Blogology

I’ve found myself struggling with how to present my sports knowledge and opinions in a way that is expressive, yet informative. Most people are fans of sports, or will at least watch a sporting event once in while. There are, however, varying levels of sports obsession. Good sports blogs will be able to appeal to both hardcore and casual fans alike, but a delicate balance is in play here. How can a blog appeal to both the Schwab and the casual fan?

Recently, I came across a blog written by Joe Posnanski. Joe, a former writer for Sports Illustrated, updates his blog nearly every day and enjoys quite a large following.  What struck me most about this blog is that it discusses sports at a deeper level than most Cameron Crazies or Hogettes would consider. While his posts are clearly written by an educated and experienced writer, they won’t leave the casual fan heading for the exits. Joe uses his sense of humor (it’s hard not to chuckle at his quick, witty comments) to keep his readers engaged. Obviously, the assumption is that people reading this blog have some interest in sports, but Joe excels at speaking a language that sports-illiterates can follow.

Joe’s sense of humor really shines in his post, Nike: Greek Goddess of Confiscating Tapes. The title makes reference to both the Greek goddess Nike (the goddess of victory), from which the popular company took its name, and the same company’s tape confiscation scandal. From the title alone, we know that Joe is going to be poking fun at this situation, which involved Nike-endorsed NBA superstar Lebron James getting posterized by a random college basketball player. As Joe notes, it must have gone down like this:

Crawford took the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360, then another 360, then he took off one of his shoes and bonked James in the head with it, put the shoe back on, pulled out a shaving cream pie and shoved that in James face, took out a bottle of seltzer water and sprayed James, then he poked James in the eye Three Stooges style, then he came up with a quick hip hop song called “Be Gone Lebron,” then he pinched James’ cheek, beat James at thumb wrestling, gave James a wedgie and, finally, dunked the ball, two-handed, rattling the rim, while James cried like a child lost at the mall.

Posnanski uses extreme sarcasm to express how he felt about the whole scandal. Rather than simply saying, “I feel this way about it”, Joe makes an extremely exaggerated remark about what must have been on that tape to make Nike confiscate it. He includes various humorous references that have nothing to do with basketball but are so intricately woven in to his description that the reader doesn’t mind. His message is clear – unless all the things he listed happened on that tape, what was the point of taking it away? What was the big deal? The thing that really makes the humor come out in this section is his use of actual basketball terms. He starts off describing an actual basketball play:

Crawford took at the ball at James, they both jumped, Crawford did a 360

But he keeps going on and on, reading off a laundry list of activities that Crawford accomplished in the air before dunking on Lebron James. The reality of this situation was that it wasn’t very exciting. Crawford simply caught James out of position and dunked on him in an exhibition game. Big deal. Posnanski, however, makes a big deal out of the Nike confiscation scandal that followed this seemingly trivial event by using sarcasm to take a jab at the image-sensitive company.

Joe’s writing is great because he can keep his voice while changing his tone. The Nike article was a lighter subject than his article about Mark McGwire’s admittance of steroid use. Joe takes a firm stance, though he knows it is the minority stance, and simply posts a list of reasons why Mark McGwire may have used performance-enhancing drugs. He is very passionate about his list and urges his readers to see his argument:

I don’t know. Pick any two of those reasons. Or any eight. Or all of them. Or come up with a baker’s dozen of your own. I couldn’t tell you what is going on inside Mark McGwire. But man, it doesn’t seem like it takes too much imagination to come up with a scenario in which McGwire believes that when healthy he was one hell of a historic home run hitter AND ALSO that he’s really sorry he took steroids

Here we see Joe using extremely short sentences to get his point across. It’s almost as if he is making a statement, and then immediately following it with another before the reader can get a word in. This style of writing is very aggressive. While Joe isn’t using extreme exaggeration, he still uses sarcasm and shows his readers that there can be any number of explanations for the timing of McGwire’s admittance. Why should they believe only one of those explanations? The message he gets across is that no one knows for sure what transpired, and they shouldn’t act like they do. His use of all capital letters at the end of the quoted section also demonstrate the passion and aggression that this post was made with.

Joe Posnanski’s blog really speaks directly to its readers. He is an engaging writer with a great deal of sports knowledge and a ton of experience writing about sports. What he really excels at, however, is making his words as exciting as the events he describes. This blog is definitely a slam dunk…check it out!