Results tagged ‘ baseball ’
Thinking All-Star Week at Citi Field
One of the coolest things about being a baseball fan is knowing your All-Star Game is light years better than any other sport’s…and that it matters. The National League has capitalized on three straight All-Star victories.
I spent Tuesday at Citi Field, partly for the big Clayton Kershaw-Jon Niese matchup and also to do some advance work on the All-Star Week stuff that is coming there for this summer. Here is my ballot launch story on MLB.com and here is the 2013 All-Star Game MLB.com Ballot sponsored by freecreditscore.com.
Just wanted to share some Instagrams I posted in the meantime, and making sure you are all set to blog like crazy now that the All-Star ballot is out. Make sure you leave comments here with your full URL and tell us to come and see how you use up those earliest votes, and we’ll promote some of them.
Happy Grounds Crew Day!
I wrote a letter to Punxsutawney Phil as an ode to the more than 1,000 groundskeepers who are preparing Spring Training and Major League Ballparks for us — and that’s not even counting all the Minor League parks! Do you know what their typical day is like? Did you know that groundskeeper was the first profession ever according to the Bible? Do you know how many members are on a typical grounds crew for Spring Training and the 30 Major League parks? Phil has been notified, that’s for sure. Bill Murray is even on our side, not his. Hope you enjoy #GroundsCrewDay now that we have taken over each February 2, and please spread the word by commenting on the story and reblogging this post! Also stop by and say hi to MLB head groundskeeping guru Murray Cook, who is about to celebrate the eighth birthday of one of our original 4 MLB.com Blogs created in April 2005. I owe Murray a huge thanks for all the info that went into our Grounds Crew Day story. – Mark
Looking out the window
Just looking out the window and waiting for Spring Training. You?
Everyone is buzzing about the Brothers Upton in Atlanta, an acquisition reported by Mark Bowman. What did you think of the Atlanta-Arizona trade? The Cutoff Man, MiLB.com PROSPECTive, Dugout Ponderings, The Unbiased MLB Fan, Brave Fan in Illinois and The Baseball Haven give you their takes.
Fresh posts are in at Dodgers History, The Brewer Nation, The Rays Rant, MLB Urban Youth Academy, Balls and Strikes, SF Giants Photos, My Serendipitous Life as a Baseball Wife, Minoring in Baseball, Hillsboro Hops, Ben’s Biz Blog and The AustralianBaseballDigest.
Blogger Terry Nelson says on Balls and Strikes that he is “not a winter person.” I agree with you, Terry. For full disclosure, this blogger is wearing warm Cardinals pajamas under his work clothes as this will probably be the coldest night of the year in New York City and I am headed over to Joe Torre’s Safe at Home event tonight at Chelsea Piers, to fire questions at guys like Brian Cashman, Gerry Cooney (!), Hideki Matsui, Tony La Russa, Goose Gossage, Jorge Posada, Tom Coughlin and more. I believe this is the last in a long string of offseason dinners I cover for MLB.com during that wait between World Series clincher and pitchers and catchers reporting.
The most recent dinner story I wrote was the most-shared MLB.com story on Facebook: Yogi Berra’s tribute night at the Baseball Assistance Team’s 24th annual Go to Bat for B.A.T. Fundraiser Dinner. We have since posted the clip of Yogi’s 65-word love letter to his lifelong sport, so I encourage you to embed it on your own blog and share it widely.
Hopefully you already know that you can show MLB.com videos. It’s a great addition to your blog. Just click the gray Embed button on just about any of our videos. (Game footage video has a time delay for embed availability during the season.) Please leave comments here whenever you include MLB.com video embeds within your posts, as I would like to highlight that capability within our community here.
We just introduced mlbpipeline.com — the go-to place for all prospect tracking and Draft analysis year-round, whether you’re looking for your organization’s pipeline talent or prospecting for your Fantasy roster. MLB.com senior writer Jonathan Mayo is our longtime prospect and Draft expert at MLB.com, and in addition to anchoring that, he is posting regularly at B3 – Big, Bald and Beautiful.
Game times for this season were announced today. Where Everyone’s a Giant posted about it, good topic for you to blog about. My MLB.com colleague Jesse Sanchez recently posted a great entry about late author Richard Ben Cramer and how he influenced him. Remember to post your Top 100 banner if you made our 2012 list like Wrigley Regular.
Welcome back to one of our earliest MLB.com Blogs fan posters, Joe Boesch. His latest post on Dugout Diary is a Pete Rose autographed card, check it out. Jamie Ramsey is blogging the Reds Caravan. The MLB.com Fantasy 411 crew is getting spring fever. We found short and sweet words from just-started Let’s Play Ball! Gotta like how Broke Mets is rockin’ the pitchers and catchers countdown clock in its side panel. Leave comments here to let you know you’ve posted something new and don’t forget to include your full URL. We’ll be surfacing MLB.com Blogs in a new way this season, just one thing we have to look forward to looking out the window…
53 possible matchups
Matthew Leach sits right here next to me at the MLB.com HQ in NYC and he also was the first of our MLB.com reporters to start an MLB.com Blog, Obviously You’re Not a Golfer, back in 2005. He has done a lot of things first for us, so it wasn’t a surprise to me that he just became the first person to actually start listing all the possible Division Series matchups. There are at least 53 by his count, which is a pretty graphic way of showing just how out-of-control intense these final days are going to be, right through another final Wednesday, any possible play-in tiebreakers, and the first-ever Wild Card playoff games in both leagues. Take a look at his list and see if you’re team’s on it, check out Matthew’s columns, and while you’re at it, read my story about Best Night Ever, share it on Facebook and Twitter, and say a Happy Birthday to a sequence of 2011 games that made most of us scream.
Who’s ready for an unbelievable finish to this regular season, and who’s posting about it?
Stay tuned for the MLB.com Latest Leaders for September after the weekend…and thanks to everyone for the great response to our callout to be part of our brand-new series, “Meet the Bloggers.” Many of you already have left comments here requesting to be featured with a Q&A, and right now the main priority is seeing who we can interview on camera out at the ballpark — while the ballparks are still open! Let me know in the comments if you are planning to be at any of the MLB ballparks between now and the end of the regular season. We probably can do some during the Postseason but it will be more hectic then. See previous post for more.
Around the MLB.com Blogs
These are the most recent posts around the MLB.com Blogs community:
Braves ChopTalk
Braves fan Bob McVinua is thanking his lucky stars for Kris Medlen right now
sfgiantsgirl55
Just one Giants’ fan’s opinion, all the time
Gonzo and ‘The Show’
Whether you’re looking for the latest on Mike Trout or community events, it’s required reading for Angels fans as part of Alden Gonzalez’s regular coverage at angels.com
Dyna Mets
“Bleeding Orange & Blue Since ’82″
The Dash Board
Coverage of the Winston-Salem Dash (High-A, White Sox) by broadcasters Brian Boesch and Mike Lefko
NATSVILLE, USA
Strasberg just dominated the Mets and this blog keeps the coverage coming into the pennant races
Better Off Red
The Reds are red-hot right now, and so is Jamie Ramsey’s blog. He’s the club’s asst. director of media relations
#Ballhawking
Robbie is one of our many baseball-snaggers in the MLB.com Blogs community – we’ve got the most and the originals
Phillies Red Pinstripes
Get a perspective on Cole Hamels’ signing from a blogger now into fifth season in this community
MLB.com Fantasy 411
One of the original MLB.com Blogs since 2005, this is the home of Mike Siano & Cory Schwartz – last word in fantasy
Beck’s Blog
The overall No. 1 MLB.com Blog in popularity for the first half of this season according to Latest Leaders
Curly W Live
Like their team, these guys are really good. From the front office of the Washington Nationals
‘Topes Tattler
We like the regular “Touching Base” feature to go along with the daily Game Notes for the Dodgers’ AAA club
A Twinternal Perspective
What’s it like being an intern at Target Field? They tell you all about it
Beisbol 007
One of our best Spanish-language blogs
More Splash Hits
They want the Melk Man to be re-signed
Muskat Ramblings
All the latest on Ryan Dempster from MLB.com veteran Cubs beat reporter Carrie Muskat
Prospect Productions
This fan site launched in May and relays the latest prospect news – in case Mayo is not enough
Marlins Park
Now that the Marlins new ballpark is well into Year 1, the club still uses this for news
2 Birds 1 Bat
Reaction to Brian Fuentes’ arrival from “A Blog For The Best Fans In Baseball”
Baseball Nerd
Keith Olbermann writes about the state of Florida baseball
SF Giants Photos
The best photography inside AT&T Park
Three Up, Three Down
Ever had steak tips outside Fenway? This blog tells you what it’s like
Bombers Beat
MLB.com Yankees beat reporter Bryan Hoch has the latest on Ichiro’s sendoff in Seattle
Born on Third
We mentioned Carrie’s Cubs blog above, and here’s a good one from a Cubs fan
Grab Some Bench!
Posted by different authors for the serious White Sox fan
It’s All Relative
Ray Charles music, Lynyrd Skynyrd video with lyrics, and lots of Fort Wayne TinCaps talk from the booth
From the Corner of Edgar & Dave
Check out the cool comparison of #34 Mariner jerseys. We’re still getting used to no Ichiro
Dodgers Insider
Lots to say about welcoming Hanley to Tinseltown
On the Mike with Mike Safford
Great inside look at Minor League life from the voice of the Boise Hawks – future Cubs
AROUND THE HORN
Welcome to SABR prez and Diamond Dollar$ author Vince Gennaro, and welcome back to our longtime friend Curt Smith, the foremost authority on baseball broadcasters and author of many books plus the Voices of the Game blog. . . . Hope you have said hello to Camille Campins Adams, wife of Yankees prospect David Adams and author of a good baseball-wife blog. . . . Giants outfielder Gregor Blanco just posted about his dad . . . Mitch Williams blogs about the Phillies’ chances of getting into the postseason despite the miserable first half. And the way the Phillies are suddenly playing, you might want to listen . . . Want to be in this space? Leave a comment with your full URL so we can help other bloggers find you.
Around MLB.com Blogs
Please take the time to read “My Baseball story” by Matt at The Cardinals’ Base, and share your own favorite Major League Baseball memory in the comments there and on your own MLB.com Blog. After all, that’s why we are all blogging here and ready for another great MLB season.
[updated] As of 5:22 pm ET, Plushdamentals was third overall in page views at MLB.com for Feb. 24, as people are buzzing over 16-year-old Brewers blogger Curt Hogg, who broke news. No. 1 is MLB.com Braves beat reporter Mark Bowman and No. 2 is From the Corner of Edgar & Dave.
We’ll have the next monthly MLB.com Blogs Latest Leaders up next week, so never too late to make sure you are doing all the right things to promote your own blog. Be sure to comment on as many other MLB.com Blogs as you can and always leave your full URL wherever you go. Will Plushdamentals have enough time to rise to the top of the Fan category?
Who’s going to be at Spring Training and who’s going to be blogging about it? Let us know here so we can keep an eye out for new posts and hopefully help with some promotion. I’ll be in Arizona next week with the MLB Fan Cave panel and 30 finalists so holla.
Speaking of Fan Cave, in case you missed it, our friend Erik at Counting Baseballs took the time to critique all 50 of the Fan Cave finalist videos when that voting began. He came up with his own top 10, so you can crosscheck and see whether they advanced.
Jim Kaat’s first Spring Training with the Washington Senators was in the 1950s. We’re happy to say that Kitty Kaat is going strong and this week posted a new entry about 2012 Spring Training – where he is helping the Red Sox pitching coach at Fort Myers. Please leave Jim some comments.
Check out the WordPress.com Photo Carousel to easily jazz up your pictures and create slideshows. Like this one…
Calling fans of the defending World Champs: Got a question? Leave it on Jen Langosch’s blog By Gosh, It’s Langosch, because in addition to all of her coverage on cardinals.com, she is doing a Question of the Day on her blog from Cardinals camp. Question, Jen – how do you find time to do such a great job on your MLB.com Blog?
Welcome back to Redsox Nation and Pittsburgh Peas – keep it going!
With all due respect to those other games, The World Will Be Watching THIS on March 23. And I even read all three books.
Why do you blog? Tell us.
Make sure you use the social media widgets in the WordPress.com dashboard and use Twitter and Facebook to support your latest MLB.com Blogs posts. You should create your own Facebook Page to match your blog and encourage others to Like your FB page. Those are no-brainers for promo and we make it very easy to incorporate all that here.
A good example is the author of gojays. And a nice job using polls as well.
Keep leaving comments here with your blog’s full URL so we can help people find you. Happy Spring Training.
Happy Social Media Day 2011
Social Media Day 2011 is a big official-unofficial deal around the world, and Major League Baseball is all over it. Go here for all the details on how to get involved and win cool stuff. And take a look at how 30 Major Leaguers are embracing social media today.
How are you celebrating Social Media Day?
In other news:
The new Latest Leaders for June will be out shortly. Good luck!
Why we blog about baseball
I was reading Andrew Sullivan’s post headlined “Why I Blog” and every now and then I guess it is good to ask yourself that. I am curious why you blog, especially why you blog about baseball. We launched MLBlogs in April 2005 with Tommy Lasorda’s debut post about his friend Jackie Robinson, and that’s how this area was born. (Thank you, Tommy — you are the true MLBlogs pioneer!) This past Opening Day, we made it a FREE community, and we had more than four times as many MLBlogs created this season than in the history of MLBlogs. There are a lot of people here who you don’t know, hopefully better ways to find them next season, and for now one great way is to leave a comment here telling us why you blog about baseball. If you want, post it as a blog entry and just link to it — or leave it as a comment with your full URL. Here is why I blog about baseball:
Because we needed a community blog.
I have so many blogs and user profiles it is ridiculous, but such is life. I have Shelfari for my love of reading books, I have Blogger for my marathon training (16 days to NYC Marathon!), I have Facebook for family/friends and LinkedIn for professional networking, I have MySpace because I think you have to coexist within a big part of society to know what’s up and be tuned in, I have Flickr and Shutterfly and Photobucket and more for pics, I have multiple YouTube accounts for videos such as my trip to Beijing to work the Olympics, I have lots more that I can’t even remember until they send me an annoying email reminder. I was on Match until I found Miss Right, and I was out in record time. I have a FloTrackr account for running also, and MapMyRun, Runners World. I have Playlist.com to keep my own tunes current for other profiles like MySpace. Tagged was the spam scumbag capital. At least once a day someone asks me to join something…there are many more.
Now I also have a new MLB.com profile. Have you created yours yet? If not, then what are you waiting for? It’s part of your MLB.com registration. Add me as a friend. I’m mlbmark. In the coming year it will be loaded with more and more social networking components so all MLB.com users can communicate easily with each other — assuming someone wants to be reachable. There’s also our brand-new MLB.com Fanbook app — the official Facebook app of Major League Baseball. Check it out. You probably need more profiles. 
I’m glad that this is your BASEBALL blog. So why DO you blog about baseball?
Four words is all you get
Awards season will be upon us before you know it, and I already have one to give out.
The MVP — Most Valuable Post.
I know it because I just saw it.
http://metrobaseball.mlblogs.com/archives/2008/09/metros_first_entry.html
It is only four words long. But they are four perfect words.
WE — a word that says community, plurality, common interest, sellout crowds, loud noise, 80 million fans, widespread contention for races, and thousands of MLBlogs.
REALLY — completely unnecessary, but when added for effect in this sentence it tells you that even more emphasis is needed for what’s inside.
LOVE — the verb of our pastime, even moreso than “play.”
BASEBALL — not just the sport we love, but a bold and beautiful word said with meaning.
This is why we are all here, and a new MLBlog has said it as succinctly and appropriately as it can possibly be said. Thanks.
If you only had four words for a post right now, to express your own baseball opinion and passion, what would they be? Comment below — you only get four words.
Mark/MLB.com
Join the MLBlogs Facebook Page
First of all, welcome to all the new MLBlogs created while I was out of the country. We’ll start with Hot Air From a Born Again Giants Fan, aka The Shrimps.
Hey, crew, we just started an MLBlogs Facebook Page and you are invited to join it as fans. Have fun with it, and use it as another way to alert other baseball fans about a post you just saved. Just remember to include your full URL anytime you post something. Spread the word!
So, I am back from Beijing. It was incredible. Climbed the Great Wall, went to Forbidden City, laughed at the Giant Pandas at the Beijing Zoo (I love how they grab a branch of bamboo and then roll onto their backs and eat it like little kings), turned the dog meat page really fast on a restaurant menu, bartered for a suit at the Silk Market, couldn’t believe what I was seeing at Opening or Closing Ceremony, and in between just soaked up a great Olympiad including an awesome baseball competition that proved the sport belongs in the Games. If you go to my Beijing Memories article, you can find my Olympic Scrapbook on the top of the page.
Here are some extra baseball pics.
Some of the two-dozen Major League prospects I got to know quite well. It will be fun to watch their progress now. Also, I was standing next to pitcher Shairon Martis and infielder Yurendell de Caster of the Netherlands in line at Customs (we were surrounded by Russian Olympians), and Shairon told me both of them were on their way to Louisville to rejoin their Columbus Clippers Triple-A team and that he expects both of them to be with the Washington Nationals on Sept. 1. I recognized them by their big, bright orange luggage. A bunch of these guys will be up, too. I think Terry Tiffee needs to be playing first for the Dodgers fast. What a glove and bat.
I have to give a special shout-out to my friend and YOUR friend, Murray Cook. He is the person responsible for the Wukesong Miracle, the creation of three Major League-caliber ball fields in a place where no one really knew what baseball was. Murray is one of the original MLBloggers, and it was my first chance to meet him in person. He created his blog on the same day that Tommy created his — April 2005. Murray, thanks for always being able to lend a hand to another Western visitor and introducing me to Yang Yang’s dad, the groundskeeping father of the China backup catcher who stole the show one night.
pitcher who almost went the distance in the finale, was a big teddy bear afterwards and he bit his gold medal after obliging my request to check it out. It meant the world to them. It meant the world to baseball. You could see how strong baseball is around the globe, growing stronger every year. The U.S. now knows it will have to field a SERIOUS team for the next World Baseball Classic. You could take either of this summer’s All-Star teams and would not win the next World Baseball Classic unless it has a togetherness and total commitment. One other thing I really noticed at the Olympics was that it was an aberration to see a 90-mph readout for non-USA pitchers. You face heat only as a “changeup”, really. I saw mostly high 70s, lots in the 80s, and many different release points, sidearmers, three-quarters, so much off-balance stuff. That had to be tough on the U.S. guys, who typically look at 90s all the time. Now they go back and will see 90s all the time. International ball is definitely an adjustment. Congrats to Korea.
I was just curious what happens when you do a tag search on the MLBlogs homepage for the word “baseball.” Here you go. You’ll find lots of cool MLBlogs that you probably didn’t know about. Check ‘em out! Also have to give a shout-out to Cub Fans, which continues to hold the MLBlogs record for most comments on a blog with just a handful of words posted. Great example of someone who knows how to get his own circle of influence to check out the blog. Just makes it happen.
Mark Newman
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