Cliff Politte's found a home --
too bad it's with the Indians.
The former Sox right-hander signed a minor-league deal with Cleveland, and he'll have a lot of competition amongst declining veterans trying to earn a spot. Among the other candidates are Keith Foulke and Joe Borowski.
I'll be rooting for Cliff, while also hoping he doesn't have any measurable impact in adding to the Tribe's win total. If that's possible.
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I like this quote from Don Cooper
regarding Jose Contreras' workout regimen:
"Contreras is a workaholic. Buehrle, he works, but he may have to
change things. We want to make sure these guys can go to the post for
35 starts. It's a man's workload, for sure. Contreras has a program
that is a strenuous one. What we've talked to him about, and Allen
Thomas has talked to him about, is maybe he has to watch what he's
doing.''
''Plus, Jose might be 50 or 60 years old, and that stuff might not be
good for him anymore. We don't know how old he is.''
If he can joke about it, I don't know why the rest of us can't.
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Sam Smith's NBA mailbag has
an interesting perspective on bloggers. Somebody asked him what sites or blogs he reads, and he responded with "I don't read blogs." Too much to C&P here, but here's the key quote:
How is it I can work for decades developing contacts around the NBA and
traveling regularly around the NBA and talking with the decision makers
and some guy in his basement in his underwear is writing something that
has credibility? As close as I can figure, these bloggers are the
electronic version of the neighborhood tavern. You used to go in and
hear people wailing about sports or politics and offering opinions on
all the major issues. We did our man in the street interviews when such
issues came up. Now, these people we used to ask for opinion started
these blogs and are supposed to be experts. How can that be? I never
see any of them, I never hear the coaches and general managers and
players I talk to saying they talked to them. So where do they get
their information?
People often doubt the traditional media, but we are out asking
questions, developing sources of information and interacting with the
participants. What are these bloggers doing? I'm fortunate on some
level to be getting close to retirement because if these blogs are
credible sources of information, there's no point in spending all the
time on the road that I do.
First off, I find it laughable that he thinks people like me sit around writing in their
basement. I don't even have one!
Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if a Mark Gonzalez or Joe Cowley had a similar perspective, and I wouldn't necessarily blame them. Beat writing is a demanding job, and journalism on the whole is difficult. You basically risk looking stupid to hundreds of thousands of people every day, and nobody celebrates an errorless streak. Screwing up in print makes for some terrible, terrible weeks, which I know first-hand.
That's why I try to measure my criticism of beat writers. Columnists, since they aim to set the tone of the discussion, deserve the harder rebuttals. That's part of their job. But some bloggers spend 90 percent of their space ripping journalists who provide their only sources of information, and that's pretty arrogant.
There's nothing wrong with Smith's main argument, saying bloggers don't have the credibility of mainstream writers who build sources, have set-in-stone guidelines, editors and copy editors and all that. I'd want to distance myself from the rumor-mongers and bile factories myself.
On the other hand, I don't think bloggers are anything to be afraid of. In fact, I'd think the good blogs would be a fertile source of story ideas, considering all the questions raised that nobody without a press pass has a way of definitively answering. Of course there'd be a lot of trash out there, but that's no different from going through the email inbox every morning.
Only speaking for myself, I
want this site to be a neighborhood tavern, not an ivory tower. If you've read
The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer (I'd recommend it), I'd say that I'd be perfectly happy playing the role of Steve, the respected bartender who oversees everything, directs traffic but only starts getting heavy-handed when the drunks get out of line. Heck, I could even adopt the name "Jimbo's" since it sadly appears to be up for grabs.
Considering most good things are built upon open discourse, I'm not sure why mainstream journalists would feel threatened by them. But considering I've written around 400,000 words on the White Sox and haven't been paid for a single one, I might be a little biased.
What's kind of funny is that my last
extended rambling on journalism happened Feb. 12. Must be something about pitchers and catchers' imminent reporting date that sets me off. Or maybe it's just the snow this time:
Somewhere underneath that is my car. And that was only half of the day's precipation enveloping it.