Around the Sphere

Our friend Kelly at Hook, Line Drive, & Sinker sent us the following email:

There are people who want to leave comments on my blog, and on other MLBlog pages, but don’t want the email address that they registered with mlb.com to show up to the world. People would like to be able to use an alternate email address (or none at all) when leaving comments. Bloggers have the ability to delete inappropriate comments, and all commenters have to be registered, so I’m not sure why this isn’t already an option. There are other baseball blog sites that give you the option of registering under one email address and displaying another, or just displaying a nickname. Is there any way that this could be considered? If I had a nickel for every time somebody has complained to me about it… I’d have a couple bucks, at least.

I think if commenting were a bit more private, people would be interacting a lot more. Just thought I’d ask.

Thanks for asking, Kelly. And by the way, everyone, if you want to get a question answered quickly, it’s better to comment here because I check this a lot more often than the mlblogosphere@yahoo.com email account. Also, most of you know that I write articles like this or this that are  routinely on the MLB.com homepage and my email address is always at the bottom. OK, as for the answer: No, you can only edit your comment ID within your own comments, not on someone else’s MLBlog. If you know that person well, s/he could change it for you. These blog were launched in April of 2005 and are based on Six Apart’s Typepad 1.0 version, so understandably there is going to be an occasional function that seems Pleistocenic. That’s one, and so is the inability to pre-approve comments. But it does bring up two points:

1) We find that when email addresses are public as the comment, there are far less occasions of offensive comments, for obvious reasons. So it’s not a given that this is a bad thing. That’s actually one nice thing about the MLBlogosphere. Like at the ballpark, you can feel like you can click around with your kids and not fear for your life. But having said that…

2) The hope here is still that there will be a new environment using the latest software (and with the MLBAM touch that you expect) for all of this before the year 2007 is out, and definitely before next Spring Training. We obviously want it to be far more powerful for you.

Hope you guys are enjoying this finish to the most amazing season I can remember in a lot of years of watching them. There are obviously some ridiculous postseason possibilities, and I know that a lot of people (sorry to my Brew Crew bloggers here) are even wondering if this Magical Milestone Mystery Tour could end with the Cubs’ first title since 1908. I will be on the road for all three rounds and am curious myself. But I will say this, since I haven’t seen it pointed out anywhere: If you look at the Cubs’ record right now, they are practically right in the middle of the 30 teams. Seattle has a better record. Toronto is almost better. So to me, the Cubs would have to be even more shocktobering than you would think to go all the way. That’s a really average team according to W-L. But the Cards did just win it all with 83 wins. Having worked the Bartman game, I should just keep my mouth shut about possibilities, anyway.

Did I mention that I picked the Colorado Rockies to go to the World Series in a predictions article on MLB.com before Opening Day? You could look it up. (For full disclosure, I think I picked them to lose to the resurgent, Eric Gagne-led Texas Rangers.)

Welcome to Frank’s Fastball.

Pretty psyched for this next month. It is going to be insane. Besides working around the clock from now through someone’s World Series clubhouse celebration, I will get in as much training time as I can at hotel athletic facilities (battling plantar fasciitis) and my first ING New York City Marathon is on Nov. 4 — only 37 days away. Anyone recovered from the World Series who is in NYC at that time, feel free to come on out and cheer! Just hoping it’s not a Game 7 in Anaheim on Nov. 1.

One of my sons just did a high school sophomore paper on his "hero." He chose…David Eckstein. Don’t tell his teacher but I had to help on that one. My favorite Eckstein story was at the Cardinals’ last Winter Warmup. Other players came and went at their appointed times, sitting at the autograph tables for the long, long lines. One hour, two hour. But Eckstein stayed for two extra hours, at least four hours total, signing every last autograph until the very last fan was through. I’m sorry, but what is the issue about whether you re-sign Eckstein in St. Louis as a free agent?

Finally, you can look forward to eight players blogging right here once we finally figure out all eight postseason teams. That was fun last year. The best player post I have ever read was probably done by Barry Zito in the clubhouse immediately after he beat Johan Santana in the Oakland-Minnesota ALDS opener last October. Just wish these guys would want to keep blogging year-round!

Mark