Here’s a video of a round table on “Costas Now” about blogging, mainstream media, and all that good stuff.

I’m sure most of you have seen it, if you have the least amount of interest in that type of thing, but I just found it a few minutes ago. Probably not the best time to respond, but I’m not going to get that into it anyway. Perhaps, sometime down the line I will …

First of all, here are my generic thoughts on why I like blogs (and why I like “blogging”):

• It allows people to find whatever they are looking for. Do you want sabermetrics? There are a good 10, 20 — probably more — ‘hardcore’ saber blogs out there. You want a blog on the Astros or the Royals? There are probably at least 10 regularly updated blogs on each major league baseball team. In many cases, there are more. You want a blog that shows pictures of athletes playing drinking games? I believe there are many of them out there, although I am personally not that interested in them. But that’s not the point. Some people are. And they are out there.

• On that same point, as a “blogger,” I don’t have to tailor my writing toward any type of audience. I just write (er, blog — I won’t even call it writing anymore) in my ’style,’ and the audience, as small as it is, almost builds itself around that. Clearly, if you guys were interested in really good writing, you would not come here often. If you were interested in game by game breakdowns or human interest stories, you probably would not read this blog. If you’re interested in some ‘analysis’ on the Padres and baseball in general, you may just be interested. But, of course, that is up to you.

• A third point, not necessarily related to the two above, is the community aspect. I do appreciate the readers/commenters (a ton). And I think it makes things more interesting (and perhaps more ‘valuable’). If I screw up, let me know. If you disagree, we can get into a discussion. Obviously, it is not that big of a factor here, where there are maybe 1 or 2 comments on a post, but on bigger blogs I think it is great. Many times, and I don’t mean this as a shot at the bloggers (it’s not; they created the site, the commenters in a sense), the comment section of a post is better than the actual post. Many times, on different types of blogs, it is just the other way around (you have to differentiate the commenters and the bloggers, though, which Bissenger/Costas (and many of the blog critics) do not seem able to do).

• Being an ‘outsider’. In one sense access is great, but I think not having it (not counting Mr. Chris Long : ) gives bloggers a different perspective. They don’t have to worry about looking that player or front office guy in the face in the next morning. I think that may actually be one of the more important aspects of blogging. And I also think it’s probably one of the most important aspects of MSM (the access, that is). And that’s why blogs and MSM can (or at least should) coexist. Of course, this is more complex than that. Naturally, the best blogs are going to want — and eventually get — access. Take MetsBlog or A’s Nation as a couple of examples (out of many). How does that change the coverage? I don’t know. You could probably write a thesis paper on this stuff ….

So those are a few things I like about blogs (there are a bunch of others, fwiw). Yeah, I’m sure they’ve been said before a million times. This is a pretty tired debate, imo, but it is somewhat interesting.

Okay, now let me say that there are a bunch of things I like about the mainstream sports writing, although I admittedly don’t read it as often. Obviously, they have the access. That’s invaluable. They are there day in and day out, and they give you recaps and quotes and all of that. They are also decent analysts in some cases. And I would assume that, on average, they are much better writers than bloggers are. I will go to them for that stuff. But if I want a PITCHf/x breakdown of Pedro’s first start, I’m not going to a mainstream site or to a newspaper. I’ll go to The Hardball Times, or Statistically Speaking, or MetsGeek, or the many (perhaps, few, depending on how you look at it) other places that may have such a thing.

The problem with Bissinger’s argument, besides the presentation, is that he lumps all blogs together as one. That’s silly and I don’t know why people do it. I guess it makes for an easy criticism of blogs, but it’s far from the truth. Like I talked about above, there are many types of blogs with many different types of people running them. Me? I am a 20 year old kid with no particular expertise in anything. Some bloggers are terrific writers with extensive backgrounds in writing/journalism. Some are dermatologists who do it on the side. Some are professional bloggers (i.e., they do it for a living). Some are magician/screen writer/sabermetricians. Some are probably worse at writing than me. There are all kinds. Why lump them together as one?

I’m not really defending blogs, though. It is just that reason — that I don’t see blogs as one  – that makes me feel that I should not. There are probably many, many blogs I wouldn’t particularly care for. I wouldn’t necessarily want to defend them and I don’t see any reason to. I guess I would defend the medium in a general sense, however, because it gives people a chance to express their opinions, and because it gives me a chance to find exactly what I’m looking for.

End of story … I thought that video clip was pretty funny — perhaps not, depending on your mood — and I felt like linking it (thought Leitch did a pretty good job and Edwards probably did not understand why he was there — it could have been a good debate, I think, but I don’t think Buzz or Costas were all that interested in that). Then I ended up writing a little bit about it, even though I said I would not at the beginning. Any thoughts? Let me have ‘em.