Brockett Blog

“Five years time, I might not know you/Five years time, we might not speak” – Noah and the Whale, “5 Years Time”

Time on the Internet moves at the speed of a baby growing up from birth to kindergarten. Each day brings with it some growth, a first or maybe just a passing phase. But parents struggle to catch a breath, and when they do, they reach for a camera to catch a moment. Only then can the mind separate days amid the blur of everyday.

The Internet doesn’t have a photo album to chart its progress, and any visit to content created at the beginning of this decade reveals how many domains have come and gone. Sites like archive.org manage to catch some of these fleeting digital moments, but so many leave our bookmarks, leave our minds and shuffle off the mortal coil when domain renewal (or Geocities burning down) comes up.

Not all, though. The intense connection created by the best blogs prevents this from happening. I first learned this in 2003 and 2004, when a site called Redbird Nation began obsessively chronicling the daily life of St. Louis Cardinals fandom. For reference, this was a time when I would be so desperate to find something to read online during downtimes at the newspaper that I would read ESPN.com’s Daily Quickie, knowing full well it would enrage me at least until lunchtime.

So for a site to speak with wit and passion and – above all – sometimes multiple times a day, well, this was a development I could get behind. And while northern Illinois could be sparse with Cardinal red, Redbird Nation was lousy with it. I wasn’t the only one to discover this outlet for baseball passion. Will Leitch (currently of New York, formerly of Deadspin) recently confirmed something I’d surmised after first reading his young-adult novel, Catch: that his character Brian Gunn was named after the lead writer on the site:

The summer I was wrapping up that book was the summer of 2004, that amazing Cardinals team, and I was reading Redbird Nation obsessively. Brian Gunn’s voice was actually in my head during Cardinals games. I’ve been waiting FOREVER for someone to point that out … including Brian! (Whom I interacted with a lot that season. It was a year before Deadspin, though, so I was just some random dude annoying him.)

Brian and his crew called it quits after the 2004 season, a magical run of writing and baseball that ended as someone else’s fairy tale culmination. Some of the best work during the 2003-04 seasons was compiled in a self-published book that proves that the best of the Web behaves just as any great writing would – it stands the test of time (or, at least, five years worth of it). I recently sought out Brian with a few questions and he was kind enough to respond.

Hank Brockett: Do you remember what you were thinking when you first started you site? Do you remember what you were thinking when it ended?

Brian Gunn: I started Redbird Nation before I even knew there was a such thing as baseball blogs. I was actually inspired by a few of the political blogs I was reading, and thought it’d be fun to do the same thing with baseball. The original idea was that Redbird Nation would be collectively written by me and a few of my brothers, my cousin Mark, and a good friend of mine named Mike Flynn whom I knew from high school. We’d be the Wu-Tang Clan of baseball blogs! As time went on, however, it was just me and, occasionally, Flynn.

I eventually shuttered the site b/c it became too much of a time burden. Watching the games and writing about them every day was tantamount to a second full-time job (one, incidentally, that I wasn’t getting paid for), and it was starting to affect my day job, my relationship with my then-girlfriend, etc. I suppose I could’ve simply cut back on the hours I spent on the site, but I’m more of an obsessive, all-or-nothing type, so I just went cold turkey.

I frequently miss the site. I miss the way it brought a bunch of Cards fan together. I miss the way it forced me to intimately engage the Cardinals. I missed the way it forced me to defend my opinions about them. When the Cards won the NL in ’04, it felt like an accomplishment an entire community of us could share in. When we won it all in ’06, I didn’t feel that sense of ownership as strongly, and that was partly b/c I’d walked away from the blog. So yes, something is lost. That said, I don’t regret the decision. My life is more well-rounded; my career and my relationships are better; etc. I hate the stereotype of the “blogger in his pajamas,” hunched over a computer day in and day out, and yet, in ’03 and ’04, I kinda was.

And yes, I still write about baseball when the spirit moves me, usually at the websites The Hardball Times and The Baseball Analysts. I also contributed a chapter to Larry Borowsky’s Cardinals Annual, as well as a few Hardball Times annuals.

Pitch F/X is ridiculously thrilling and promising. And have you heard about the new camera/software systems being installed in various stadiums by an outfit called Sportvision? In the next few years I think we’re going to have enough data to definitively answer a number of questions about defense and baserunning that we just don’t have right now. It’s an exciting time. My fear is that we’re going to get so good at assigning value to players that there will be little room for argument. (Although, really, the history of baseball has taught us that my fears are unwarranted. I doubt we’ll ever able to fully assign number value to players — something will always be unaccounted for. Mysteries will endure — which, if you think about it, is about as exciting as anything else…)

Well, there are an awful lot of fantastic bloggers out there who are older than me – Rich Lederer, Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, Dave Studenmund. I would imagine that it’s tough to blog when you have kids – particularly young kids – but otherwise it seems like a nice activity for young college types and older men and women who have a little wisdom and aren’t so obsessed with launching careers or families.

Yes. No question. Not only did I watch more games — I watched them BETTER, because I had to articulate my thoughts and feelings about them. I write movies for a living, and people often ask me if analyzing movies (to say nothing of seeing the business side of films, “how the sausage is made,” so to speak) sours me on moviegoing. The truth is that it makes me appreciate good movies even more, b/c I know what goes into the process and b/c I feel like I can enjoy it on more levels. Same thing, I think, with baseball. Analysis usually enhances fandom; it doesn’t detract from it.

Of course it’s all a matter of taste, but I’d say that nothing right now compares to the sheer joy of that summer of ’04. 2004 was like a blissful dream that just went on and on. And while this year seems especially charmed and unexpected — we were supposed to finish no higher than 2nd, and most likely 3rd or 4th — remember: we weren’t supposed to finish any higher than 2nd in ’04 either. It was supposed to be the Cubs’ year (just like this year).

And there’s one other thing I liked about ’04 more than ’09 — in ’04 I was convinced we were the best team in baseball and that we had a chance to go all the way. Of course we’ve got a real shot this year, but I’m not ready to say we’re as good as the Yankees, Phillies, or Red Sox. Then again, if we DO go all the way, that might make it all the sweeter…

I’ll answer your last question there first: no, I do not want the Cubs to close the gap on us. It’s one of the ironies of sports fandom that you (or at least I) generally only appreciate drama in retrospect. But right now I’d love a drama-free coast to the finish line. And yes, Carp/Wainwright is, right now at least, the equal of Lincecum/Cain, Lee/Hamels, Beckett/Lester, or anyone else.

As for what I think of this team, I’ll reply the same way Zhou En-lai did when Henry Kissinger asked his opinion of the French Revolution: it’s too early to tell. I know that sounds obnoxious, but sometimes I need a couple years to see whether or not a team sticks with me. Like you mention Will Clark. Who knew that this guy – who I used to hate when he played for the Giants (remember his fight with Ozzie and Oquendo!) – would come to our team, play only 50 games, and still be capable of moving me to tears 9 years later? I have similar feelings about Adam Wainwright in ’06, Andy Benes in ’02, Terry Pendleton in ’87, John Tudor in ’85. Sometimes I just don’t know my feelings while they’re happening. But I do know this: there’s just about nothing on this earth that compares to the pleasure of watching Albert Pujols day in and day out. I think the first half of this year may have been Albert at his best, and I’ll never forget that. Nor will I forgot the way Mozeliak and the Cardinals provided a cast of supporting characters worthy of Albert. That’s been a delight.

For fans of the site, Brian sends along this update: “As for what I’m up to now, I’m working as a screenwriter, currently writing the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth for New Line Cinema. As for the site’s other writers, my friend Mike Flynn is an attorney in Chicago; my brother Sean is an actor in Hollywood; my brother Matt is a writer for Real Time with Bill Maher; my brother-in-law Alec is an attorney for the Walt Disney Co.; and my cousin Mark is my full-time writing partner.”

Editor’s note: This story originally was published April 17, 2008.

Algernon joins Family Groove Company for a show April 25

The members of Algernon won’t need a map when they arrive in DeKalb.

The group, made up mostly of NIU music department grads, returns with an eclectic brand of instrumental music when they open for Family Groove Company Friday, April 25 at The House CafÈ in DeKalb. Band member Dave Miller recently answered some of Take ONE’s questions by e-mail.

You mentioned that you and some of the band members have some NIU ties. Is that where the band started? How did it start? And what are everyone’s connections? Does being from NIU impact your sound in any way?
The band did start at NIU. I had a gig booked for a funk band that I fronted. It turns out we couldn’t do the gig but I still had the date booked. I decided to use the gig as an opportunity to write some new music for a different type of band that I had been thinking about starting for a while, which turned into Algernon.

The first lineup actually did not feature anyone from NIU, but the second and current lineup, which formed in the fall of 2005, features Katie Wiegman, percussion major at NIU; Cory Healey, jazz drumset major at NIU; Tom Perona, who was not an NIU student but an old friend and Nick Fryer and myself, who were both jazz guitar majors. Now, all of us live in Chicago.
The wide variety of musics that we studied, including jazz, classical, Indian, Brazilian, African and avant-garde, has definitely had a huge impact on both the compositional and performance sides to Algernon. We were all definitely exposed to lots of music we would probably would have never heard otherwise.

Your MySpace page describes your genre as “Neopsycedelicpostrockjazz.” When you’re writing songs, does it take a while to create that wide canvas, or is it easier when anything is possible?
When I write music, I do not necessarily set boundaries for myself. If I end up writing something that doesn’t sound like it would be an Algernon song, I won’t use it for Algernon. However, Algernon is a product of the music we as a band listen to, which is extremely wide-ranging.
The writing process kind of adheres to the concept of “you are what you eat” – we end up writing neopsychedelicpostrockjazz because we listen to all of those types of music, and more, very intensely. I try not to think about it too much and just let the music come naturally.

What brought you into music, and when was the moment when you believed you could create music?
I started playing guitar when I was 11. I was really into bands like Pearl Jam, Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. Creating music was never something I really grew into. It was always just a natural thing. I started creating music right away.

It never really worried me if it was good or bad to other peoples’ ears. It was just pure fun. As I grew older, my tastes obviously broadened, but, for some reason, I always leaned towards ‘weird’ sounding music. I was constantly searching for records that sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before. I remember freaking out the first time I heard Frank Zappa or Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Both sounded like alien music to me. I loved it. All those “weird” sound ideas I feel finally came into fruition when Algernon began.

I don’t mean this as an insult, but when I hear a song like “Don’t Press the Red Button,” I picture a very cool Sesame Street mini-montage about how something is made. Do you ever consider what mediums your songs are heard in (live vs. recorded vs. other media) or would work well in?
We’ve heard a lot of interesting descriptions of our music but that is one of the more interesting ones! I think everyone in the band would agree that a live show is where Algernon really shines. It is hard to communicate on record the energy that we put forth on stage. On our newly released album, Familiar Espionage, we recorded all the songs, more or less, how we do them live. It worked out great, and we’re really excited with the way it turned out. However, I think we’re all leaning towards making a more studio-oriented record for our next album, just for a change of pace.

Being an instrumental band lends itself well to accompanying visual media. We’d jump at the chance if the opportunity arose. I have composed for film, theater and dance, and I love incorporating the visual element into composition. It’s an amazing experience to see the elements come together in the final product.

What can one expect at an Algernon show?
Energy and emotion. We like to play loud (as long as the vibraphone is mic’d properly)! We love playing to an audience of any size. As long as they are listening and digging it, it’s worth it.

Tickets for the show are $8. Examples of the band’s music can be heard at www.myspace.com/algernonmusic.

Editor’s note: This story originally was published in late 2005. Leitch recently announced he was leaving the site to take a position with New York Magazine. The site has gone on to serve as a beacon for sports blogs, and Leitch went on to much more high-profile interviews, such as an infamous one on Costas Now.

Deadspin comes alive
{Will Leitch puts a new spin on the sports-related Web site

From Minnesota Viking cruises to regrettable ESPN programming, and all the Carolina Panther cheerleaders and team blogs in between, Deadspin is there.

Will Leitch absorbs the sports media, especially its increasingly viable outlets available online. Through his filter, Deadspin.com — a member of Gawker Media’s cavalcade of Web sites — offers up the type of entertaining and compelling sports news that causes PR flaks to use terms like “irreverent.” Through it all, he manages to still love sports and write about things that don’t require a keyboard shortcut to spell out “T.O.” Leitch, an avowed St. Louis Cardinals fan and a strong alum supporter of the University of Illinois despite his current New York residence, recently extended his computer stay to answer some of Take ONE’s questions.

The St. Louis Cardinals lost. Have you recovered? And doesn’t it seem too early to start moving on to the hot stove league? Is Larry Walker’s career even cold yet? And, given that your Illini also came so close, do you think you lead a tortured sports fan existence worthy of a Dan Shaughnessy book?
I have recovered, mainly because of Illinois basketball. Illinois basketball and the Cardinals are almost certainly the two most important things in my life. Every year, my father and I have a little thing we do when the Cardinals are eliminated from the playoffs and/or the Illini lose in the tournament. We’ll lament the loss and then he’ll say, “Well, it’s about time for baseball season/Illini basketball.” It makes it easier. What I have not recovered from is the impending destruction of Busch Stadium. I still can’t believe they’re doing it. It just kills me. I cannot emphasize this enough: I grew up there. I can’t imagine going back to St. Louis and having another Camden Yards clone around. It makes me sad every single day. It’s like a bad dream.

The site you’re in charge of, Deadspin.com, has certainly garnered a lot of attention from the Web-based sports writing community. A couple months in, is it where you want it to be? Have you been able to set the boundaries for what you’re trying to accomplish?
We’re getting there. Frankly, the goal is to be able to drive the sports news cycle the way that Gawker drives the New York media news cycle or — more accurately — the way Wonkette drives the political news cycle. We want to get to the point that, as a sports fan, there’s absolutely no reason not to read Deadspin all day; it will essentially become a requirement. We’re not there yet, obviously, but two months in, I’m pretty pleased. The reader reaction has been fantastic; our biggest story was when a reader emailed us photos of Kyle Orton just plastered in a bar. The guy who took the photos sent them to me the next morning. Think about that: This guy was drinking at a bar, saw the Bears quarterback piss drunk and acting like an ass, and said to himself, “I gotta take a picture of this and send it to that Deadspin guy.” That’s outstanding. We get enough people like that out there, it will be impossible to stop us.

One of your regular features is Why Your Hometown Columnist Sucks, and it has featured someone familiar to our readership, Jay Mariotti. You attempt to break down why each individual columnist sucks, but is there a big picture as to why columnists as a whole are so disappointing? And have they always been this way and it was just much harder to bitch about the bad columns pre-Internet boom?
It’s tempting to blame it on ESPN — and they really have corrupted some once very good columnists — but mostly, I think it’s laziness. Bill Simmons pointed out that these guys pretty much have jobs for life; there’s very little incentive for them not to mail it in. That’s the real problem, in my opinion; nobody’s trying to be a great writer, and nobody’s trying to do something different. Columnists have become celebrities … and that’s all. And you’d think that they’d see people like Simmons, like us, and recognize that there’s a stampede of talented people on the Web who are talented and hungry, and that they’d step up their game. But they like the free buffets too much.

How many e-mails to you receive each day, and how many pages are in the usual “history” folder for your Web browser each day?
God, I can’t even pretend to count. Let’s see. I’m going into my e-mail file right now … today I received 320 non-spam emails. And I answered every single one of them. People think this job is five hours of cracking wise and then hitting parties all night. I wish. I just realized I’ve been sitting here for 13 consecutive hours … and I’m still not close to getting done. I’m not complaining — at all. This is the best job I’ve ever had. And unlike other jobs in sports that I’ve had … I actually still like sports at the end of the day. I spend all day and all night making notes and checking out blogs and refreshing sites and pretty much living my entire life online. It has become my life. And you know what? That’s fine with me.

Commenting on sports media inevitably means a lot of coverage on ESPN. And, lately, there’s a lot to complain about. While the gap from coverage to affecting change is great, if you were in charge of ESPN programming and seeking the approval of fans such as yourself, what might you do?
If I were in charge of ESPN, I would fire myself, because I’d just show old Cardinals games all day and make prank calls to Peter Gammons (whom I love, perhaps too intensely). But if they asked my advice, I’d get rid of anything that isn’t directly about sports. The problem is that ESPN has gotten so big that they only way they CAN grow is by doing these stupid reality shows. I’d keep making the movies — which make money, and some of them (like 3) are actually pretty good — and I’d go back to having Baseball Tonight be Karl Ravech, Harold Reynolds, Jayson Stark and Gammons. And, as a practical joke, I’d fire Woody Paige and not tell him, and, in fact, keep filming his segments so he thinks he’s on air live. That would be great.

You’ve got a new book coming out in paperback this month, Catch, a coming-of-age tale with a protagonist in the summer purgatory between high school and college. Why do so many of these types of tales [fail], and how do you avoid some of the pitfalls of the genre? And what makes this time in a character’s life so appealing to you as a writer to write about?
Ah, a book question. I love book questions. Did you know that Catch is available at bookstores nationwide? And that Oprah author James Frey calls it “Will Leitch’s first novel is a coming-of-age story that will resonate for young people and adults alike. His main character’s move from an unexamined existance to one in which he is full engaged in the joy, the insecurity, the pain and the challenge of life rings with authenticity and sincerity?” These are important things to know.
Honestly, I have no idea. This book is the first time I’ve ever written fiction. A publisher saw my first book, a collection of columns, and asked if I wanted to write a book. I said, “sure, I guess,” and this is what resulted. I don’t really know the genre very well. Basically, I just started typing, and this is what came out. I’m proud of it, and, all told, it turned out better than I expected it to. I thought it would be fun to write about because I’ve always been fascinated by just how important the decisions we make when we’re young ultimately turn out to be. When I was 17, I was a moron; all I wanted to do was watch baseball and touch boobs. (As opposed to now, when I … well, you got me.) But the decisions I made then have massive ramifications to this day. I’m very intrigued by that, and thought it was a great thing to write a book about. Plus, I’m a sap and really like doomed love stories. But yeah: I hope the book does well. It was a lot of fun to write, and I’m working on my next one now.

A lot of your non-sports writing has dealt with your move from Mattoon, Ill. to New York. Is your whole writing career inspired by the crushing boredom caused by driving on I-57?
Pretty much. The summer after my freshman year of college in Champaign, I lived at home in Mattoon and drove back and forth three times a week to visit a girlfriend. I swear to God, half of those drives were done literally in my sleep. I could still do it today.

Editor’s note: This story originally was published Nov. 21, 2007.

Leslie Hunt continues her music career after a top-10 female performance in last year’s American Idol

More than 30 million people have seen Leslie Hunt do what she loves to do.

Yes, much of that audience came in one fell swoop. But the number still grows.

The young Chicagoan has come down from the pressure cooker that serves as America’s most-watched show, American Idol. There, she made the top 10 female performers before the votes came in. She survived a post-show writer’s block and maybe the toughest question of all: What’s next?

For now, that’s touring with her band and readying for an album of new material, due early next year. She’s probably quite familiar to local music fans, as a former singer for Junk in the Trunk (“I learned my voice had no limits,” said Hunt of her time with the cover band.) She recently performed at The House, and will play Otto’s Niteclub in DeKalb Friday, Nov. 30. She sat down with Take ONE to talk about reading blogs, going back in time and how her band came together.

What do you think about before a performance?
I listen to a lot of music. Sometimes it can turn into something. It can remind you of what you’re doing in the first place or makes me think of new ways to approach a song.

So what did you listen to when you were coming here?
I borrowed my fiance’s iPod, on shuffle. So I listened to all kinds of music I haven’t ever heard before. I’ve been really into M.I.A. lately. She’s super-cool.

When did you know you wanted to do this?
I had the childhood dream of doing anything in the spotlight. Then I knew this was my avenue and not a ballerina or a circus monkey … So I started writing songs (at an early age).

You were in Fiddler on the Roof as a kid. What’s your favorite song from that?
I like “Anatevka,” as like the closing number and there’s all this sobbing and moving bodies.
Did you ever read Internet reviews of your performance on American Idol?
I did at first, until I read so many things that I couldn’t agree with. Immediately after you’re off the show, you really have to nurture yourself and take a lot of hot baths. And then, once you build yourself up again, then I think it’s good to go back. I know I don’t have the thickest skin in the world … People would say on the blogs, “I hate her.” (laughs) How can you hate me or hate anybody on the show? I can understand someone’s attitude kind of bugs you, but not hating them.

What would you tell the November, 2006 Leslie Hunt if the present-day you could go back in time in the DeLorean?
I would tell myself to practice being in front of the camera. I did it a lot. I would sit in my living room and practice that, but that was really odd. If I was in the place that I’m in right now – because after the show I’ve written a lot of new stuff and I have this amazing band – I think I would have the wherewithal and the confidence to have done a better job. A lot of times they would ask me, “What is your style?” And I’d be like, “Gosh! I don’t know!” Now that I’ve written more songs, I know what my style is.

Tell me about the new album that will be coming out.
It will all be completely new. I’m still doing it. I haven’t actually recorded it yet. I’m going to Nashville to do some pre-production. But we’ll probably record it wherever the musicians (who play on it) live, and my band will probably play on a few of the tracks. Which is good, because I wanted people on the record that I already have a rapport with.

How did the band come together?
Joel, my bassist, technically, he’s my godbrother, even though he hates that word. His parents are my godparents … I basically found my drummer on Craigslist. A lot of people auditioned, but he just rose to the top. And then he said “Hey, we should play with Neal Alger,” and so he became our guitarist. But yeah, we’re having a ball with it. It just gives us so many more options for what we can achieve with songs. We really want to get the heads bobbing, that’s really important to me. And there’s only so much you can do with just a piano.

Do you have a goal as to when you want the album to come out?
It was supposed to be done in early January, but it’s probably not going to be done by then. It might be February-ish … The iron’s got to stay hot. The new season (of American Idol) is going to be coming out. But I don’t want to sacrifice any quality. Then I’ve just got to market it, and go on tour and become super-famous and that’s about it, really (laughs).
Do you plan on watching the show?
I never watched the show in my life. Maybe I’ll be a little curious. But I get a kick out of the early auditions. They’re pretty funny, but it’s kind of sad, because I sat next to some of those people in the auditions, that they used to joke like that. And they’re sitting there saying “Oh, I can’t believe this is happening for me, oh my God” and praying.

And finally, what do you want for Christmas?
I want a new pair of skis. And I want a new microphone.

Editor’s note: This story originally was published Dec. 29, 2006. An audio version of the interview can be found here.

NIU running back finishes career one of the most decorated players in the program’s history

It isn’t easy to come up with superlatives for Garrett Wolfe anymore. After three years of rewriting school (and some national) record books, the senior running back called it a collegiate career after NIU’s loss to TCU in the Poinsettia Bowl. But memories don’t require adequate descriptive words, only an occasional audio or video highlight to refresh the images in our minds.

The running back finished his NIU career with 5,164 yards (11th all-time in NCAA 1-A, just behind Ohio State’s Archie Griffin), with a nation-leading 1,928 coming in the 2006 season. He averaged 6.4 yards per carry for his career.
Wolfe sat down for an interview a few days before departing for San Diego and just a few weeks before his mind turns to the NFL draft, and graduation.

How is football different — or the same — for you now compared to when you started as a kid?
It’s the same game. The only difference now is that you’ve got to do it fast. There’s not much time to think about things. You’ve got to make a decision and go.

Was it always fun for you?
I think it was more fun when I was younger than now. Now, there’s a lot more expected of me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a lot of fun now. But when you’re a kid, you get to enjoy everything a lot more.

When you look back, are you able to think about all you’ve done here, or does the prospect of another game prevent you from doing that?
I haven’t really reflected on my time here. I just think about how we have one more game and another opportunity to play with my teammates.

Do you feel like, each year, that it’s worth it?
There’s no doubt about it. This is something that I dread, something I enjoy, something I have a lot of fun with. I think anyone in my shoes would have a lot of fun with the way things have fallen the last three years.

One of the things you’ve dealt with a lot is press (media) coverage … How did you prepare for that? Did you get tips from people?
I just relax and answer questions. I’m always in my comfort zone, so nothing that people ask me can bother me. To this point in my life, I’ve been called everything, so there’s nothing that anyone can say or ask that will rattle me.
Do you feel you’re pretty much a professional at it now?
Oh, definitely (smiles). I could teach a media relations class.
Is there something in particular that drew you to (communication – media studies) as a major?
It’s easy for me. It’s easy for me to talk on camera, it’s easy for me to be around people. It’s not something I find hard at all.

One interview I read said that your professional role model would be (Atlanta Falcons running back) Warrick Dunn. Do you still feel that way?
I just like the way Warrick Dunn carries himself both on and off the field. We’re very similar in stature, and he’s a very good football player.
Off the field, or in a non-football setting, do you have someone you try and emulate?
No, I just try and be my own person. I think my parents have done a good job of raising me and I just try to be myself.
Do you read press clippings? Do you Google yourself online?
I never Google myself. You can’t help but pick up the paper and see something about yourself. I read things and I’m a fan of sports, so I’ll pick up a sports magazine … and sometimes I catch things about me.

So being in Sports Illustrated in the beginning of the year (in a black-and-white photo emulating the Heisman trophy pose) was a big deal for you?
That was a very big deal, very big deal.

Are you an expert at (being photographed) now, too?
Naw, it depends on the photographer. When you have a professional photographer, it doesn’t feel like work. They know how to loosen you up and make sure you’re enjoying everything. With photographers from maybe a smaller paper, they just expect you to be “live” just because I’ve been photographed so much. (smiles) It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to get out of me what you want.

What type of interests do you have outside of football?
I’m a real laid-back guy. I’m really into fashion, music, video games, things of that nature. I really just enjoy having time to myself at this point because a lot’s asked of me … everybody needs something. I don’t really go out much because usually, I just want to relax.

So you’re saying you put a lot of thought into those postgame press conference outfits?
(laughs)

Is there anything you’re looking to improve or change going into the NFL combine (where potential draft picks are evaluated)?
I’ll probably try to put on 10 pounds, or something along those lines. The objective would be to be as fast as I am now, just 10 pounds heavier. I think if I can do that, that might make people feel a little better about me being small

Editor’s note: This interview originally was published Aug. 15, 2006.

Some see a woodlands path and remember to thank the inventor of the escalator (that would be Jesse Reno, for those looking for historically accurate expletives). Others find enough beauty along those paths to fill a book.

Greg Romaneck of DeKalb, the former director of student services for the DeKalb School District, recently released a collection of poetry titled Superior Psalms: The Poetry of Isle Royale & the Porcupine Mountains. The book, published by PublishAmerica, describes the rugged landscape of the Northwoods with poetry culled from journals kept during Romaneck’s past few visits. He recently took a journey through some of Take ONE’s questions.

Take ONE: In the collection, you talk about experiencing these locales at different points in your life. When did you first travel up to the Lake Superior region, and when did the hiking/nature passion first form?
Greg Romaneck: My first experiences in the Porcupine Mountains and the UP were in my late teens and early twenties. At that time I did a great deal of hiking in the Lake Superior region along with other people who shared a love of that area. Over the decades I have come to feel a strong attachment to that region. Lake Superior is an amazing force of nature. Its icy water can model moods that stretch from calm to storms of frightening potential. I have hiked, camped, and backpacked at places like the Porcupine Mountains & Isle Royale National Park for a long time. Yet, despite the many trips I have taken to those places, every time return it is as if it was my first experie4nce there. My passion for the region has been longstanding but I truly believe that as I have aged and become a husband & father, and have shared some of those journeys with family & friends, my bond with that landscape has deepened. But, it is important to remember that one need not go all the way to Isle Royale to find beauty. By simply walking outside on a pleasant day or looking into the face of a loved one, beauty can always be found. The value of a journey is not to be measured by its distance, but rather, by its worth.

When did you first decide to go beyond just writing things down in a journal and consider publishing?
My first book titled A Superior Journey: Trail Reflections from Isle Royale that was published several years ago represented the trail experiences I had one summer. During that time, which fell shortly after the death of my father, I hiked several hundred miles and covered virtually all of the trails on Isle Royale National Park. A feature of that book was the insertion of occasional trail poetry that led me to write more in that genre. Subsequent to that publication I was fortunate enough to find a publisher that was interested in printing my poetry and they have published not only “Superior Psalms” but also “Prairie Musings” a book that focuses upon the beauty of the world in and around DeKalb. I have always maintained some sort of trail journaling when I hike and I just finally felt that what I was writing might actually be of at least mild interest to other people who loved wilderness and nature in general.

The educator’s schedule, with a chance at summers off, certainly has allowed for many of these summer trips. What is something you learned on your last trip to the Northwoods?
My last few trips to Isle Royale occurred at times of great upheaval and sadness in my life. Losses in my family, personal depression, and chronically stressful work situations all contributed to make those trips ones that made me confront changes in my life. In going to the Northwoods at pivotal times in my life I was able to reconnect with the love, ethics, friendships, and values that serve as guideposts in my life. The sights, sounds, and smells of favorite places allowed me to recharge and once again realize just how fortunate I am to have the family, friends, and opportunities that have been placed in my life. I suppose the abiding lesson of my most recent trips to Isle Royale and the Upper Peninsula is that all life has interconnection and value, and all we need to do is open our eyes to the joys of the present moment rather than dwelling on things we cannot change or control.

Topics of the poems in this book range anywhere from the sights of nature, to thinking about your son and the potential for grandkids, to the day-to-day wonder of Ramen noodles. Were you trying to capture the various facets of the nature experience?
Yes, it is easy to romanticize time spend in the wild. In reality, a backpacking trip is many things inclusive of hard work, bad weather, biting insects, and tough trail days. However, the possibility of seeing wildlife, experiencing the bonding that can occur with trail partners, and the grandeur of the wilderness make it all worthwhile. Rather than simply describing the beauty of the wild I felt it was important to touch on themes that accurately communicated the many moods & features that wilderness experiences can offer.

What advice do you have for other nature lovers who might want to follow a similar path to publishing their work?
I believe that if you have a true love of wilderness or other aspects of the out-of-doors, journaling, or other forms of writing are a fine way to capture the sights, sounds, and emotions you feel when in Nature. Maintaining a trail journal, personal diary, or writing poetry in the field or in your backyard can be very fulfilling. If you feel your writing has some potential for affecting others, by all means pursue their publication. Take the risk of sending your work to viable publishers, make the editorial changes that are required, and spend time honing your writing craft. Even your work is never published, it still represents what you experienced in Nature and that is a beautiful thing in and of itself.

Tell us a little about your upcoming, Civil War-set novel. What’s it about?
My newest book is a novel titled Albert & Jennie: A Civil War Story. This work deals with the fictionalized retelling of the actual life of Albert Cashier, a Union soldier who served in the 95th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Albert Cashier lived in Belvidere prior to the war and joined the Federal Army at about 19 years of age. Albert served for four years and saw fierce combat at places such as Vicksburg, Brice’s Crossroads, and Fort Blakely. After the war Albert lived a reclusive life in Saunemin, Illinois about 80 miles southeast of DeKalb. About fifty years after the war an amazing discovery was made after a then aged Albert suffered an accident at the hands of his employer, a state senator. Albert was really a woman whose actual name was Jennie Hodgers, an Irish immigrant. My book tells the story of Albert & Jennie, the life decisions that people are forced to make, the power & damage that secrets can breed, the healing force of friendship, and the pathway to redemption that one unique person followed. It will be released in early September and it represents a story that has fascinated me for many years and which I researched extensively inclusive of visiting the sites where Albert lived, fought, and was buried.

Editor’s note: This interview originally was published March 31, 2006.

The Obscure Store Web site compiles some of the oddest news stories of the day

Let’s see: Lion’s paw, peanut butter, drunk grandmas, gross bathrooms, misdirected sex chat and mermaids. Friday night on Greek Row? No, just the front page of The Obscure Store, a weekday compendium linking to some of the oddest news stories of the day. Jim Romenesko runs the store when he isn’t adding new items to his influential journalism-focused Romenesko blog through Poynter. He recently took time to answer some decidedly normal questions about the Web site.

Take ONE: What led to the creation of the Obscure Store? And when did that take place?
I started Obscure Store in 1998 as a way to sell my Obscure Publications fanzine and other fanzines produced by online/snail-mail friends. As a way to draw traffic, I updated the page every weekday with interesting news stories I found online. I also threw in some media stories at the bottom of the page. In 1999 I moved those media stories over to a new site, mediagossip.com. Shortly after, I was hired by the Poynter Institute to do their media-news page. That’s always been my first priority; Obscure Store and Starbucks Gossip are hobby sites that I post to when I have a spare second.

What, to you, defines a story that belongs in the Obscure Store? And how do you obtain most of your linkable stories? Is your browser’s “History” folder a war zone?
Technically, any story that interests me is an “Obscure-type story,” but I think most people expect Obscure stories to be quirky, unusual, and maybe edgy. I try to avoid Associated Press stories and other wire service stories. I think my strength has always been that I post local stories. That was great when I first started, but now that many/most newspapers require registration, my pool of stories is reduced. I TRY to stay away from registration-required stories. I find stories via my daily visits to dozens of news sites and from e-mail tips.

Recently, the site flirted with comments on the stories, and another TypePad site you run, Starbucks Gossip, still features comments. What leads to your comments/no comments decision for a site?
Too many of the Obscure Store comments were racist, homophobic, profane, etc. and I didn’t have time to monitor/delete the offensive posts. Also there were just a handful of people (out of thousands of daily visitors) posting comments; many non-posters said the comments section didn’t add to the site.

You must spend enough time on newspaper Web sites to know what you like and what you don’t like. What’s a pet peeve of your browsing experience, and does the potential move toward paid/registered content impede your ability to gather stories?
I guess I answered that above. Yes, registration sites are very frustrating and could lead to the demise of Obscure Store.

Do you have a favorite story of 2005 that appeared in the Obscure Store?
That whole fiasco with the finger-in-the-chili at Wendy’s was amusing. And then just a few weeks later, someone tried to pull a copycat stunt.

As an organizer of journalism news, weird stories and Starbucks info, what keeps it fresh for you? And is there anything else you’d like to organize into digestible form?
I don’t know of any subject that I’d like to blog at the moment. The things I’m currently interested in — satellite radio, hi-def developments — are already being covered and I don’t think I can add to them. The Obscure site is getting harder to maintain because of my Poynter/ROMENESKO obligations, but I want to keep adding at least a few interesting stories every day. Starbucks Gossip is fun because of the reader reactions to the stories I post. I’ve kept the comments on Starbucks Gossip because, for some reason, people are generally civil on that site. Occasionally I have to delete a post and block a user, but not very often.

Romenesko
http://www.poynter.org/romenesko

Starbucks Gossip
http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com

Editor’s note: This interview originally was published March 22, 2006. It was recently referenced on his site here.

Cardboard creations
{Ben Henry takes his collection of baseball cards to the Web

For as much as we’ve learned that everyone has a blog about everything these days, there hasn’t been a lot of bandwidth spent talking about Joe Boever’s 1989 Donruss baseball card. Maybe it’s because the nondescript Atlanta Braves pitcher went 4-11 that year. Maybe it’s because the card wouldn’t even show up in a price guide called “Beckett Joe Boever Card Monthly.” Or maybe no one sees the charm that Ben Henry sees.

Henry started a Web site, baseballcardblog.blogspot.com, earlier this year that has become an homage to the overproduced cards of his youth. Now mostly devoid of monetary value, he finds a way to describe the personal value of such collecting pursuits with proper — often hilarious — visual accompaniment. Henry recently stepped away from the wax packs to answer a few Take ONE questions by e-mail.

What led you to create the site?
Sometime last summer I started thinking about what would make the ‘Perfect Pack’ of baseball cards, and if something like this could ever actually exist. So, a Perfect Pack would consist of all the great or good cards from a set being seeded into one pack. An example of this would be in 1986 Topps getting Vince Coleman’s regular issue rookie card, the Pete Rose #1, the second-year Clemens and Puckett, the Brett All-Star (where he resembles Alfred E. Neuman), Nolan Ryan, Mike Schmidt, Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn, the Pete Rose Record Breaker, Bret Saberhagen, the Expos Team Card featuring Andre Dawson, Len Dykstra, Dwight Gooden and Fernando Valenzuela. This is the kind of pack you dream about as a little kid, and I wanted to see if it actually existed. I thought the best way to compare packs against each other (using one 36-pack box as the entire population) would be to give each pack a rated value. I came up with a ranking system of how each individual card would rate (on a scale of -2 to +5), based on the player, whether it was their main base card or a subset card, and how the card would’ve been approached at the time of issue versus assessing the pack today.

So a Perfect Pack in 1986 Topps would be an 80 (a rating of 5 times 16 cards). I had started recording each pack in a notebook and after going through something like half a box I got really bored. Bored with the idea of dry, quantitative analysis. Right around that time, I found a card of Moose Haas and on the back it said that not only was he an amateur locksmith, but he was also a magician. Are you kidding me? And he chose baseball? It got me thinking that instead of writing about statistics (and really just made-up statistics), I should focus on what makes baseball cards so neat. So I searched around on the Internet for writing about baseball cards and either I didn’t know where to look or maybe I was looking in the wrong places, but I just didn’t find any beyond Beckett.com and the Topps and Upper Deck pages. So I got my friend to set up a blog template for me and I just sort of had at it.

Much of the talk today in the hobby is about the kind of card, scarcity, etc.
Yeah, and it’s kind of too bad. I mean, a lot of the cards today are really nice, good-looking cards that I’d totally be into collecting if everyone wasn’t so hell-bent on finding autographs, SPs and game-used relic cards…maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t want a card featuring a crotch swatch of, you know, like Mark Prior’s uniform or something. I don’t care how many times they wash it. I really don’t think that Upper Deck and some of the other companies are too far away from bottling players’ sweat and dipping special chase cards in it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone from a card company paid Johnny Damon’s barber to collect his hair after The Cut, so they could insert furry insert cards in next year’s product. I mean, how sick is some of this stuff? I stopped collecting because packs got too expensive, the cards got too fancy and I still kept getting Astros bench players.

But this site talks more about the cards themselves, their photos, design and maybe even numbering.
For me collecting was about building a set, trading with friends for players I liked, and making fun of weird looking guys or players with unbelievable names. Today’s stuff is cool to certain people, but with so many sets, it’s hard to keep track. I hate to sound like a curmudgeon, because I really do like some of today’s sets, but it really was better back when I was pouring my allowance into completely worthless baseball cards. And it was this period (1986 – 1993), and cards from 1993 and before that I wanted to write about, because they’re just so much more interesting than stuff today.

Does that make you feel nostalgic/old?
I don’t know. Kind of, not really. I guess it should, but it doesn’t. I mean, I feel like these cards have always been part of my life as things I sorted, things I rated, things I valued. Not as things I read, things I really stared at and things that helped me contemplate the universe. Wow, that’s a little heavy. What I mean is, I find it really refreshing to re-approach cards in a new way, to appreciate and memorialize everything associated with them. I don’t think that what I’m doing with The Baseball Card Blog either dates me or my interests nor does it invoke any sort of nostalgia in me as a writer. The reader may feel nostalgia, but I think it’s up to individual interpretation.

Would someone be able to do something like this site 20 years from now looking back on the newest Bowman Chrome? Or does the 80s/90s era lend itself well to this writing?
I would definitely read what a current collector has to say about new cards and I think that in 20 years someone could do a fantastic job talking about 2006 Bowman Chrome. But I think the problem they’ll run into is that, because there are just so many sets today, they’ll have to try extra hard to get people to remember what it is they’re talking about.

I’ve been thinking about why I have such a hard time relating to cards today. With so many insert sets, I get this feeling that the hobby has lost its focus, or that maybe, in what is a much more sad interpretation, the focus of the hobby has moved away from the base set and towards finding 1 of 1’s of quad-signature game-used relics of Babe Ruth. I like Babe Ruth as much as the next guy, and whenever I think of him I invariably think of Harry Frazee, No No Nanette, and how I’d like to try to eat a couple of gigantic steaks for breakfast, but I don’t really want to think of the possibility of finding a card featuring his signature cut from an old check or something, if only because it would drive me to buy packs and packs of cards at $8 a pop. There are a few reasons that I don’t smoke: one, because I’d rather not die of lung cancer, two, because I always found Joe Camel creepy and three, because packs of cigarettes are so goddamn expensive. Now, explain to me (besides the dying of lung cancer part) how buying packs of new cards is not like buying cigarettes.

But, the cost of new packs aside, baseball is baseball, to paraphrase Terrence Mann in the film version of Field of Dreams, and I think what makes something like this universal regardless of time period is that people who follow baseball can relate and will want to read about it because they want to remember it and think about it and obsess and relive games and that time when they got to meet a player or something like that.

How much space do your collections take up, currently?
I had a lot of my cards in storage for a while. Then I entered a weird nesting phase a couple of years ago where I wanted all my cards around me. Right now, I have one big box of commons, three shoeboxes of my best cards, one three-ring binder of old cards and one other shoebox of new cards in my closet in my apartment. At my parents’ house my filing cabinet is full of sets and binders, under my bed I have a few 800-count boxes collecting dust, and in my closet I have the rest in boxes. All told, I have somewhere around 200,000 baseball cards and probably something like 15 to 20,000 basketball, football and other cards.

What is the most prized possession?
I used to be a huge Fred McGriff fan, so I was really excited the day I could afford his 1986 Donruss rookie (which is now relatively worthless in value but still under plastic in one of those screwdown cases). I also was a gigantor fan of Eddie Murray, and I have his 1978 rookie in plastic, even though I handled it so much in my teenage years that none of the corners are sharp and there’s a large crease across the front. Also, I still know where some of the cards are that I got in the very first pack I ever bought. That’s why I’m a Carney Lansford fan (not because he was briefly on the Red Sox, was one of the better overlooked hitters of the 1980s, or because his first name is Carney, although all of those reasons help).

Every collector has a few cards stashed away of the can’t-miss who missed. Who are yours?
Back when the card was going for $5 each, I met a guy who had an 800-count box full of the 1987 Topps Mike Greenwell rookie. Even then, I knew this guy was in too deep. Sure, Gator was good, but not $5 a card good. I prized my Wally Joyner 1987 Topps card, as well as the Kevin Seitzer card from the 1987 Fleer Update set. I really thought Steve Avery was going to kick ass for a long time (not just two or three years), so I still have mixed emotions towards his draft pick card from the 1989 Topps set. But, you know, I think this question can be interpreted a couple ways. Like, okay, Cecil Fielder was just another lousy Blue Jay when the 1986 sets came out, but then he became big in Japan (in more ways than one) came back to hit 51 home runs (when that number was an important, earth-shattering achievement) and his rookie cards went through the roof. Now they’re worthless again. So is he a can’t-miss who missed? Or is he a good player who came out of nowhere, everybody realized en masse that they had his card, his rookie flooded the market, then he realized he weighed too much, he couldn’t get his mojo back and everybody tanked? Or how about this example: John Kruk was a great player, but his rookie never went anywhere in terms of value (I think you can get one in mint condition for something like 75 cents). He’s certainly a can’t-miss who missed in terms of book value.

One of the recent posts talks about how you came back for 2003 Topps Heritage and then stopped new-card collecting again. What keeps you from coming back?
The money involved in collecting. I’m thinking of doing a 6-Pack Analysis of 2006 Topps and 2006 Topps Heritage, so last weekend I went down to the local card shop and bought six packs of each. It cost me nearly $40 bucks. That’s totally ridiculous, if you ask me. I really don’t see how little kids can afford to buy new packs. I’m on salary, and even I can’t afford that. I came back for 2003 Heritage because Topps rehashed the 1954 design (in my opinion the best design they ever did) with current players. I ended up buying close to 3 full boxes of those cards, and I’m still 11 cards shy of completing the set. I traded with other collectors, I bought singles; it was like I was really collecting again. But it really all came down to how much I was investing in these cards, and then the summer of 2003 ended and it got harder and harder to find the cards and then I just kind of lost interest. I bought a few packs of 2004 and 2005 Heritage, and 6 packs from this year’s set. I was excited to buy the ones from 2005 because the design was 1956 Topps, when the company went back to painted photos for the headshots. To my dismay the Heritage set used sharp photography for the headshots, so I said the hell with that and stopped collecting.

What is the future of the site? Do you think there are enough ugly mugs/weird stories to make this site work for a long time?
Maybe I’m delusional, but I think The Baseball Card Blog can endure for years. That’s my honest opinion. There are so many different fun things about cards and baseball in general that it can go on for a while. And really, the trick behind this site is that the subject matter transcends beyond the cards themselves. Baseball players are, in essence, a large group of lucky bastards who get to run around outside, make a killing and give the rest of us an outlet for all our weird, messed-up obsessive behavior. Really I’m just doing my part.

Editor’s note: This feature originally was published March 21, 2006. BBTN remains a great book to serve as an introduction to baseball analysis through statistics.

That’s a nice OPS you got there
{Editor of Baseball Between the Numbers talks about the new book

The rise of baseball analysis has used the Internet to spread its gospel. Once limited to a Bill James book advertised in the back of a magazine, stat-crunchers now operate easily accessible fan blogs and some of the most well-known scribes write for the online publication Baseball Prospectus. The subscription-based site completed the analysis circle again with the recent publication of Baseball Between the Numbers. Eight authors ask more than 27 questions and do their best to answer them, and it adds up to a hardcover that both takes and rakes. As the first “Play ball!” of the Major League season approached, editor Jonah Keri answered Take ONE’s questions by e-mail.

Take ONE: After this book, will there be nothing left to argue about concerning baseball?
Jonah Keri: There will always be new issues to angles to explore in baseball. We’re just now starting to harness the power of play-by-play statistics, hitting spray charts and other tools that should give us much more accurate information on what happens in the course of a game, a series or a season.

The game itself constantly changes too. Twenty years from now we may be back to more of a speed game, or one where teams place more emphasis on defense. Or we may see a four-man rotation…or a six-man rotation. The game will continue to change, and Baseball Prospectus will continue to look for strategies that teams can use to take advantage.

How did Baseball Prospectus’ experience with Mind Game affect the new book, Baseball Between the Numbers? What was learned from the first book?
Mind Game had very little impact on this book, really. Baseball Between the Numbers was done through a different publisher. It had a much smaller group of authors. The subject matter was different, in that the questions posed were designed to have broader implications beyond the more Red Sox-focused model of Mind Game. We feel that Baseball Between the Numbers has more of a timeless element to it. The questions asked in this book — about hitting, pitching, defense, the playoffs, baseball economics etc. — should still be relevant years, even decades from now.

At first glance, such a subtitle as “Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong” might be offputting, in a “preaching to the choir” sort of way. But the Baseball Prospectus annual holds a very high ranking on Amazon among all books. What is the audience that you had in mind for the book, and what percent do you think will be people without much familiarity with Baseball Prospectus?
The BP group definitely has input into issues like the book’s subtitle. But ultimately that’s largely the publisher’s decision. That said, the target market here is much broader than it is for typical Baseball Prospectus fare. The questions posed in this book are the type that any two buddies who are baseball fans would likely argue about in a bar. We feel that this book is accessible to fans of all types. If you’re more of a beginner when it comes to baseball analysis, you should still be able to follow the arguments in the book and enjoy the read. If you’re intimately familiar with advanced baseball research, there’s plenty of new stuff here that should elicit further discussion in the analytical community.

The book takes on 29 topics. Why that number, and does it have anything to do with Rod Carew’s uniform number with the Angels?
It’s really 27 chapters, which is meant to correspond to the number of outs in a game. It works out to 29 once you add the introduction (“Batting Practice”) and conclusion (“Extra Innings”) chapters. I’m cool with honoring Carew then, he was a great ballplayer, and fun to watch.

Even more than the Web site, a book theoretically must stand the test of time on the bookshelf with its sense of permanence. Did that change your focus at all to more timeless questions, or – in the case of the “Is A-Rod overpaid?” chapter – are these timely questions for timeless ideas?
I like that, “timely questions for timeless ideas.” That’s it pretty much exactly. “Is A-Rod Overpaid?”, [etc.]. There (also) was a fun way for us to get into the topic of whether or not batting order makes a big difference to a team’s chance for success.

Does Baseball Prospectus not necessarily needing access to players/general managers/etc. make it easier or more difficult to analyze these questions?
Many of us at Baseball Prospectus talk frequently with people in the game, be they general managers, players or scouts. In this case, though, we felt this book would be more rigorous from an analytical perspective if we let the numbers inform the writing, rather than the opinions of individuals — as informed as those opinions could very well be.

Finally, for the Cubs and White Sox fans reading this, what does the future hold for the 2006 season?
The Cubs should be concerned with both their pitching and their hitting. Their pitching concerns have been well documented lately. As first reported by Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll, Mark Prior has some significant health concerns. Kerry Wood is a big question mark every year as well. Beyond that, though, the offense has been an ongoing concern for years. Juan Pierre was a decent upgrade in center field, but that’s not enough. The team lacks offense in the corner outfield slots, and Neifi Perez is a minus offensively if he starts.

The White Sox made some creative moves in the off-season to reload, instead of resting on their laurels. Some of the smaller moves could be especially beneficial — picking up players like Rob Mackowiak and Alex Cintron should really help the bench. At the same time, there’s enough talent coming back from last year’s team, along with younger talent like Bobby Jenks, Brandon McCarthy and Brian Anderson expected to play a bigger role, that the Sox should contend again. Expect tougher competition in an improving AL Central, though.

Editor’s note: This story originally was published June 21, 2005.

NIU baseball coach gives impressions of opponents who were drafted

In what turned out to be a disappointing season for the NIU baseball team, the younger players still were afforded the chance to gain experience against high quality competition. In June’s Major League Baseball amateur draft, a handful of Huskie opponents were picked up by big league teams, including the consensus best college player in the country. Head Coach Ed Mathey offers Take ONE his take on these new professionals.

Alex Gordon, third base
Nebraska — Kansas City Royals — first round (No. 2 overall)
Strengths: Great pitch recognition. He knew what pitch was coming and whether or not it was going to be in the zone shortly after it left the pitcher’s hand. He has great bat discipline and a very quick bat. He’s a good runner that will have the opportunity to play a number of positions at the professional level because of his speed.
How attacked: We pitched to him. With a player like Gordon, the rule of thumb is fastballs in on the hands and soft stuff away. We had a good approach, but whenever we missed on a pitch, he hurt us. A lot of people chose to pitch around him, but we wanted our pitchers to have the opportunity to pitch to the best hitter in college baseball last season.

Nolan Reimold, outfielder
Bowling Green — Baltimore Orioles — second round (No. 61 overall)
Strengths: He’s a big, strong kid, but his swing may be a little too long. I’m curious to see how he will hit with a wooden bat. He’s got average speed for the professional game.
How attacked: I thought our pitchers did a nice job against him. We kept pitches in on the hands and didn’t allow him to extend his arms.

Jason Carins, pitcher
Central Michigan — St. Louis Cardinals — eighth round
Impressions: He was their Sunday starter. He struggled with the zone a little against us and will need to get better command of his pitches. He does have three pitches, a fastball, slider and a breaking ball, but the key will be for him to get that slider over the plate for a strike. With that said, I liked him. His fastball is in the low 90′s, but that will improve with time. Consistent command of his slider will be the key.

Joe Ness, pitcher
Ball State — Cleveland Indians — sixth round
Impressions: He reminds me of a young Cal Eldred. He’s a big, strong kid and his size allows him to pitch deep into ball games. He’s got the total package. No one pitch stood out, but each pitch was very effective. His fastball is in the 88-90 range right now, but if he takes that next step velocity wise, he’ll be a big-leaguer. I have a hunch that the velocity is there already, he is just pitching at about 90% for control reasons.

John Slone, catcher
Miami of Ohio — San Diego Padres — 24th round
Strengths: He’s a great athlete, but I don’t see him being a catcher in the pro game. He’s a solid hitter that has some versatility. He’s a good receiver of the baseball and is good at blocking balls, but arm strength will keep him from being a catcher. I could see him as a corner outfielder however. He’s a clutch hitter. He’s not nervous at the plate and enjoys the tough situations.
How attacked: We stayed away from him pretty consistently with changeups and breaking stuff.