skillz to retroactively post these.

That said, let's begin taking apart my following of Soxaholix.