Of course, there were a gazzillion boxscores and statistics in that publication as well – which is why guys like me bought it.

So egg on my face.

Having said that . . .

And for the record, when I was still a young reporter, I worked in some awfully small media “markets” as well – when you’ve got daily deadlines and monthly news – that can be a challenging scenario. Hats off to you – you’ve got a much harder job than many folks realize.

The space for the long-form human interest sports pieces Deford and his likes championed no longer exists in daily print media, and a large reason for that is the consumer interest in such pieces has largely vanished. As has been mentioned, there are places online to find such material and writers (Passan, etc.) who do excellent work providing that content. There are also outlets that provide the heart-and-soul stories Deford seems to keep himself fixated upon – one such outlet is the Real Sports program to which he frequently contributes.

Deford’s lament is merely the common refrain of industry veterans longing for the way it used to be. His point about “justifying” the journalists’ experience disturbs me. This career is not and should not be about justifying what we do or making ourselves a crucial part of the story. Instead it should be a selfless duty to disseminate information as we observe it. My readers are not interested my experience; they want to know about the teams I cover.

I believe, as it seems Craig does, that the many types of sports reporting (PFT/HBT…., Deadspin, Fangraphs, daily print, etc.) can coexist – but ultimately it’s the consumers that decide. And those consumers, take for example detroitfanatic, make that decision with their actions, not what they claim to want. While detroitfanatic calls this blog’s contributors “pretend” journalists in his comments, clearly he came here to consume what they provide.

I look at this blog as Craig and the other guys leading the banter around a water cooler. I do enjoy reader comments, but the bloggers often have great commentary as well. I think it’s unfair to hold them to a standard of “sports writers.”. They apparently present a decent enough product for me to consistently enjoy.

The problem is that we’ve got too many lazy writers (See: Verducci, Tom and Olney, Buster) who sit on their asses and literally phone everything in.

Deford is dead-on. Sorry. But with that said, I’m not saying there isn’t a place for the other forms of information. Deford is unique, now, because he uses words in ways other journalists no longer do.

I’ll be honest – my first click for national sports news is now PFT & the related sites; ESPN is visited only sparingly now. I read NFP, Yahoo, and PFT for football, PBT and CBS for baseball. Too many agendas and wannabes at ESPN, and most of them, quite frankly suck.

It’s the lack of originality

Wait, wait wait wait wait. Hold on a second here. Are you really going to bring up originality in a post about Frank Deford, who has written this same type of “damn kids get off my lawn you don’t respect how we used to do it” schtick for at least the last 10 years?

What’s next, are you going to defend Rick Reilly’s originality too?

I’d ask you: why is that illegitimate. Deford himself here thinks that the reporter’s role in the story is central. If other reporters aren’t as up front about it, many — either explicitly via their opinion or implicitly via their imposition of narrative over what are essentially random events — do so as well. In doing so the media plays a large role in shaping the way fans consume and understand sports.

And they should not be criticized in doing so … why again? Because they claim to be impartial when they clearly aren’t? Because they’ve been appointed by someone?

And where did I call Deford an idiot? Indeed, I think that if you truly pay attention to what we do around here, rarely if ever do we actually attack a member of media on anything close to a personal basis as opposed to criticize the ideas they have placed into the public discourse.

Why aren’t they fair game? And if they are, who else is out there criticizing them?

“Now, I’m sure De Luca, Deputy Managing Editor, News and Sports, and Morrissey, columnist, have done exhaustive research on the topic. That topic being how to kick people when they’re down. Byrd might be a career cheater, for all I know. Or he might well be as clean as anyone in the sport. One thing I’m pretty sure about: if he recently started cheating, he’s pretty terrible at it.

Oh, and there’s one more relevant fact: the drug found in Byrd’s system isn’t performance enhancing. But don’t let that stop the snark-fest guys.”

This follows the same cadence that most stories here do. Like I said, “_________ wrote something. Here is what they wrote {copy and paste other’s work}. Here is why they are idiots.”

I am aware you didn’t write this. It is your site though, and this is the same sanctimonious bs that I see on here everyday. I like your commenters though, and 99% of my visits are just to see what they thought of something.

As far as rendering your work “illegitimate”, it isn’t the tidbits. It’s the lack of originality. Has Craig Calcaterra ever written anything that wasn’t a response to something someone else wrote? It just seems so lazy. “__________ wrote this today. {insert copy and pasted text from a copyrighted source, most likely all the important parts}. Here is why he is an idiot/incorrect/correct/ignorant.”

You are the Perez Hilton of baseball. Instead of drawing penis’ on celebrities’ faces, you rip journalists for writing styles, and the phrases they use, and the stories they write.

At least half of my visits to HBT are to see if they cover something I just heard.

Who is he kidding? The result of most “journalism” is just to occupy space between the ads. The saying, “he who pays the piper calls the tune” is decidedly true for sports and non sports coverage.

Once that unique voice or angle has been established, the opportunity for the money, which Deford specifically worries about, arrives, because you’ve created a unique product that people will come back to. One that can’t be easily repeated or replicated or undermined. All it takes is the will to commit to a given model and stick with it even if the immediate financial benefits aren’t apparent.

RIght on. For exapmple, I’m very focused on my Craig’s Lair yarns, a unique product for HBT I’m sure. Of course the only benefit I’ll get is amusement, but that’s fair.

The great thing about sportswriting is that it’s about storytelling. The drama, the glamor …. I don’t want to see sportswriting be overwhelmed by statistics.

[paraphrasing Tom Tango here]
I won’t presume to speak for everyone, but I think the majority of us enjoys the former. Tell us how the grass smells, how the crowd cheered, the excitement at the crack of the bat. All the things that the David Halberstams, WC Heinz, Roger Angell’s of the world used to give us. This is your world, and we eat it up.

However, don’t start talking about how Player X is underrated and is really better than Player Y. Don’t tell us that because a player had a 5 hit game, he’s clutch and always performs when the moment counts. Don’t do that, because when you do you are entering my world. And I’m better at judging this stuff than you are.

Just because someone tweets, or has a blog, does not make them journalists. You are not a journalist. You make smarmy comments about what journalists write, and then rip off their work. You paraphrase tidbits of information others have worked hard to get, and post it on your blog. Just because you put a hyperlink to an actual journalist’s story, doesn’t make it alright to copy and paste the most important facets of that story. NBC has no business profitting off of Sherman’s work to write this story, but they will, all because a summarizer and blogger pretends he’s a journalist.