Soooo… I want to return to something I posted and took down.
I wrote about the Primeys and said… well, it’s been re-posted around, so —
As others have noted, the 2003 Primeys were awarded. The good ship U.S.S. Mariner placed fourth in “Best baseball site – weblog”. We were the only team-specific site to make the finalists, so that’s cool. I placed fourth in best baseball writer with a whopping 6.8% of the vote, which I believe was just behind Dennis Kucinich (who deserves better than to be the constant butt of jokes like that).
Still, it is worth noting that besides a link on the sidebar amongst thousands of other blogs, we’re almost never linked by Baseball Primer and my work, here and on Prospectus, is never, ever linked there (okay, like once), be it by chance or decision (cough), so it’s actually shocking that I got any votes at all, since my work’s not exposed to their audience ever. It’s all the more impressive that Joe Sheehan, who also doesn’t ever get linked from Primer, got 20% of the vote.
All of which is to say thanks to everyone who’s supported us.
I took it down after a friend of mine told me it read really badly, and after going back I realized he was right, and I didn’t have time or desire to re-write it. I meant to say “Hey, it’s really cool that the U.S.S. Mariner was even nominated, and even more cool that we did so well. I’m glad people appreciate it.”
And it’s the same on my own voting — I would have voted for Rob Neyer if I’d voted. I don’t think I somehow deserve a higher rating. I wanted to say “Wow, I’m fourth behind those guys? That’s surprising.”
The comments on linking… well, I came off badly, but it’s true. I don’t make the decisions about what BP puts in front or behind the subscription wall. And I don’t want to argue about whether or not I’ve written things that merit linking any more than I want to say “my stuff rocks so hard you should vomit with excitement”. But I think Joe’s a fine writer at Prospectus, and I’m disappointed that he gets fewer links than that yahoo in Toronto who quotes Gord Ash every column. And whether it’s by chance or decision… I shouldn’t have gotten into that. My own view is irrelevant, because I don’t have any idea beyond knowing Clutch Hits doesn’t link to articles behind the subscriber wall. I really should have just shut up. I tried, but to quote NewsRadio “You can’t take something off the Internet. It’s like trying to take pee out of a pool.”
Part of the problem, is that I’m not in on the discussions, so I don’t know. I don’t post on Primer, and in general prefer not to discuss the subject of why at all. There are many reasons but a large part of it is the raw volume of noise and abuse, and whether that’s driven by my writing or past conflicts between Baseball Prospectus and the orginal crew over there… I don’t know, and I don’t care. It’s one of many fan forums where I just don’t go anymore. I found that it was draining and unrewarding. I was particularly disappointed that people took stuff I put up on my home page (like, for instance, anything personal I thought people might think was kind of cool, like how I sold a story to Paramount that became a Star Trek: Voyager episode) and used it as material to work into insults. I know that sounds like I’m whining about persecution, but it sucks to (say) get email about what a dork you, or your wife, or your brother look like because there’s a picture of you floating around. The more I tried to engage in discussion, the worse I felt. In the end I gave up, and now I answer email as much as I can and leave it at that. That’s probably what the people who ruined the discussions wanted, but at some point I had to cede the field. But it was my choice, so I take the blame for being a Neal Stephenson-style hermit, except that I come out for pizza feeds to drink with readers and enjoy their company.
And this post is an example of why I don’t like engaging in conversation. I wrote something here, ran it, and boom, I’m an ass, and people quickly divide into camps of whether I knew I was being an ass, am inherently an ass, or just didn’t come off well, and then when I (siding with my friend and so, independently, the third camp) took down the post, everyone got to argue about whether that supported their viewpoint…
– I’m a pretty decent guy. I’m not going to put up testimonials or anything, so trust me, or don’t.
– I have spent five years trying to be a better writer, listening to any suggestion sent my way. I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress.
– I’m also a little full of myself, yes. I think writing’s inherently arrogant: I’m posting because I hope that what I’ve written is worth your time and effort. I try to keep this in check with humor and self-deprication, but people who don’t like my stuff send me this complaint more than any other. I don’t know what to say except that I’m working on it.
– I come off like a jerk sometimes, especially in being aggressive about my point.
And I know this post, my apology for writing something off-the-cuff and bad, is probably going to be taken by some as me whining. I don’t know how to solve that one either.
And Shredder, I do too respond to your emails sometimes.