Baseball Blogs and Web Sites | The Baseball Zealot

Vote Early and Often! The 2007 Weblog Awards poll is open.

The 2007 Weblog Awards poll is open. Of interest to us is the Best Sports Blog. Vote for your favorite. And yes, in this case you CAN vote often. You can vote every 24 hours. The polls close tomorrow. As for me, I voted for The Hardball Times and SB Nation. SB Nation is actually … Continue reading “Vote Early and Often! The 2007 Weblog Awards poll is open.”

The 2007 Weblog Awards poll is open. Of interest to us is the Best Sports Blog. Vote for your favorite.

And yes, in this case you CAN vote often. You can vote every 24 hours. The polls close tomorrow.

As for me, I voted for The Hardball Times and SB Nation.

SB Nation is actually a coalition of blogs representing every major sport team. some of the blogs under SBN include Bleed Cubbie Blue, Viva El Birdos, and South Side Sox. I would have loved to vote for Bleed Cubbie Blue itself but this will have to do.

Good luck to all!

Update: The results are in and Kissing Suzy Kolber won by a landslide.

ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker

ESPN is out with its Free Agent Tracker which is probably one of the best out there. The list is sortable by amount of contract (when players start getting signed of course) and can be filtered on team (both old and new) and position. There is also a chart for total spending by team. For those … Continue reading “ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker”

ESPN is out with its Free Agent Tracker which is probably one of the best out there.

The list is sortable by amount of contract (when players start getting signed of course) and can be filtered on team (both old and new) and position.

There is also a chart for total spending by team.

For those who want to compare, you can see how the 2006 Free Agency ended up as well.

Bookmark it. You will probably use it. Especially all of you in fantasy leagues.

BP interviews Pat Neshek

Baseball Prospectus recently interviewed Twins setup man Pat Neshek. You can listen Will Carroll’s interview with him here. I follow Neshek for a couple reasons. One, I took a chance on him in the Illowa APBA League’s rookie draft. So far I haven’t been disappointed. As a fantasy sports game, APBA doesn’t just value a reliever … Continue reading “BP interviews Pat Neshek”

Baseball Prospectus recently interviewed Twins setup man Pat Neshek. You can listen Will Carroll’s interview with him here.

I follow Neshek for a couple reasons. One, I took a chance on him in the Illowa APBA League’s rookie draft. So far I haven’t been disappointed. As a fantasy sports game, APBA doesn’t just value a reliever on the save alone.

Also, Neshek is a blogger. Check out his blog, On the Road with Pat Neshek. From the looks of it, he finds the time to update it frequently.

It’s a pretty awesome site, full of photos, articles by Pat, as well as a description of his delivery. I particularly liked his My Baseball Cards page showing his cards going back to his minor league days.

Keep the ball down low, Pat. You might be my closer next year.

HT interviews Retrosheet founder David Smith

Hardball Times is known for their unconventional,and rather entetaning Q&A interviews. This week, Chris Jaffe from HT takes on David Smith, the founder and mastermind behind Retrosheet. It was a special interest to me since (besides the obvious) we at Baseball Zealot Radio interviewed Mark Pankin also of Retrosheet a few shows back. You can read Smith … Continue reading “HT interviews Retrosheet founder David Smith”

Hardball Times is known for their unconventional,and rather entetaning Q&A interviews.

This week, Chris Jaffe from HT takes on David Smith, the founder and mastermind behind Retrosheet.

It was a special interest to me since (besides the obvious) we at Baseball Zealot Radio interviewed Mark Pankin also of Retrosheet a few shows back.

You can read Smith interview on the Hardball Times website.

Baseball Reference now has Minor League Stats

This email from Baseball Reference dropped into my inbox today:

Baseball-Reference.com now has minor league stats from 1992-2007. In
addition to player, team, league and major league affiliate pages, we
also have sortable batter and pitcher leaderboards for every league,
level and year.

You can access it at B-R’s minor league section,

In true Baseball Reference fashion, the database is well organized. It’s sorted by Organization, level and leagues. Of course, everything is interactive allowing you to click away to your heart’s content.

BZR chats with Al Yellon from Bleed Cubbie Blue

I caught up with Al who gave me an interview for the Zealot. He’s quite busy this season especially this time of year.

I think this was the first time we’ve had a Cubs fan on the show. A real treat for me and a quite a switch from putting up with my Sox fans co-hosts. Just kidding, CLuke.

Thanks to Al for his time.

Thanks for listening!!

Show Notes for Episode 29:

Hosts: Tom

Summary: Al Yellon is one of the biggest names in the Cubs blogosphere. His blog, Bleed Cubbie Blue, is a great resource for Cub fans and judging by the amount of feedback, he has a large following.

For Episode 29, Tom chats with Al. We talk a few minutes about the BCB blog then spend the rest of the show on what’s happening with the Cubs.

Links:

Bleed Cubbie Blue

During the show, the topic of BCB’s Top 100 Cubs of All Time came up. You can find the full list here.

Time: 22:44

Date Recorded: 8/30/07

Link to Episode 29

Listen via iTunes

Listen to other Baseball Zealot Radio episodes

Hit Tracker: a web site dedicated to the Home Run

A screen cap from Hit Tracker When I’m cruising the web, I’m always on the lookout for unique sites, that is, sites that show me something I can’t get anywhere else. Hit Tracker definitely fits that bill. I haven’t seen anything like it. It is essentially a database of all homeruns hit this year. I’m … Continue reading “Hit Tracker: a web site dedicated to the Home Run”

Hit Tracker

A screen cap from Hit Tracker

When I’m cruising the web, I’m always on the lookout for unique sites, that is, sites that show me something I can’t get anywhere else.

Hit Tracker definitely fits that bill. I haven’t seen anything like it. It is essentially a database of all homeruns hit this year. I’m impressed to the extent that they are filtered and sorted. On this site, you can see homeruns:

sorted by distance
sorted by speed off the bat
sorted by “No Doubts” (ball cleared the fence by at least 20 vertical feet AND landed at least 50 feet past the fence)
sorted by “Lucky Homer” (A home run that would not have cleared the fence if it has been struck on a 70-degree, calm day)
sorted by “Just Enough” (ball cleared the fence by less than 10 vertical feet)

and a host of other interesting stats.

The database is interactive… you can click away to your heart’s content. One added bonus, each homerun in the database has link to MLB’s video of the blast.

I’m probably not doing it justice, so head on over to Hit Tracker and take a look for yourself.

755

(Photo: Lenny Ignelzi/AP) Bonds is tied in career homers with Aaron at 755. If you are a baseball fan of any sort, that’s not news. Chances are you’ve seen the video clip and read a few news articles about it. Maybe I’m jaded but so many mainstream news articles are filtered with the “right” things to … Continue reading “755”

bonds755

(Photo: Lenny Ignelzi/AP)

Bonds is tied in career homers with Aaron at 755. If you are a baseball fan of any sort, that’s not news. Chances are you’ve seen the video clip and read a few news articles about it.

Maybe I’m jaded but so many mainstream news articles are filtered with the “right” things to convey they don’t capture the essence of the moment.

On the other hand, I did enjoy this short posting on McCovey Chronicles. It’s written by a Giant fan who works as a Padre employee and saw the whole thing. Despite the controversy, despite the scandal, he saw the magic in the whole event.

While on the topic of Bonds and Giants fans, here’s a Giants fan, who tongue in cheek advocates for an asterisk by Bonds homerun stat. Read his posting and find out why.

And finally, here is an interesting factoid. Clay Hensley, the pitcher who gave up #755, was tested positive for steroids in 2005. The irony… you can cut it with a knife.

BP interviews UI physicist Alan Nathan

Baseball Prospectus has interviewed University of Illinois physicist Alan Nathan who focuses much of his research on the physics of baseball.

Of course, the name should be familiar to Zealot readers. Our podcast, Baseball Zealot Radio interviewed Nathan for our last show. It was a fascinating show so be sure to take a listen.

Here is a link to Baseball Prospectus’ interview. Unfortunately, you’ll need a BP subscription to read the whole thing.

(hat tip True Blue LA)

Baseball Zealot Radio talks to Bryan Alaspa from Chicago Minor League Review

I’ve said it before but one of the best things about blogging and podcasting is meeting, albeit virtually, a wide variety of neat people who are associated with the game of baseball in one way or another.

Show 25 is no exception. I interview Bryan Alaspa who has begun a blog that concentrates on minor leagues in the Chicago area. Bryan seems very excited about the whole project and when he asked if he could talk for a few minutes on BZR, I gave him a whole show.

So when you’re done listening to Show 25, go out and visit his site, the Chicago Minor League Review.

Direct Link to Baseball Zealot Radio Show 25

The Baseball Zealot Radio website

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Happy Listening!!