Baseball Bloggers Alliance day

Well, it’s Baseball Bloggers Alliance day – the first ever, I should tell you – and I’m watching Tim Lincecum’s 31-swing-and-miss, 14-strikeout gem against the Braves in the first game of the 2010 NLDS. Thanks to Comcast, I get to listen to Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper this time. It’s brilliant, and my recent post on the prospect of the Freak winning the 2011 Cy Young will give you a decent idea of just how he stunned the Braves in this opener.

I joined the BBA only all of a week ago, so I’d be lying if I said how extraordinary it is, firsthand anyway. But I will tell you it’s been a very nice experience so far. It started just fifteen months ago, or about three months before I started my own blog, and has since ballooned to about 240 blogs.

Within the community, which is exactly what it is, you can converse via Twitter or always get another teams perspective. And if you’re looking for a fans scouting report on a player, what better way to do so? The fact of the matter is, if you have taken the time to write a blog on a team, you’re probably a) a fanatic b) watching a ton of their games and c) thoroughly qualified to give at least a decent scouting report on a player.

In particular, I’m looking forward to the BBA’s annual post-season awards. The community takes the time to vote on all of the major awards, and the fact that the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) requested (or mandated) the BBA to change the name of their awards from the status quo – I mean Rookie of the Year, MVP, etc – only legitimizes its prominence, earned in a very short period of time.

On that, I have two suggestions for the BBA, and we’ll call my eagerness newbie confidence. My first suggestion is that the awards names be changed to great players’ names, much in the vain of Cy Young. For example, the Greg Maddux award. I don’t expect this to be adopted – it’s unlikely that changing the names of awards already for a young organization is wise – but I thought I’d throw it out there anyway. And the second is that I think a Reliever of the Year award should be added, perhaps the Mariano Rivera award. If this already exists within the BBA, I apologize.

If you blog about baseball, and are interested in joining the BBA, e-mail your pertinent information to founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com. There are some new membership requirements going into effect in January, so be sure to check out the constitution and make sure you are able to handle those. Otherwise, the door's always open!

Update: They - or I suppose we - were already calling their BBA awards by players names! Also, I approve of the names they've chosen. It seems great minds think alike. I'm hoping they take to my Reliever of the Year award next.