Best baseball writers?

Bruce Miles, Chicago Daily Herald

 

Stat regurgitation? Musta missed all those stats in the umpiring story.

 

As mentioned above, Hal McCoy kicks ass and takes names.

 

Elliotte,
Maybe I'm not enough of a seamhead, but when I read that Player A is the first to hit 20 home runs and 20 doubles on his team in the last 15 years or finished among the top five in the league in four of the last six years in a category I'm left thinking what about the other two years or who was the last on the team to hit 20 and 20? As a reader, I find a lot of numbers distracting - and I want to know why and how those numbers were attained. I think Sports Illustrated in general can do a better job explaining why those numbers make a difference, and why others don't. And the way stats are being sliced and diced these days I worry that you can make any player look good - or bad depending on the numbers you use. Verducci is a good writer, I'm not saying he's not, but for a writer covering a team for a general readership I think there are better examples to follow.

 

I'm not sure how it applies specifically to Verducci, but I would agree with Senor Oregon's point about stats in text. I see them too often used without a context and it becomes blather that serves the reader as poorly as a hackneyed quote does.

Just as a worthless quote shouts, "Hey, see, I talked to the guy," stats without some purpose say, "Hey, see, I'm into all that number stuff."

I think we have some writers who have grown up on numbers-based baseball, along with some others who bombard readers with them just to show they have a cutting edge approach. Believe me, there's plenty of middle ground between the algebra and a cup-spitting scout who says, "Sumbitch can flat hit."

 

I'll second Gordon Edes and also toss in Rob Bradford who has a pretty good blog for the guys looking for a template to follow:

http://www.bradfordonbaseball.com/

Hal McCoy is a God

Verducci is very good but I'm not sold on Onley because I think he has a Yankees bias and I have a tough time getting over that.

 

The Verducci piece on ARod last year should put to rest any notion that SI's senior baseball writer is "numbers oriented."

 

I'll second Rob Bradford as a very good beat guy on a very competitive beat.

 

Read Lavelle E. Neal III of the Star-Tribune.

He describes the action very well.

He also has great rapport with the players.

 

Tracy Ringolsby. Etkin's doing more of the day-to-day work, or so it seems, but Tracy's still a good guy. And no, I'm not him.

 

I'll third that--Bradford is awesome.