Help me find a good way to get back into baseball.
March 11, 2010 3:01 PM Subscribe
Help me find a good way to get back into baseball. I left Toronto 15 years ago and now live in the UK. I would love to keep up with baseball again, specifically the Blue Jays but the general MLB goings on too. Baseball is pretty unheard of in the UK so I'm really looking for websites, podcasts etc...Any thoughts?
I live in New York but am a lifelong Phillies fan. Some ways that might work for you, based on what I've been doing:
- Subscribe to MLB.TV. If you get the premium service, you can choose to watch home broadcasts. If you don't want to shell out for TV, you can choose to get just an audio subscription and listen to the games online. You can listen to all games within the year at any given time, so even if you can't listen as the games are going on, you can the next afternoon or whenever.
- Read Toronto newspaper coverage online, and supplement with articles on MLB.com (the writing and analysis tends not to be so great on MLB, however).
- Follow the Bats blog on the New York Times site. There's a lot about New York teams, but they do cover all of baseball, and the commentary is interesting and smart.
- Follow the team's official fan page on Facebook -- reading insider updates about the team throughout the day always gets me excited for the next game.
Hope this helps!
posted by bethist at 3:11 PM on March 11, 2010
- Subscribe to MLB.TV. If you get the premium service, you can choose to watch home broadcasts. If you don't want to shell out for TV, you can choose to get just an audio subscription and listen to the games online. You can listen to all games within the year at any given time, so even if you can't listen as the games are going on, you can the next afternoon or whenever.
- Read Toronto newspaper coverage online, and supplement with articles on MLB.com (the writing and analysis tends not to be so great on MLB, however).
- Follow the Bats blog on the New York Times site. There's a lot about New York teams, but they do cover all of baseball, and the commentary is interesting and smart.
- Follow the team's official fan page on Facebook -- reading insider updates about the team throughout the day always gets me excited for the next game.
Hope this helps!
posted by bethist at 3:11 PM on March 11, 2010
There are tons of good baseball blogs out there. Just for general coverage, analysis, and stats you should be looking regularly at places like (to choose just a few examples) The Hardball Times, the Fangraphs bloggers. (Fangraphs is, by the way, currently the best stat-reference site, though thebaseballcube and baseball-reference.com are also great.) Sportswriter Joe Posnanski's blog is not to be missed. Rob Neyer writes good stuff but ESPN.com has put a lot of it behind their "Insider" paywall.
You'll also probably want to get into some Jays-specific web communities. I know less about these, but in general I like the approach to community-building at the SBNation sites, which focus on Metafilter-like rational discussion rather than just transplanting the shouty sports-talk-radio vibe onto the Web. Their Jays site is Bluebird Banter. You could sign up there, settle in, see what other blogs they tend to link, and ask around to find the other places that savvy Jays fans frequent.
posted by RogerB at 3:37 PM on March 11, 2010
You'll also probably want to get into some Jays-specific web communities. I know less about these, but in general I like the approach to community-building at the SBNation sites, which focus on Metafilter-like rational discussion rather than just transplanting the shouty sports-talk-radio vibe onto the Web. Their Jays site is Bluebird Banter. You could sign up there, settle in, see what other blogs they tend to link, and ask around to find the other places that savvy Jays fans frequent.
posted by RogerB at 3:37 PM on March 11, 2010
Seconding Bluebird Banter. I would also suggest Baseball ThinkFactory. Their Newsstand section is fairly active with intelligent/knowledgeable/opinionated posters though team blogs/forums are hit-or-miss.
posted by bgrebs at 4:20 PM on March 11, 2010
posted by bgrebs at 4:20 PM on March 11, 2010
I agree with everything that's been said above, and add that if you want a Jays-specific blog, you might subscribe to DrunkJaysFans. It's pretty irreverent and I like it because though they're fans, they're more than willing to (fairly) call the team on some of its stranger decisions (such as keeping Cito around as manager for another year). I also find Fantasy Baseball to be a fun way to get into a league as it makes me pay attention to teams and players I might not otherwise follow.
posted by synecdoche at 5:13 PM on March 11, 2010
posted by synecdoche at 5:13 PM on March 11, 2010
TSN and ESPN both have iPhone apps that give up to the minute scores and fixtures for all sorts of north American sports.
posted by SueDenim at 5:43 PM on March 11, 2010
posted by SueDenim at 5:43 PM on March 11, 2010
mlb.tv is an AWESOME service. also, their iphone/ipod touch program is evidently beyond great (can now stream games over 3g)
you can see if there is a blue jays version of "the newberg report" (a texas rangers near daily email newsletter -- maybe email jamey, he might know if there is one? or google it?)
other good links: (some are more stats-based than others)
baseballguys
baseball analysts
fangraphs blogroll
SB nation's blue jays site is bluebird banter -- no clue how active/good bluebird banter is, some of the SB blogs are very active and others are not so much...
sorry i cant help more -- im a rangers fan myself, and i could help you a TON there...maybe you should check out baseball prospectus as well?
posted by knockoutking at 10:36 AM on March 13, 2010
you can see if there is a blue jays version of "the newberg report" (a texas rangers near daily email newsletter -- maybe email jamey, he might know if there is one? or google it?)
other good links: (some are more stats-based than others)
baseballguys
baseball analysts
fangraphs blogroll
SB nation's blue jays site is bluebird banter -- no clue how active/good bluebird banter is, some of the SB blogs are very active and others are not so much...
sorry i cant help more -- im a rangers fan myself, and i could help you a TON there...maybe you should check out baseball prospectus as well?
posted by knockoutking at 10:36 AM on March 13, 2010
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posted by dfriedman at 3:11 PM on March 11, 2010