Voros wrote a rational response to the Bissinger/Leitch match and I find it hard to argue with anything he wrote, but I’d just like to opine on the “controversy” myself.

As someone who has been directly involved in the MSSM (mainstream sports media)-blogs ordeal (remember Bill Conlin?) to an extent, I can say that the distance between the two is vast, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. The MSM simply needs to realize that unless legislation passes that essentially privatizes the Internet (and, boy, are our bought-and-paid politicians, the Justice Department and uncaring businsses trying), it will remain an ocean of facts, rumors, opinions, and debates, and that’s exactly what is so great about the Internet.

It’s plainly obvious that the MSSM has a hard time differentiating between blog authors and commenters. Personally, I can’t understand how you could mistake the two but then again, I’m on the Internet a lot so it’s probably ingrained in my conscience. Their underlying point that comments are vile and malicious is an overgeneralization: some are good, some are bad, just like anything else. They are right, however, when they say that the blog on which the comments are made is responsible. Anyone who comments on Deadspin, for instance, is actually representing Deadspin. If the administrators at Deadspin choose to either not moderate comments or don’t feel that the comments are punishable, then if those comments are offensive, that reflects poorly on Deadspin.

That doesn’t mean that all commenters are like that, though. I love reading the comments on topics at Baseball Think Factory, as most of them are well-thought-out and informative. The commenters on Joe Posnanski’s blog, or The Hardball Times, or here at Baseball Digest Daily are all informative and I don’t think I’ve ever come across any malcontents at any of those websites, due to luck or removal.

On another note, Bob Costas said in an interview with Aaron Barnhart after the HBO show had aired, “Nothing the blogosphere does in the near future poses a threat to me,” responding to the claim that the MSSM is threatened by the prominence of blogs. I think he’s telling the truth and his later implication that newspaper columnists may be the few that really are threatened is equally as true. Bob Costas isn’t threatened by the blogosphere; it’s not like the folks at The Hardball Times, for instance, are going to put out a few of their typical great articles and someone is going to give them a deal for a TV series on HBO, or Joe Posnanski is going to opine on the state of the Kansas City Royals and be offered a job doing play-by-play broadcasting.

I do, however, think the MSSM feels threatened for a different reason: they are being held accountable for everything they say. They don't fear the loss of a job, they fear looking like an idiot in front of a large audience (and who doesn't?). Since you can get almost every TV show and newspaper/magazine article on the Internet, it’s easy to take something they say and portray them as idiots, either by legitimately critiquing something written or spoken, or by maliciously quoting something out of context.

If someone in the MSSM says something like, “John Smoltz is the greatest pitcher in baseball history,” and cites his wins, losses, and saves to back it up, he will no doubt be held accountable by bloggers who will cite his strikeout and walk rates, WHIP, DIPS, and other Sabermetric-backed statistics either as a counter-argument against Smoltz or to point out the flawed methodologies utilized by this hypothetical member of the MSSM.

The MSSM fears this for two reasons: he will be held accountable by the blogs, and he doesn’t truly understand the criticisms enough to adequately defend himself. Do you think most in the baseball portion of the MSSM thumbed through the Baseball Prospectus glossary page? Or read any of the analyses done by writers at THT or The Baseball Analysts, or the Pitch F/X studies by Mike Fast? I highly doubt it.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying everyone in the MSSM is stupid and all Sabermetric bloggers are geniuses. They simply haven’t devoted enough time, if any at all, to understanding Sabermetrics – not enough to point out flaws in arguments that are made using them.

I think the “old guard” type of baseball writers – Murray Chass, Bill Conlin, et. al. – not only fear being held accountable for what they write and not being able to respond properly, but they fear the simple change in ideology. It used to be that whatever they believed in baseball-wise was golden since for a large percentage of their careers, it was a painstaking and often fruitless endeavor to challenge the status quo in baseball. If Chass wrote something like “A-Rod Isn’t Clutch Enough” in a newspaper in 1950, no one would argue with it since there was no efficient way to disprove it (splits weren’t exactly popular back then) – and even though it’s logically fallacious to put the burden of proof on the people with the negative point of view (like theists asking atheists to prove that there is no God), you’re not going to change any minds if you’re in the “there is no clutch” crowd.

In 2008, what Chass and Conlin and others like them believe in isn’t golden anymore. As professional journalists with an audience to appease, they’re essentially forced to either adapt to the new ideology (which means taking the time to educate themselves) or reject it. They thought it’d be easier to just reject it. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize that it’d be more painstaking to deal with all of the critics than to actually buy or borrow books, or subscribe to Baseball Prospectus and educate themselves on “the new thing.”

Frankly, the rift between the MSSM and blogs has nothing to do with the bloggers’ lack of certifiable education in journalism, or with the MSSM’s fear of losing their jobs; it has to do with generational gaps and an unwillingness to adapt. If Murray Chass learned and understood Sabermetrics, I doubt anyone would have a problem with his articles even if he came out still disliking them – he’d have more intelligent, factually-backed arguments that would both raise our consciousness and provoke a great discussion.

The only weapon the MSSM has in its arsenal is name-calling and finger-pointing to their journalism degrees and press passes (which more and more bloggers are getting lately anyway). They’re showing up to a gunfight with a knife and they’re unhappy with the unfairness; they don’t realize that the weaponry choices are entirely in their hands. Once the MSSM collectively understands and utilizes Sabermetrics, baseball blogs will not be useful for that purpose anymore.

Addendum: In writing this article, I generalized almost every time I cited the MSSM and bloggers. I basically associated the MSSM with traditional baseball thinking and bloggers with Sabermetric thinking, but that's not to say that there aren't a good amount of Sabermetric-thinking writers in the MSSM and traditionalists in the blogosphere. Just because someone blogs about baseball doesn't mean they are educated on and accept Sabermetrics, and just because someone's a professional baseball beat writer doesn't mean they don't. I just wanted to make that clear.

Lastly, when I criticized the MSSM for not being educated on Sabermetrics, that was also not to imply that I am. I have a lot to learn with Sabermetrics, as I'm sure is the case with a lot of people who utilize them. Quite a few in the MSSM have admitted to not even attempting to educate themselves on Sabermetrics but still decide to criticize them anyway.