Digital Digest winner = Me!

High fives for something basebally in the winter!

I got a call this afternoon from Erin with the Royals. She said that, for soooome reason, I was one of the chosen bloggerpeople for the Digital Digest contest. So, yay! Now it’s time for a side-tangent!

I haven’t written about this Digital Digest idea before, but I had mixed emotions on it. Craig at Royals Authority called it “a step in the right direction,” but doesn’t think bloggers ought to be credentialed on a regular basis. I don’t completely disagree, because press boxes are depressing and probably get worse at the highest levels of sport. But I guess if the team wants to give bloggers some kind of access, that could be a good thing.

For one, press access would give a lot of bloggers pause before making unfair criticisms of players, managers and brass. I do not think we have to always be nice, but one thing that working alongside players has reminded me is that, oh yeah, they are human beings. My goal here has always been to be truthful, but to use facts. That way, when it gets back to a player that I said something critical about his performance – and trust me, this happens – I can stand by what I’ve written.

There are innumerable Royals blogs out there. I’ve met a ton of the fans who write them, and think many do an excellent job. We really do have a superb Internet community, beyond the usual big names people usually mention. But not all Royals blogs are created equal, or similar in any way. I must admit, there are a lot of Royals blogs I don’t really keep up with, because I don’t like the name-calling, unsubstantiated claims, and other things that give bloggers a bad name.

So no, not all bloggers should have MLB press access. Some would get eaten alive, and that would make the Royals (rightfully) think twice about handing out creds in the future. It is within the team’s rights to hold fan-writers at arm’s length, even if that’s an unpopular decision. The Royals are doing a nice thing here, testing the waters of blogger access in a place where nobody’s going to drown if it goes wrong.

So anyway, with that random rant out of the way:

Do you have any questions you want me to ask Dayton Moore, Ned Yost, Billy Butler or Jeff Francoeur? Comment away, or yell at me on Twitter.

I’m pretty excited to go do this. I usually don’t go to FanFest, because it’s a 3-hour drive and I’m not really that into player autographs or whatever. I typically opt to give my place in line to people who don’t get to interact with ballplayers every day all summer. (The closest I come to that type of event is the Lincoln stop of the Caravan, which brought some shenanigans last year.) So this will be an almost entirely new experience for me as a fan, too.

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