The Other Guys

I’ve taken a more serious interest in this site during the past month as I think about what I’d eventually like it to become. In the process, I have been surfing other baseball websites and baseball blogs.

My God, there are hundreds and hundreds of baseball websites. There are dozens of websites just devoted just to the Giants. No one looks like they are actually making any money at it, so it’s a labor of love by guys who are either single, or whose wives yell at them a lot.

Some of them are way more than blogs with the occasional or daily or more than daily comments of their daddies. Some of them are news sites seemingly on the order of ESPN.com, but without the income stream or the multi-national owner. I don’t know how they do it. No way I have the energy for some of that.

What shocked me is how many of them are well written, with style and humor and correct grammar. I kind of thought Sour Grapes was the only place for that kind of high style in baseball. (There’s no high style in baseball!) Some of them go back more years than there have been blogs.

My interest was piqued when I saw a link to “Waiting for Boof.” It had to be, and sure enough it was: a reference to the newest major leaguer, Boof Bonser. “Waiting for Boof” was begun on January 25, 2003 by a fellow named Grant as a blog devoted to the Giants.

To put that time into perspective, he posted on January 30 the Giants’ Ten Top Prospects:

1. Jesse Foppert
2. Jerome Williams
3. Kurt Ainsworth
4. Todd Linden
5. Boof Bonser
6. Ryan Hannaman
7. Actually, he somehow skiped #7
8. Jesse English
9. Noah Lowry
10. Tony Torcato

That’s only three years ago, but that’s not exactly the list of prospects (or Giants current stars) anymore.

Anyway, “Waiting for Boof” morphed into The McCovey Chronicles, a fancy dancy website with a little advertising on it that is prettier, and still well written and funny.

I’ve added the links for Boof and McCovey to my side bar along with a couple of other sites that meet my new criteria: they’ve been around a while, they are active, or semi-active, they are incredibly well written, they are funny, and they relate to something here. In sum, they have to make me want to make Sour Grapes as good as their sites.

What I’ve learned: Sour Grapes is not unique. I feel like a relative novice despite this site being around for 16 months. I’m challenged to make it excellent, and seeing these other fine sites, there is a lot of work to do.