January 2012 Latest Leaders
Will 2012 finally be the Year of the Cubs? That eternal question remains to be seen for Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, Dale Sveum, Starlin Castro and everyone around Wrigleyville, but perhaps it is an omen that the top overall ranking in the year’s first monthly MLB.com Blogs Latest Leaders went to a Cubbies blog. More people followed the blog of MLB.com veteran Cubs beat reporter Carrie Muskat than any other at MLB.com. Rays Renegade was the top Fan blog (check out Rockpile Rant‘s all-sports versatility lately btw!), and the MLB.com Hot Stove Blog topped the PRO theme category as the Prince Fielder signing came and went. Here were the top blogs by page view in January:
MLB.com BEAT REPORTER
1. Muskat Ramblings – Cubs
2. Mark My Word – Reds
3. The Zo Zone – Phillies
4. Beck’s Blog – Tigers
5. Gonzo and ‘The Show’ – Angels
6. Postcards From Elysian Fields – Rangers
7. Bombers Beat – Yankees
8. Bowman’s Blog – Braves
9. Brew Beat – Brewers
10. Britt’s Bird Watch – Orioles
11. Mariners Musings – Mariners
12. Tag’s Lines – Astros
13. The Fish Pond – Marlins
14. Major League Bastian – Indians
15. Brownie Points – Red Sox
16. Change for a Nickel – Pirates
17. North of the Border – Blue Jays
18. Major Lee-ague – Athletics
19. All Nats All the Time – Nationals
20. Inside the D-backs – D-backs
FANS
1. Rays Renegade
2. The Baseball Collector
3. Red State Blue State
4. Rockpile Rant
5. Cook & Son Bats’ Blog
6. mlbblogger
7. BlueBattingHelmet
8. Royal Blues
9. nybisons
10. Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend
11. Phillies Phollowers
12. Pinstripe Birthdays
13. Yankee Yapping
14. The Happy Youngster…Brew Town’s Ballhawk
15. Counting Baseballs
16. The Baseball Haven
17. M.T.’s Blogger
18. The Rays Rant
19. The Brewer Nation
20. The Unbiased MLB Fan
21. Rockin’ Redlegs
22. Crzblue’s Dodger Blue World
23. The Pittsburgh Peas
24. Brewers Rumors
25. The Ballpark Guide
26. I’m Not A Headline Guy…
27. 2r2d
28. Observing Baseball
29. Sarge’s Phillies Phantasy Camp Diary
30. Blogging ‘Bout Baseball
31. The Future Blog of the Red Sox
32. Live, Eat, and Breathe Yankees
33. Rants, Raves, and Random Thoughts
34. This is a very simple game…
35. Reds Country
36. Collection of Baseball
37. The Yankee Dinosaur
38. baseballqueen
39. You’re Killin’ Me, Smalls!
40. DYNASTY League Baseball from designer of Pursue the Pennant
41. La Pagina de Tony Menendez
42. Unfinished Business
43. Los bigleaguers
44. A’s Farm
45. Cream City Cables
46. Major League Fantasy Sports
47. Where Everyone’s a Giant
48. The Closer
49. Brewers Today
50. Fish Fry
MLB PRO
1. MLB.com Hot Stove Blog
2. Better Off Red
3. From the Corner of Edgar & Dave
4. Alyson’s Footnotes
5. John & Cait…Plus Nine
6. Baseball Nerd – Keith Olbermann
7. MLB.com Fantasy 411
8. Ben’s Biz Blog
9. Justice4U – Richard Justice
10. MLB.com Blogs Central (lol)
11. Fantasy Freddie
12. Phillies Insider
13. Obviously, You’re Not a Golfer
14. Around the Horn in KC
15. Tommy Lasorda’s World
16. B3: Big, Bald and Beautiful – Jonathan Mayo
17. Comerica Park, 48201
18. Inside the White Sox
19. Newberg Report
20. Cubs Vine Line Blog
21. Chirp Chatter
22. Cleveland Indians Fantasy Camp
23. Dodgers Photog Blog – Jon Soohoo
24. Our Game – John Thorn
25. CastroTurf
26. Curly W Live
27. Down the Line with the Phillies Ballgirls
28. MURRAY COOK’S FIELD & BALLPARK BLOG
29. 2012 Mets Fantasy Camp
30. 45 Minutes From Fenway
31. Cooperstown Chatter
32. The Byrd’s Nest – Marlon Byrd
33. Inside the Dodgers
34. Delmarva Shorebirds Blog
35. MLB Urban Youth Academy
36. Colorado Rockies Fantasy Camp Blog
37. Bloomberg Sports
38. Homestand Blog by Yankees Magazine
39. The LumberBlog
40. From the Booth with Steve Stewart
41. Ozzie Speaks
42. Heard It From Hoard
43. Kaat’s Korner
44. Rattler Radio
45. Inside the Chiefs
46. ‘Riders Insider Blog
47. The Inside Pitch
48. Padres hispanos
49. Above the Plate
50. The Mitchell Report & Livin’ La Vida Leo
Reminder: Blogs only can be tracked for this list if they use an MLB theme. If you switch to a different WordPress.com theme for a day or two during that month, those page views will not be included for these purposes because they cannot be recorded by MLB.com. Look for more MLB themes in 2012 and make sure you’re in the February MLB.com Blogs Latest Leaders!
Around the MLB.com Blogs
We’re waiting on a sunny day, just like the author of Blue Batting Helmet. Pitchers and catchers will be reporting to Arizona and Florida shortly; MLB.com & top blogger Jonathan Mayo just released our 2012 Prospect Watch; the Super Bowl will lead right into our Fantasy rankings; Prince Fielder is joining the Tigers; there are no obvious favorites for the 2012 World Series; and there is more to blog about than ever as a Major League Baseball fan.
How’s everyone doing out here in MLB.com Blogs country? I wanted to check in before heading down to Florida later today for a vaca including my second Miami Marathon on Sunday (a very sunny day, hopefully not too much humidity!). We’ll be back midweek to present you with the first monthly installment of Latest Leaders. It has been great to see so many people apply the MLB.com Blogs Top 100 badge to their own MLBlogs after such hard work in 2011, and we have already seen some great new blogs start up that are sure to make the 2012 list. I just expanded the Comments list to the right and as you can see I hope you will always leave your full URL within any comment — use this technique to get people like me to your blog, and please go through their comments and look for other blogs.
Want to see a Tim Lincecum-Prince Fielder matchup in late October? Our friend Emily of Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend just posted a what-if about a Giants-Tigers World Series, so tell her what you think. Kevin of WestSide Culture vows in those comments that he “will be atop that list in 2012, starting now.” He just made the switch to an MLB theme (thanks!), which is necessary to be tallied for Latest Leaders page view search. We plan to update our themes soon and I’ll give a headsup whenever that date gets closer.
Jenn is coming up on her fourth anniversary of blogging at Phillies Phollowers and you can get some nice widget tips from her, such as incorporating your own Facebook page. It’s easy to drag the Facebook Like widget from your Dashboard, like I also did here to the right and below. Just go to Appearance –> Widgets. Another Top 100 Phillies blog is from Michael at The Phanatic Addict and you can see how he set up a favorite blogs Link set, including Jenn, which is what reminded us to check in on Phillies Phollowers. Be nice to others and you will benefit.
From the Corner of Edgar & Dave is the brand-new blog of the Seattle Mariners PR department, and despite launching in mid-month it is tracking as the No. 5 PRO blog right now and has a pretty good chance to go on to become the top overall blog into the season at MLB.com Blogs. Why? Check it out if you haven’t. It has been fun working with Jeff and the crew there as they take it very seriously and seek out feedback on what people like. Copy their widget techniques — the best I have seen since we switched to WordPress.com! Think of From the Corner of Edgar & Dave as a part of Mariners.com — a great club site.
March is my 10th anniversary with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, and probably my favorite photog in the business through that time has been Jon SooHoo — the official photographer of the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is a joy viewing his photo galleries on Dodgers.com, and his Top 100 blog known as Dodgers Photog Blog is back better than ever. Check out his posts from the past week and consider subscribing to his blog so you see whenever he posts. These are great shots — even worth a Pinterest board. Jon appreciates feedback very much and I encourage you to please leave comments there on what you’d like to see from him.
MLB.com has the only traveling network of 30 beat reporters and there are some ongoing changes in beat assignments that you’ll want to know about. The list is to the right here and all the writers involved have used their blogs to discuss their moves for 2012. Alden Gonzalez now covers the Angels, Jen Langosch is moving over to the Cardinals to replace our first-ever MLB.com beat reporter/blogger, Matthew Leach, who has a new MLB.com gig coming up. Longtime MLB national writer Tom Singer is returning to his roots in Pittsburgh to replace Jen on the Pirates beat. We wish them all the best in their new roles and look forward to more great blogging!
In 2012, you will see more really cool changes as we continue to advance with the times. Part of that will be a way to find a lot of MLB.com Blogs through shares, likes and popularity. We’re discussing a number of aggregators we like — Punchfork, for example — and I would really love to hear from YOU in the comments here. How should MLB.com surface and showcase our MLBlogs? Included would be (only) any blogs started at MLB.com/blogs and any of the millions of WordPress.com bloggers who choose our MLB themes. Hey, we all have Facebook and Twitter, but you need a baseball blog for more long-form thoughts. Our widgets allow you to integrate it all.
For anyone who has joined us since last May, here was the relaunch post after our MLBAM deal with WordPress.com. Reminder that WP handles support for our MLB.com Blogs community, so you may use this community blog for anything you wish but use their support link for fast action on any issues or questions. Have fun blogging and look for the next installment of Latest Leaders right here after we test out an IT Band issue over 26.2 miles of South Beach, Coconut Grove and other great places.
New arrivals
Please welcome Larry Dierker to the MLB.com/blogs community. He just saved his first post at Dierk’s Dugout. The longtime Astros manager and pitcher commands a lot of respect among baseball fans and especially folks around Houston. See what he has to say about the Astros’ 2013 move to the AL West. Please be sure to leave Dierk some comments and questions so he can comment back. He’s using the WordPress.com Dashboard just like you and me, and so does fellow former pitcher Jim Kaat.
Two words: Hot Stove. It is the same year-round blog at mlb.mlblogs.com that is maintained by MLB.com reporters, and it heats up before the Trade Deadline and throughout the Hot Stove season. This is the best source of buzz, from the only network of 30 traveling MLB club beat reporters — plus an army of other contributors from around MLB.com. Please be sure to follow it by entering your email. Tracker is here.
Alden Gonzalez sits right next to me here at the Major League Baseball Advanced Media HQ in Manhattan, and I can personally attest that he just hit “Publish” on a post about his conversation with Jerry Reinsdorf. See what the White Sox owner has to say about realignment and playoffs, and please be sure you are subscribed as a regular follower of Alden’s Gonzo and ‘The Show’ — always good insights.
I just posted a review to our official MLB.com Books Blog. See what you think and remember that anyone can add a review to that blog. Got a baseball book that you just read and want to review it? Either leave the review in comments here or let me know and we can post it there for you. If you’re a baseball book author and want reviewed, give a heads-up here also, please.
If you don’t have an MLBlog of your own, then what are you waiting for? Go to MLB.com/blogs and start your own — it’s easy! Got any questions about MLB.com blogging? Want more people to see what you’re posting? Always leave tons of comments here and remember to type your full URL as an obvious breadcrumb back to your blog. See you in the next MLBlogs Latest Leaders at the start of December!
Happy Birthday to Jim Kaat
Want to wish 2012 Hall of Fame candidate Jim Kaat a Happy 73rd Birthday? Just go to his comments on his MLBlog and tell him. Kaat, winner of 283 games, just four fewer than 2011 inductee and fellow longtime Twins pitcher Bert Blyleven, is looking forward to hearing from his blog readers. Stop by Kaat’s Korner now!
Now blogging, Jim Kaat
I hope everyone in the MLBlogs community will join me in welcoming the great Jim Kaat as our newest blogger. Jim wanted an outlet to express his thoughts about what’s going on this Postseason and beyond, and in typical Kitty Kaat fashion he pulls no punches. Kaat writes in his first post that he thought Jon Lester and Josh Beckett had “scouting-reportitis” — worrying about the batters and trying to avoid contact. In contrast, he raves about the Carp-Halladay duel as a textbook example of how to be in charge with a quick pace and be almost oblivious to whatever body in a uniform happens to be standing in the batter’s box. Get familiar with this 283-game winner’s MLBlog and be sure to say hi to him, ask any questions, and leave your own URL as a breadcrumb so other commenters can find you. Happy postseason blogging…
Make my MLBlog a Jumbo!
Want to be featured on the Jumbo panel at MLB.com/blogs and draw a crowd?
If you’d like to see your blog considered for promotion on one of the six panels there, it’s as easy as 1-2-3. Here’s what you can do:
1. Create a new post for your blog explaining why you should be featured.
2. In the post, include an image at least 480 pixels wide, preferably with your face visible.
3. Give the post the “Jumbo MLBlogs” tag.
We hope to see you on the front page!
Around the MLB.com blogs
Speaking of hot…make sure you are all over the Trade Buzz Blog. It’s our hottest blog and interest is spiking hourly now, with six-figure daily traffic expected in the final days. All 30 traveling MLB.com beat reporters post to it with what they are hearing leading up to the July 31 Trading Deadline, plus a roundup. You can subscribe to it, and also remember that all 30 of the MLB.com beat reporters have their own individual MLBlogs as well. Stay subscribed to this one, because after the season it morphs back into the Hot Stove blog. PRO BLOGS >
Did you see what The Pittsburgh Peas posted this week? Sometimes a picture says it all.
Check out the nice promo Russel got for his Wrigley Regular blog. Feel free to request something along those lines in the comments here, and we’ll see what we can do. One upside of our relaunch this season was the expansion from one to six panels on the MLB.com/blogs media wall.
To answer Catherine and BlueJaysNest among others in the comments, we are working on bringing back a Recently Active Blogs list and hope to hear something on that during the second half of this season. I was told before the All-Star break that this will be doable. Please post lots of comments here, and feel free to do so every time you post. It’s another way people can see you.
Thanks for all the (impassioned) discussion about the Latest Leaders. All points well-taken. In a perfect world you would have this awesome WordPress.com dashboard plus the ability to experiment with all the WP themes and always be tracked for Latest Leaders traffic. Alas, you need to keep the MLB theme for us to be able to measure your page views, otherwise you are part of the millions of WP blogs at that point and MLB Advanced Media cannot track your traffic. Other great benefits of having WordPress.com as our partner is their blog support for you (MLB.com customer service does not support MLBlogs), and the overall promotion of Baseball, with so many WordPress.com bloggers finding our themes. Some of those will make their way into Latest Leaders going forward as the community evolves.
We keep an updated roster of MLB players on Twitter. There’s a blog for that.
Tell us about some great MLBlogs you have seen lately…
John Thorn’s “Our Game” MLBlog features 16 essays
Major League Baseball Official Historian John Thorn is featuring 16 essays, which are included in the Special Origins Issue of the journal “Base Ball,” on the Our Game MLBlog right here.
Our Game, which launched in April, discusses the aims and efforts of the “Baseball Origins Committee,” while also embracing recent events of Baseball’s history. Please feel free to say hello there and join his commenters.
In March, Commissioner Bud Selig appointed Thorn to lead various research endeavors and special projects on behalf of MLB. In his first official task in this role, Thorn has been assigned to lead the “Baseball Origins Committee” to determine the facts of baseball’s beginnings and its evolution.
In the first of 16 articles, researcher and author David Block, a member of the “Baseball Origins Committee,” investigates one of baseball’s earliest periods in his article Polish Workers Play Ball at Jamestown, Va. Within the piece, Block discusses the origins of the game beginning, incredibly, in 1609, with a group of Polish craftsmen engaging in a bat and ball game, known as pilka palantowa, in front of a crowd of Native Americans. He explores the growth of “long ball” throughout history and searches to find the source of modern day American baseball.
In the coming weeks and months, Thorn’s MLBlog will continue to tell the story of how the game of baseball first emerged in America and how it became the American institution it is today through 15 additional essays by distinguished scholars.
Embed your new MLB.com/jibjab video!
My story on MLB.com has all the details about how you can now create an MLB.com/jibjab video featuring five characters in a Major League Baseball setting. It’s the newest and coolest Starring You campaign for JibJab and the theme of this one is “Take Me Out To The Ball Game.” We’re looking for examples of MLB.com bloggers who have done this and embedded the finished product into their blog post — please be sure to leave your URL in comments so we can highlight them here. Here’s the one created by No. 1 Latest Leaders fan blogger Rays Renegade:
Important: these kinds of embeds will have to be whitelisted by WordPress.com going forward. To embed your MLB.com/jibjab video like that one, you must include the following in your HTML field, and just substitute the actual URL from your own embed code.
How MLB.com bloggers are using new features
One of the many great things about our new WordPress.com blogs is the enhanced ability to customize your MLBlog’s look and feel. A number of you already have done some extensive work on your blogs, and we wanted to highlight some examples for those still getting a feel for the new platform.
Phillies Phollowers is a good example of the wide variety of widgets now available. Same with The Heirloom.
Links are handled slightly differently than in the past, and we are seeing some great use of Link widgets in your sidebars. Strictly Cubs Baseball is one such example of good use of the Link widget to highlight favorite blogs, while This is a very simple game takes it even a step further, categorizing the blog links by division.
Kaybee of Unfinished Business is one of the MLBloggers who has integrated her blog with her Twitter account. World Series 41, Rangers Fan 1 put a poll widget in his sidebar for readers to weigh in with their votes.
On the multimedia front, 2131 and Beyond! is showing what you can do with photos in WordPress.com, while the guys at Red State Blue State are kings of all media with their videos and podcasts.
Finally, a number of you have discovered the wide variety of non-MLB themes available out there. Ashley’s West Coast FanGirl, The Phanatic Addict, Prose and Ivy and Yankees Chick are three great examples of this. And if you want to see an amazing customization job, check out The 1 Constant.
Got any others you want me to include here? Please leave the URL in comments and I’ll check. Also be on the lookout for Latest Leaders to see which blogs are most-viewed.
If you do decide to go with a non-MLB theme, we strongly suggest taking a page from Matt at The Cardinal’s Base and linking back to MLB.com/blogs and/or to this community blog, as you will lose that red MLBlogs Network navigational ribbon atop the MLB themes. And we again welcome all you pre-existing WordPress.com bloggers who have just discovered our new MLB themes. Happy blogging!
MLBNewman
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