Baseball’s All-Star Break this week proved to be quite special - not because this was the last All-Star game at The Yankee Stadium, the cathedral of baseball and a place where I fell in love with this distant cousin of cricket. No, it was not special because the All-Star game went into the wee-hours of the night and took 15 long innings before the American League took their rightful place in the winners’ circle. No, it was not special because Josh Hamilton put on an awesome display of power and sprayed home-runs during the HR derby.
To me it was special because it was all about young talent, many making their first (and not their last) trip to the All-Star Game. The HR Derby had none of the established hitters vying for the prize - instead it was all young turks. The All Star game was no different - packed with youth, energy and enthusiasm of talents like Justin Morneau, Scott Kazmir, Grady Sizemore and Evan Longoria. David Wright, Dan Haren, Dustin Pedroia, and Joe Mauer. This was a year where the guard changed.
The game is still the same, except there were new heroes and new starts. That is the beauty of the game I have come to love more dearly than life itself. I think that is the case with my other passion - blogging. Like baseball, the art of blogging remains the same, we just get new players. You see the changes on the Techmeme leaderboard, as new voices emerge, and take their rightful place center stage. We see an emergence of new class of bloggers who are on their way to getting our full attention, playing with some of us old timers (by blogging metrics at least.)
Some (not all) of them (in no particular order) are Eric Eldon at VentureBeat, Allen Stern, MG Siegler of ParisLemon, Caroline McCarthy at The Social, and Andrew Chen. Like Josh Hamilton, blogging also has have a reclamation project in Henry Blodget, leaving his past behind, and playing a new game.
They are among many others who I read daily, just like I read the folks on our team. The rise of 1990s Yankees dynasty came when they took home grown talent of youngsters like Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera and teamed them up veterans like Paul O’Neill. I feel the same way about our little team - I feel especially fortunate that the future of blogging is working alongside me in our little company - Katie Fehrenbacher, Craig Rubens, Chris Albrecht, Liz Gannes, Stacey Higginbotham, Judi Sohn and Mike Gunderloy.
The point I am trying to make is that blogging, like baseball, is a continuum of talent. Instead of hitting and pitching, blogging is about having something meaningful to say, informing, entertaining and educating your community. But most importantly it is about ability to converse, connect and prod your readers into thinking differently. I learnt that from Dave Winer & Doc Searls. I don’t see why those truisms should change - just like the sinker, the long ball and the stolen base.
With that said, like some of my favorite veterans on the All Star Steam, I am not ready to hang up my blogging cleats. Not anytime soon! Now back to regular baseball and of course, blogging.
PS: does anyone have a photo of the All_Star game they want to share with my readers? Email me the link or leave it in comments.
