March 29th, 2006
Spheroid: Crawly’s Cub Kingdom
In 2004, the Red Sox ended an 86-year drought. In 2005, the White Sox ended an 88-year drought. In 2006, will the Cubs continue the trend and win their first world championship since 1908? You never know in Major League Baseball, but visitors to Crawly’s Cub Kingdom understand just what it means to carry on the vigil. Nine Questions for Paul Dzien:
1. Why do you blog?
I blog because it’s cheaper than paying a shrink to help with my Cubs issues.
2. What was your favorite post?
My favorite post was called Even my dad thinks I’m Angry. After hearing about all the injuries again, my blogs were getting angrier and angrier. In this post, I try to take a more positive look at things, but it was not as easy as I thought.
3. What is the strangest blogging experience you’ve ever had?
My strangest blog experience was when I put a call out to all Cub fans to tell their story to HBO for an upcoming documentary. One of the guys who wrote in was my old gym teacher from middle school. I am not sure he knows it is me who is writing this.
4. Favorite blogs, including at least one at MLBlogs:
I enjoyed Jorge Cantu’s blog, especially during the WBC. I wasn’t a big fan when it started, but I got into it and it was fun to see what was going on from a player’s perspective, especially since Jorge had a great run.
5. What would you be doing if you weren’t blogging?
If I wasn’t blogging, I would be having these discussion at a local tavern with other Cubs fans.
6. Where do you think the blogosphere is going?
The cream of the blogosphere will rise, and hopefully teams will recognize bloggers as another medium to reach their players. I would like a press pass to some Cubs post games and to the Cubs Convention.
7. Favorite team and why?
My favorite team is the Cubs. I am a third-generation Cubs fan, and is passed on from generation to generation.
8. What is one thing most people don’t know about you?
My favorite baseball moment was when I saw the Cubs clinch the 2003 Central Division in a doubleheader versus the Pirates.
9. Happiness is…
Sitting in Wrigley Field on a hot summer day with a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other, watching the Cubbies get a "W".
Feel free to send your own responses to those nine questions (or substitute your own questions) to mlblogosphere@yahoo.com and we will continue to highlight Spheroids like you.
Random Facts about MLBlogs
Random facts:
Most-Commented Post: Official Astros World Series Guestbook, 741 Comments. If there is another blog out there on the Internet that has drawn more comments, please respond below with a link. A weblog can be used for many things as a form of communication, and in this case we created one so that Astros fans could leave their congratulations for players, and the comments were made visible in the clubhouse.
Most-Commented Blog: Official White Sox World Series Guestbook, 747 Comments. They had the benefit of two posts because we created one more after they swept the Astros. That was 442 posts for the pennant and 305 for the first world championship in 88 years.
(As you’ve noticed, you need to be registered at MLB.com to leave comments on MLBlogs. This was very valuable for fans in that moment of glory and it was very valuable for the Astros and the White Sox. It was trying something new and an example of how MLBlogs make life better. Think about how MLBlogs can work for you.)
Tony La Russa is the first active manager to establish an MLBlog. To those who know the Cardinals’ skipper, it should come as no surprise that he is using this blog as a way to raise awareness of his Animal Rescue Foundation. Hopefully people will spread the word around here about the ARF Blog and help a very worthy cause. By the way, how many MLBloggers have companion animals and what are they doing while you’re blogging here?
Brooks Robinson is eager to hear from you at Brooks Robinson’s Hot Corner with any questions/comments. His MLBlog is primarily geared toward responding to your comments, and he’s been at it for almost all of the last year. It is an incredible opportunity — an exclusive way to ask one of the best players in Major League history whatever you want.
Michael McHugh might be the youngest blogger here, at 14. You might remember Michael as the kid reporter we at MLB.com enlisted to help cover the 2004 All-Star Game festivities in his hometown of Houston. He has remained a part of our world through his MLBlog at Look Who I Just Interviewed! and his work on our MLB.com Kids area. This dude is comfortable talking to Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and anyone else in the dugout at Minute Maid. How cool do you think it is to tell your classmates in high school you work for MLB.com?
Elton John’s tour accountant/road band manager just emailed and said to look for his Twins blog to return shortly. DC Parmet is a diehard Twins fan who wears Twinkie gear on the tour whether in Vienna or London or LA. Feel free to leave him comments and ask what life is like on an Elton tour. He said Captain Fantastic is a fantastic baseball fan, too (Braves).
You all are at every corner of the Earth, and Scott Reifert’s latest post in Inside the White Sox bears that out further. MLB President Bob DuPuy’s commenters on Bob’s Classic Chronicles were in Japan, Mexico, Dominican, Korea and basically everywhere the World Baseball Classic was. By the way, those comments left on his blog form one of the pipelines feeding the thinktank for any 2009 modifications, so that’s the place to add your thoughts if you haven’t already.
BaseballGeeks’ latest podcast: 41 minutes, 9 seconds. First MLBlogs podcaster: DA BRONX BOMBERS.
First ballpark-tour MLBLog: Tour of Duty. At least a few others have come along since then, and an MLBlog is the best way to chronicle any kind of multi-park road trip like that.
Most creative use of side panels here: Might be a tie between Bucco Blog and Deep Fried Fish Blog. We don’t want to overlook anyone, though, as there is a lot of imagination out there in using the Six Apart capability at MLBlogs to the fullest. So feel free to leave a comment here with your favorite side panel, most active Typelister, etc.
Know someone famous who should be MLBlogging? Let us know and we’ll help you lasso ‘em.
Spheroid: Red Sox Chick
The Boston Red Sox will try to end a one-year drought of world championships when the regular season opens several days from now, and Red Sox Chick is among those who can’t wait for it all to start again. Nine Questions from the MLBlogosphere for Cyn Donnelly:
1. Why do you blog?
I enjoy writing and I love baseball, but sometimes my passion for baseball drives those around me a little crazy, so when I discovered MLBlogs, I figured it would be a good outlet for me to write about how I felt about the things going on with the team, without talking everyone’s ears off. I naively thought it would be read only by me and a handful of other people.
(Editor’s Note: Cyn’s the one on the left of those redshirts in today’s Stolen Photo and it doesn’t look like she’s driving anyone crazy.)
2. What was your favorite post?
That’s a tough one. Probably Rewind. I had been having a bit of writer’s block and wrote about my ten favorite baseball moments of all time (that I had been around to witness). It was (and actually still is) the most thought out entry I’ve written…even though I’m not usually a fan of long-winded posts. It took me over three hours to write and research the whole piece and I had a lot of fun with it.
3. What is the strangest blogging experience you’ve ever had?
During the 2005 ALCS and World Series I wrote some negative things about the White Sox (okay, I wrote a lot of negative things about the White Sox…) and the fans just hammered me — not only in the comments section but in email as well. I had one person who emailed me almost every day wanting to know if the reason I hated the White Sox so much was because they were the ORIGINAL Sox. Then that same person tried to convince me he was A.J. Pierzynski’s brother. And that was probably the most sane email I received from a White Sox fan.
4. Favorite blogs, including at least one at MLBlogs:
Outside MLBlogs, Surviving Grady is my favorite. Fire Joe Morgan is a good one too. I tend to prefer blogs that have a humorous tone to them. I enjoy reading Down the Left Field Line: Life, Baseball & Eric Byrnes, on MLBlogs. I’m in awe of Kellia’s devotion to Eric Byrnes and of her baseball knowledge, and because I’m a fantasy baseball idiot, I look to Baseball Geeks to get a better understanding of it. I also have a lot of friends who blog and I link them on my blog. Thanks to an RSS reader, I read everyone’s blogs first thing in the morning, usually just after I post on my own.
5. What would you be doing if you weren’t blogging?
I’d probably be meeting the man of my dreams if I actually left the computer for more than a couple of hours a day.
6. Where do you think the blogosphere is going?
People who blog about sports do so because they LOVE sports. Unlike many sports writers, who only write about it because they’re getting PAID to do so, so you get a different tone from them. It’s amazing how much of my sports news I get from blogs now instead of the traditional media outlets. There are a lot of blogs (mine included) that focus on opinion, but I’m seeing a trend where there are a lot more intelligent folks out there starting blogs to inform and stir up discussions (as opposed to just stirring the pot as they do in the Boston sports media).
7. Favorite team and why?
The Boston Red Sox. I was born a Red Sox fan. Fenway Park was the spot of my parents’ first date. They would have sold me for food money if I chose another team — it was never an option. In the mid-seventies, I fell in love with Fred Lynn AND the Red Sox, and it’s been that way ever since.
8. What is one thing most people don’t know about you?
There are a lot of things…hmmm, let’s keep this baseball-related: I’m a huge Jason Giambi fan (God help me!). I excuse it with the knowledge that I was a fan of his before he donned the pinstripes (this wins me no friends in Red Sox Nation, I’ll tell you that!).
9. Happiness is…
(We’ll keep this baseball-related too!) Knowing that my 71 year-old father will enjoy every Red Sox game he watches for the rest of his life — without any of the stress that used to go along with it, because when they won it all in ’04, that was good enough for him.
Feel free to send your own responses to those nine questions (or any other questions) to mlblogosphere@yahoo.com and we will continue to highlight Spheroids like you.
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