Baseball Bloggers Alliance
August 31, 2009 by Mike Lynch · 3 Comments
My friend and colleague Daniel Shoptaw has come up with a fantastic idea designed to bring baseball bloggers together called the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.
“The Baseball Bloggers Alliance is a group of bloggers spread throughout the majors getting together to have contacts for various things and to do occasional projects. The biggest of these projects will be voting on MVP, etc. at the end of the year in the same manner the baseball writers do,” wrote Shoptaw.
According to Shoptaw’s “ What to Know About the BBA” web page , “The goals of the BBA are to provide a contact pool of bloggers across MLB and to come together at times to do blogging projects. The main project of the BBA is likely to be our year-end voting on the major awards. Each voting blog will submit a ballot on their league’s MVP, Cy Young, Manager of the Year and Rookie of the Year. Other projects may come up over time, such as putting together an All-Decade team. The Baseball Writers of America allow two members of a chapter based in an MLB city to vote on each award. They don’t have to be the same people–two could vote on the MVP, two different writers could vote on the Cy Young–but only two. The aim of the BBA is to have at least two blogs representing each team by the first voting cycle. If a team has more than two blogs, that “chapter” of the BBA can divide the voting responsibilities up amongst themselves.
“There will be some blogs that are more baseball general and, if they wish, they will be allowed to cast votes as well. They will not be grouped into a ‘limit of two’ group.”
There are no requirements to become a member, although bloggers who participate are encouraged to add other BBA blogs to their blogroll to help promote the group, and to keep their blogs current.
If you’d like to become a member please e-mail Daniel Shoptaw at cardinal70@gmail.com and put “Baseball Bloggers Alliance” in the subject line.
Here is a list of teams and the number of bloggers representing each. As you can see there are 13 teams that still fall short of the two blogger minimum and five that have no representation at all.
| Team | Bloggers |
|---|---|
| San Diego Padres | 5 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 4 |
| Boston Red Sox | 3 |
| Chicago Cubs | 3 |
| General Baseball | 3 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 3 |
| Washington Nationals | 3 |
| Atlanta Braves | 2 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 2 |
| Kansas City Royals | 2 |
| Minnesota Twins | 2 |
| New York Mets | 2 |
| New York Yankees | 2 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 2 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 2 |
| San Francisco Giants | 2 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 2 |
| Chicago White Sox | 1 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 1 |
| Cleveland Indians | 1 |
| Colorado Rockies | 1 |
| Florida Marlins | 1 |
| Houston Astros | 1 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 1 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 1 |
| Seattle Mariners | 1 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 0 |
| Detroit Tigers | 0 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 0 |
| Oakland A’s | 0 |
| Texas Rangers | 0 |
Seamheads.com has joined and I’ll be adding a BBA blogroll to the site soon.
Hey Mike, I think you forgot to include the Brewers in the list up there. I know they’ve swooned this second half, but they are still a major league team… ;-)
Whoops! Thanks for the heads up, Larry. It’s been fixed.
mmmm….. sounds like a hiring hall. Good idea right before Labor Day.