Friday Fun With Jemele Hill and Rob Neyer

I'm going to start off with talking about Rob Neyer for today. Apparently ESPN has a group of "blogs" about MLB Baseball teams that are called "SweetSpot Blog Network." I say "apparently" because I had no idea these networks of blogs existed. I guess it is a way to reach out to each individual fan of a MLB team for coverage of that team, but I have to say if I was a fan and wanted a site about the Atlanta Braves, I would go to a network of blogs not affiliated with ESPN. This is just my personal preference.

So Rob Neyer, who I deeply respect and like as a writer (cue me now ripping him), is having difficulty filling in some of the spots for this network. He has 21 of the 30 teams covered, but he also has high standards. Apparently, to be a columnist you can call someone "Tim Joyce" or put out an article that has errors in it to be fixed at a later date and be fine, but bloggers are held to a higher standard than that. Who knew, right? You can't just write 1-2 articles a week and hope your editor fixes mistakes, you have to write daily and be accurate.

So the title of Neyer's post is "Blogging's Harder Than It Looks," which goes against everything I have learned. I thought to blog all you needed was a mom, a basement/attic, and a computer. That's what the mainstream media has always taught me. Yet here we are, learning from Rob Neyer that blogging is actually difficult. Actually blogging well and daily is difficult, but I will let Rob Neyer explain why he can't fill the open positions in his super-select SweetSpot Blog Network...

I get these all the time, figured I should finally respond to one ...

Rob, I'm a big fan of your SweetSpot Blog Network, as well as a big fan of the Troy Haymakers (yes, we do exist!). However, I've always been a bit melancholy because of the lack of blog coverage for the Haymakers. I'm current a junior in college, so you can imagine all the spare time I have, and I was hoping to inquire how I could have a blog entered in your Blog Network. Please let me know if such a thing could happen and how.

Thanks. - Billy

This is the email that initiated the post by Rob.

As you've noticed, Billy, we don't yet have all the teams covered. I'll be completely honest with you ... I thought we'd have 25 teams covered by now,

He is four short of his goal right now. Here are the teams that the ESPN SuperSelect SweetSpot Blog Network, sponsored by Applebees, don't have in their network right now. This list is sponsored by Coors Light.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Cincinnati Reds
Colorado Rockies
Florida Marlins
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland A's
Pittsburgh Pirates
Tampa Bay Rays
Toronto Blue Jays

So these are the teams that Rob hasn't been able to find a person who wants to sell his soul to ESPN for a little bit of exposure for his/her blog. I'm going to just eyeball this and say Rob Neyer either has incredibly high standards or there is some messed up stuff in the contract ESPN wants the writer to sign to become a part of the network.

Instead we've got 21, with (at this moment) no real prospects for more. I do think we'll make some progress this season. I just don't know when, or how much.

Here's how I understand the contract ESPN wants the ESPN SuperSelective SweetSpot Blog Network writers to sign...

(Blogger) "Do I get paid?"

(ESPN) "No."

(Blogger) "So I bring you traffic and you benefit? Why would I do this?"

(ESPN) "You get exposure."

(Blogger) "What good does exposure get me if I can't make money off of it?"

(ESPN) "I am sure you can make money, just not with us."

(Blogger) "I run a really popular site, but I feel like I need to partner with another site to help bring different content to my readers. What can you do in this respect?"

(ESPN) "I don't think you are the right fit for us right now."

I don't mean to get too far into the specifics of the agreement between a writer and ESPN, because I don't know and even some of the research I did seems pretty hazy on what exactly the agreement entails.

You can read that article I linked if you would like, it was one of the few in-depth discussions of the SweetSpot I found in the time I searched for information about it. It seems like it was written by a guy who writes for a competitor of the ESPN SweetSpot, so it may just be a recruiting tool for other bloggers to come to his network and I am sure it contains some biased representations of what the SweetSpot stands for, besides super-selectivity of course. So the purpose of the linked article was to show some of the criticisms of the ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot Blog Network sponsored by Applebee's and also show potentially why the nine slots haven't been filled yet.

I am not really trying to knock the SweetSpot or compare it to other networks, I just wanted to give a reason why it may be hard to find professional bloggers that can meet Rob Neyer's standards. That's what this rambling post is about...Rob Neyer's journalistic standards.

I do get a lot of "letters" like yours, Billy. And my best advice, if you're sincerely interested, is simple: do it.

I don't really get the "do it" advice given here because I am not sure Billy was asking how to start a blog, he was asking how to get his blog put on the ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot Blog Network sponsored by Applebee's. It seems like he would need the help of Rob Neyer to join the network. I am pretty sure this writers knows how to start a blog.

Last time I checked, the barrier for entry was exceptionally low. I believe it takes about three minutes to get a blog up and running.

More like five minutes, you have to think of a title for your blog as well. Some of my early names for this blog, and actually the name of the blog for the 1st two days, were not very good and quite lengthy. So it takes three minutes to get a blog up and running and at least five minutes if you have to think of a title for your blog.

Of course, there aren't any guarantees.

What? There are no guarantees? That means blogging and writing is exactly like the rest of life. As a person who hasn't seen the sun in 17 days, I don't know if I could handle this. I thought I could just plop some shit down on a page, get published and call it a day.

(I know, there are obvious jokes about Rob Neyer having high standards for his bloggers, but ESPN has some of the most worst, in my opinion writers on the payroll for Page 2. It turns out Rob Neyer's standards are higher than the network he writes for.)

The sad truth is that even if you've got the time to write about your favorite team every day, you probably don't have the analytical skills or the writing chops we're looking for.

This is the centerpiece of this post in my mind. This isn't the sad truth, this is a complete and utter assumption that most likely is really wrong. So Rob Neyer is saying a person who has time on his hands is naturally not employable to be a writer or this person doesn't have enough skills to write well? Are his current ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot (sponsored by Applebee's) bloggers all employed somewhere else and have very little time to write about their favorite team? Is that a job requirement? That a person has very little time...because that doesn't seem conducive to getting a group of people who write well either.

This is a stupid assumption. He can't just assume a person who has some time on his hands doesn't have the analytical skills or writing chops to write a daily blog about his/her favorite team. This type of thinking is what has caused newspapers to go belly-up and explains why there is such a large gap between professional journalists and the unprofessional bloggers of the world.

You might, someday.

Someday you may be able to write articles with rhyming puns in the name like Woody Paige, write a fake letter to the Chicago Bulls from LeBron James like Gene Wojciechowski has done, call for someone to get fired like Jay Mariotti does weekly, or even write a 500 word story that plagiarizes a previous story you wrote like Rick Reilly does. Some day, if you keep writing, and kiss the right asses you may be in the company of these individuals.

But writing, like most things, takes a fair amount of practice.

Apparently it doesn't count as practice if you currently write every single day on a blog about your favorite team. Because I am sure there are many people who have applied for the one of the open positions and been turned down even though they write everyday about their favorite team. I am not sure what would constitute practice more than that, outside of an English degree.

Obviously the quality of the writing should be a part of the decision, but I would hope writing your own blog about your favorite team everyday would constitute some form of practice to Rob Neyer.

If it were easy to write (and analyze) well, we wouldn't have nine openings in the SweetSpot Network, because I would have filled those slots already from among the many dozens of unaffiliated blogs that are out there right now.

And as stated above, Rob Neyer is looking for people who have little time on their hands to fill these open vacancies. You have all day to write and analyze your favorite team? You're a hack shithead. We want people who have a regular job and blog in their free time, that's the way to get quality writers.

Sometimes I worry that my standards are too high ... but that's better than the alternative, right? If I'm going to err (and I will, inevitably) I would rather err on the side of good writing and analysis.

No one can really disagree with this reasoning. It's just the idea that a person who has time on their hands doesn't have the analytical skills required to write a blog about their favorite team and have it affiliated with ESPN.

The bottom line is that if ESPN doesn't pay its bloggers in the ESPN Super-Selective SweetSpot Network (sponsored by Applebee's) then they will have to hire people who make money some other way (unless it is from the blog itself), which also cuts down on the amount of time they are able to write, and therefore cuts down on the quality of the writing.

So that's where we're at, Billy. I get letters like yours all the time, and my advice is always the same. Do it. Write about your team, and prove to me that you can write often and well and smartly. Then we'll talk.

And use "and" three times in a sentence when making a list. I am sure this was learned through constant practice.

At least Rob Neyer pays attention to bloggers, which is a step up from how normally mainstream writers treat the people they see as the scum of the Earth in regards to writing.

Enough rambling, but if a sports network as large as ESPN can't find nine bloggers to cover nine MLB teams on for their sports network, something tells me there is a problem outside of the quality of the writing and analysis on the site of the blogs which are applying for the network.

-Let's get to JemeHill's story of seduction at a bar in South Africa. Thanks to reader Tom for the link to this article.

It was a little before midnight, during the Brazil-North Korea game, which I was watching at an adult beverage establishment.

I don't know what that is. I am mentally handicapped.

OK, a bar.

Thanks for clearing that up. Always assume your readers are as stupid as you are. That's a great standard to use when writing.

And walking through the door wasn't Idris Elba -- my dream man -- but a World Cup coach who shall remain anonymous. And let's just say he didn't sidle up to me because he wanted to discuss soccer strategy.

(JemeHill searching desperately to make this blog posting about race...she can't do it, so she settles for just telling the story)

Before your minds dive into the gutter, nothing came of it, and his misdirected romantic intentions were spurned. But the encounter was comical because he spoke only Spanish and I'm extremely proficient in English.

I may argue JemeHill's extreme proficiency in English at a later date, but everyone probably wants to hear this tale of seduction without me rambling any further.

However, I remembered enough Spanish to know that this coach was trying to pick me up.

JemeHill, who knows no Spanish outside of minoring in it at Michigan State and she hasn't used the degree since, is ABSOLUTELY SURE this guy was picking her...despite the fact they didn't speak the same language. Let's just remember this is a writer who starts many of her columns with a false premise which she pretends everyone believes, then she attempts to disprove this false premise in an effort to show how what everyone thinks is wrong. She sometimes seems to have a warped view of what people tend to believe it true. Let's remember this before we just assume this guy was picking her up, though he very well could have been.

But even if I hadn't known a lick of Spanish, I think I still would have figured out this coach's ultimate aim. The amorous look in his eyes, the winks that punctuated every sentence and asking for my room number made it a dead giveaway.

I think the conversation went like this:

(JemeHill) "Hi, how are you?"

(Soccer coach) "Fine, (touches her shirt) I like your shirt it is very pretty. What are you drinking tonight? I don't want to drink a crappy beer. (points at her beer) I think I am going to have what you are drinking, would you like for me to order you another one?"

(JemeHill) "No thanks, I actually am here by myself and would like to keep it that way."

(Soccer coach) "I enjoy looking at that shirt you got, it reminds me of one my wife has. It makes her eyes (points to his eyes) sparkle with beauty (gets a big smile on his face)."

(JemeHill) "I know what you are doing and I am not interested."

(Soccer coach) "I know who you are and I read your columns. My wife loves you. Perhaps we could get together sometime and you could meet my wife. You could also do a brief interview with me if you would like."

(JemeHill getting upset) "I don't know what you are trying to accomplish, but it isn't going to work."

(Soccer coach) "My wife loves your writing. I promise, there will be no interview if you don't want, she just wants to meet you. We are in Room 214. What is your room number? It will only take five minutes."

(JemeHill splashes a drink in his face and makes a note to tell everyone she got hit on at a bar)

Thankfully, I remembered three Spanish words that put a halt to his advances -- "Tengo novio" (I have a boyfriend)

(JemeHill after throwing a drink in his face) "Tengo novio."

(Soccer coach wiping his face off) "He would be upset if you met my wife? What kind of person is he? I would think a person wearing a shirt as pretty as yours would have a nicer boyfriend (smiles at her). Five minutes to meet you is all I ask. Our anniversary is next week and it would be a great present to her. We'll come to your room, what's your room number?"

and "Soy la periodista para ESPN" (I'm a journalist for ESPN).

(JemeHill) "Soy la periodista para ESPN."

(Soccer coach) "I know who you are. That is why I want you to meet my wife, it would make her very happy. She knows very well who you are (puts his hand on her shoulder and smiles again to try and convince her to meet his wife) and loves your writing."

After I said that, he nodded and said something about being "amigos."

(JemeHill) "You are a pig and I don't want to do anything with you."

(Soccer coach) "But we are amigos, can't you just do the meeting for me? How about 11am tomorrow?"

Then we ended our conversation on a handshake.

(JemeHill shakes his hand and begins to leave)

(Soccer coach) "So it is a deal then! I will see you tomorrow in my room at 11am with my wife. Thank you amigo!"

(The next morning at 11:45am the soccer coach is furious JemeHill never showed up and his wife leaves the room to go shopping in South Africa for the day and is flying home the very next day. The soccer coach is at the end of his rope now) "That puta!"

Nevertheless, it was flattering. I guess it's true that love -- or rather, lust -- is a universal language.

This is the most disturbing story I have read in a couple of days.