One of the questions I think FanGraphs is always asking, whether implicitly or explicitly, is “How can we make baseball writing better?” Nor is this a quality native only to the present site. Indeed, better blogs everywhere are interested in finding creative solutions to this problem. Unconstrained by considerations such as physical space or “making any money, whatsoever,” we, the blogerati, are given space to experiment. If we fail, we fail. “Big whoop,” as my grandmother would say. If we succeed, eureka!, the face of baseballing journalism is forever changed.
Those are pretty sweet terms under which to work.
A site like Deadspin, for example — however one feels about its frequent sojourns into the immodest — has distinguished itself by exploring the advantages that electronic media have over print media. (The pictures of Greg Oden freaking on hot coeds certainly haven’t hurt, either.) The internet is full of other such examples, where a group or individual, having the will/way, provides content that traditional media have neglected. (The internet is also full, it should be said, of people freaking on hot coeds.)
One of the forms native to the interweb is the live chat, and it’s this form that found its way to these electronic pages for Opening Day. The event compelled this author to ask a couple, very basic, questions about the chat form.
Here they are.
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