Please don't let this kind of criticism affect your blog! I've been reading this site regularly since Instapundit (IIRC) linked to your post about the space shuttle. And I've noticed no slip in the quality of your writing or the perceptiveness of your insights on the game. Please keep going.
P.S. Bud Selig sucks.

Meh, Bud does suck. Don't see why its bad to print that. Since when does a used car salesman have a clue how to run MLB. I couldn't do it, but I have the guts to admit it.

I don't think Al Bethke has much of a point. And I would point out that the Twinsgeek also got a nod from Neyer (before David did ).

However, as a long time reader, I too have noticed something different this season and don't find myself stopping by as much. I am not sure which of the following (if any) are contributing to my feelings, but since David himself has said something is different, I thought I would list some of my critiques.

1. I think there is more play-by-play and less analysis. I feel like in the past, the p-b-p was a touchstone for analysis and thoughts, more often now its just p-b-p.

2. i was sure that I could have come up with more, but now I can't think of anything more to say other than I think there is less of David overall this season, and from my perspective, that's a bad thing.

David, if you need to take a break, we will understand, but don't stop blogging !!!!

Ivan

David, a good post. A couple brief points.

1. The city of Montreal has no one to blame but themselves. I can't imagine MLB not being better off without it.

2. Anaheim is hardly worthy of a mention with MIN & OAK, my goodness, they are part of the #2 market in the land. They define what a large market is.

And thanks for the Slate link. I had never heard Vincent say he believed companies should own several teams, and still wonder what he meant by that.

And the plug is appreciated.

Ivan, Twins Geek, really? I lived in MN and had never heard of it until Gleeman linked it. TG is a fine site, and is now connected to a paper up there.

Definitely Neyer and TwinsGeeik. That was my entry point into the blogosphsere. I wouldn't be blogging today if it hadn't been for Neyer's mention of Jon's site.

Definitely Neyer and TwinsGeeik. That was my entry point into the blogosphsere. I wouldn't be blogging today if it hadn't been for Neyer's mention of Jon's site.

to echo steve, defineitly Twinsgeek. He was one of Neyers first "link of the week" Which are invariable left there for 2+ months. That is how I found the Twinsgeek, well beofre I heard of Gleeman. ( I am a hard-core Twinsfan).

Ivan

Thanks Ivan and Steve, I guess I just never clicked on it.

"Al has just been a jerk from the start."

Jerk - Perfect way to describe Al. Any regular reader of his blog can attest to that.

Al- I think you have to include the Angels of that time with clubs like the A's and Twins. Sure, they're in a large market, but they didn't spend like it back then. The 2002 championship team was built on solid scouting, not free spending- exactly how the Twins have been rebuilt.

Dave:
Thanks for bringing this whole thing out in the open. I've been enlightened; I had no idea that there were actually people out there who supported Bud Selig. Amazing.

I tend to agree with Ivan. There is a lot of play-by-play, which is nice on occasion, but that's why I read the game stories.

And Bud Selig gets way too much crap, but that's neither here nor there.

David,

I saw Al's comments yesterday and was interested to see if you'd respond. Nice job. I enjoy reading your blog for several reasons, but primarily because you try to avoid the negativity that pervades much of the blogosphere and comment on what you think is interesting and what might interest others.

It seems like much of this negativity is used to generate 'a buzz' -- as Al I'm sure realized when he posted his story -- and I guess some people try to make their niche by being contrarian, but in the long run, I think people prefer honest commentary to sensational prattle.

I don't agree with everything you post, and don't follow a lot of the play-by-play commentary, but I do enjoy your posts on things others overlook or don't think to link to. Keep it up.

RW

"Al has just been a jerk from the start." That's a good way to answer your critics. You've got one finger pointing at Al and three pointing at yourself.

You've already made this blog a bore with the constant bashing of Selig and butt-kissing of Fehr. Now you're gonna start picking silly fights with other bloggers?

Bye-bye.

I haven't noticed any change in the what you've been writing over the years and I've been reading since the beginning.

If anything, I just think that blogs are being taken more serious. At first, it was all "Oh, cool, so and so has a blog. Nifty." And that was that. Now blogs are starting to get more traction and people are more apt to look at every sentence posted with a more critical eye.

And, of course, having some negative criticism is a good sign that you're doing something right.

What's that Casey Stengal line about successful management of a ball club is trying to keep the players who absolutely hate your guts from getting to the ones who haven't made up their mind's yet?

Same goes for writing.

Wow, I have to say Im amazed, I literally fell out of my chair when I heard that there was someone out there who thought Bud was ok. I honestly thought that the only debate about Mr. Selig was whether he was evil or merely incompetent. To add to your list of reasons why Bud is bad, I would suggest not only the death of the Expos post 1994, but also the current state of that franchise, owned and operated by Bud Selig and company. That is a team that has not been allowed to compete, even at the most basic level (i.e. not beling allowed any September call-ups last year), and Bud continues to drive the franchise down the drain as he tries to extort a better stadium deal from Washington, Portland, Las Vegas, or Boise, Idaho.

I'm with you, Casey. Name-calling, Dave? How about, "Al has always disagreed with me". I agree with Shawn that something's not right lately. Maybe it's the play-by-play thing, maybe you are getting burned out. But stooping to that level in what should be a hearty discussion/argument? - I don't think Casey's the only reader your going to lose today.

Hang in there Dave. You have a great site. Keep it up.

Don't let the naysayers get you down. Your blog is fun to read, informative, and part of my daily blog-scanning routine.
Take a break if you wish, but don't feel that you have to.

Selig could come up with a cure for jock itch tomorrow and the image I would still, and will always, have of him is in the stands in Milwaukee at the 2002 All-Star Game, throwing up his hands; "oh, uh...tie game, huh? Yeeeep, let me think on it a minute...yeah, I got nothin'."

Simply ridiculous. Any fan with half a brain knows that Selig has not been good for baseball. Good for the bottom line of certain teams, yes, but not good for baseball overall. He has no reverance for the history of the past time. None.

Dave, you hang in there. Your blog is great. Any fan that likes or supports Selig is not a reader you want, plain and simple.

You can let those readers get their baseball news from USA-Today.

And on the interleague play issue -- the concept is fine but the execution is ridiculously poor. Interleague play would be great if always matched up East with East, West with West, etc. You'd get exciting regional series like Red Sox vs. Mets. There's no good reason why teams in such close geographic proximity should never meet, when you think about it. Instead we get snoozefests which MLB poorly tries to compensate for by throwing in the "regional rivalry" series, except that the resulting matchups are only authentic rivalries for a handful of teams.

Oh God, Keith, please don't get me started on Interleague play...

Keep up the good work, Dave. I still like your blog and read it almost every day.

Hey David -- I'm a real newbie to baseball blogs, and blogs in general... and I am a relocated in the blood Brewers fan, so I'll give you my perspective on this little battle:

I read both your and Al's blogs almost everyday -- yours is undoubtably superior, so I find it funny Al would go on the warpath like this. Aside from Al's boring regurgitation of other blogs' perspectives, I also have to suffer through his Milwaukee inferiority complex (this complex afflicts many in the fine state of Wisconsin) which clearly informs his Bud loving, and his knee-jerk political commentary. But he does a good job posting regularly and keeping me up to date on the Brewers.

Please keep up the good work -- I don't know your work from previous seasons, and as a new reader, I find it great. Don't beat yourself up too much.

David,

Don't let the criticism get to you. You have a fantastic site and i've been a loyal reader for over a year or so now. Everyone I know gets burned out from their blog, we bloggers totally appreciate and understand it. I think your posts are generally fantastic, insightful and overall fun (remember that?). I could do with less of the play by play, but i know that there are some readers who don't have access to the games at work that love it. So do what ever you feel like, it's your place. All in all, keep up the great work and enjoy the rest of this fantastic season.

I don't think David has gone over the line on Seligula. When he takes him on, he explains his reasons quite well. And the regular readers have that in mind when he has an off the cuff column.

As for calling Al a jerk, it's Davids blog, he was writing how he felt. Obviously it has been building up for awhile.

Couple of things to add about Bud:

David didn't cite his constant poor-mouthing of the game for years in the interest of pointing up what revenue disparities and uncontrolled salary growth were supposedly doing to the game...hard to believe Bud sold used cars once.

Surprisingly, Al didn't cite the one really good thing, IMHO, that could be said about Bud...his continuing and sincere commitment to advancing minorities in baseball management. About the only time I can remember Bud coming down hard on a (fellow) owner was when he fined the Detroit Tigers a six-figure sum because then-GM Sal Bando hired his ex-teammate and good buddy Phil Garner as manager without interviewing any minority (or any other, I think) candidates. He brought first Frank Robinson and then Bob Watson into top MLB management positions. And presumably he had some degree of influence in making the Expos the first team to have a minority GM (Omar Minaya) and manager (Frank Robinson) when MLB took over the franchise.

Don't know if Bud has always felt this way or it came from being around Hank Aaron so much :-)...but in fairness this positive part of his legacy should not be ignored.

While I agree with some of the earlier posters about the play-by-play stuff (I tend to skip over that as well), your site is still a daily read for me. I always enjoy looking at your perspective on "Games of the Day." Gives me a little heads up on what I might want to check out on Extra Innings.

Keep up the good work, and remember, as James Lileks says, blogging is like handing out free ice cream. You're not letting anyone down (at least anyone reasonable) if you pull back for a bit.

Dave - I love the blog. I does do a lot of the PBP, but that's part of what the blog is. Write what you want to write and what you enjoy. The blogosphere is large enough that people can read what they like.

For more information on Selig, check out the recently deceased Doug Pappas's site.
http://roadsidephotos.com/baseball/bbblog.htm
Doug made no qualms about being against Selig, but everything was backed up and supported with empirical evidence.

Starting reading Baseball Musings last year and haven't seen any noticeable difference in this year's blogs. David has been very good about answering emails and I appreciate him taking the time when I know he has so much going on. When Bud Selig cancelled the 1994 World Series that told it all about Bud Selig I wanted to know. Know for a fact cancelling the World Series was not in the best interest of baseball.

David is like the godfather. Period. My entry point into blogging was Baseball Musings, and my entry point into BBM was BBTN Online Chats.

If anything David seems busier now than in years past and not as inclined to ramble on. But then again there are so many new blogs out there that he doesn't need to ramble on.

And one thing that bugs me, ACCORDING TO WHO is Aaron Gleeman "the best"? The guy is a total bore and an egomaniac to boot. Alex Belth is head and shoulders above that twit.

Wow - I'm really shocked. Baseball Musings is one of my must reads everyday. I will agree with David that sometimes the insightful commentary is a little lacking and there's more play-by-play than I need, but I think that all of us who have tried to do some first-time analysis can agree that those pieces are time consuming to put together.

There aren't many sites and fewer blogs that I visit everyday, but Baseball Musings is one of them. I really enjoy the analysis - particularly the debate on things like Productive Outs. David is like the godfather of blogs, and all of us little bloggers out there always appreciate his constant linking to other sites and plugs for small guys.

And I'm almost ready to believe that Bud Selig reads this site and posts/writes with an alias. There's no way, other than Bud's mom or someone equally closely related, that anyone is a Bud Selig supporter.

Gleeman has never been shy about self-promotion, that's for sure. But I don't think that's all that bad a quality to have for a guy trying to make a name for himself. Michael Jackson started to refer to himself as the King of Pop, and amazingly others followed suit. Howard Stern picks up on this and refers to himself as the King of all Media and amazingly others follow suit. Perhaps Gleeman should start calling himself the King of all Baseball Blogs?

The Bud detractors are their own worst enemies. They use heightened rhetoric (Joe Sheehan would call Bud Selig evil about once a week back in the day) when the facts are already on their side. The rhetoric ultimately doesn't persuade people; it just polarizes opinion.

And the call for an independent commissioner is, no offense, a little naive. The Red Sox ownership paid $700 million for the team. I don't think they'd want to give any independent commissioner that kind of power over their investment without the ability to fire him (along with the votes of the other owners) at will. And I'm also fairly certain they have no interest in giving the players a say in who has that kind of power over their investments. Can anyone really blame them? There's just too much money invested to proceed that way.

David - Keep your chin up. Everybody has days when they're off their game, but I don't think you've got anything to apologize for as to the overall quality of the blog. I'd agree that I enjoy the analytical stuff more, but I know well from my own blog that some days it's hard to find the right topic, and many days it's hard to find the time. Of course, don't be afraid to take a day away from the blog when you need one.

Al has a broader point he often hammers on his blog, which is that nobody in the national media - including us non-Milwaukee bloggers - ever seems to be on top of what's going on with the Brewers. Leaving aside the fact that until this season it had been many a year since it was worth the effort, he does have a point.

David--

You've been extraordinarily generous in giving all of us other bloggers shoutouts when we stuck our own toes in the water. Do what you need to do to recover your passion -- if indeed you think it's missing -- but make sure it's for your own reasons, and not because of a mean-spirited and unnecessary poke from someone else.

I don't blame Gleeman for hyping himself, it's the American Way. But I guess I just wanted to go on record as saying that if there is a concensus that Gleeman is the Best of the Baseball Bloggers, I am in the dissenting party.

I find it exceedingly amusing, and the height of chutzpah, that any baseball blogger would take a shot at David Pinto.

Is the quality down? Possibly. It's hard to maintain such a high standard for year after year. This is still the best baseball blog there is, and I like the play-by-play stuff. I do it myself sometimes, it's fun to write.

I may be a little late on this one, but Al seems to have an, er, incomplete take on history. From his rebuttal:

My favorite statement was "Bud has no imagination". There have been about 5 huge changes to the game in 100+ years, and with the exception of the DH, Bud has brought every one of them in...wildcard, interleague play, realignment, more revenue sharing (not perfect, but getting better every year).

Anyone else aware that Bud Selig ushered in Jackie Robinson and created free agency?

Nolan Ryan for commissioner!

Okay guys, repeat the following ten times.

It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...
It's just the internet...

Bud Selig does suck, even people don't follow baseball knows this.

Dave, great post. Even though I don't always agree with your commentary and analysis, I appreciate how you always back your statements up with fact. Your blog is great, and I like the PBP... I bet there are a bunch of other people like me, who don't have Extra Innings, who like to hit your site on an evening, and read that Jeff Weaver just gave up a three run homer.... so it's great.

Also, good job on the Selig bashing. I couldn't agree more. And the Expos are a sensitive issue, especially.

Keep up the good work.

The difference between Gleeman and Dave is huge. Dave actually has insights. Gleeman just repeats the sabr party line with drawn out examples. I don't think Gleeman has ever made me go 'ahhh, interesting' whereas Dave consistently does.

al IS a jerk. if he doesn't like this blog, he doesn't have to read it.

if al wants to bother to read well written articles on the bad things bud does and sez, he should go read doug pappas. bud's real interests are breaking the union, screwing the taxpayers and making billionaires richer. no serious baseball fan could possibly think bud is good for baseball.

i like the play by play. so don't stop. the blog hasn't changed for the worse. anyway, it's YOUR blog, dave. write what you want. and don't worry that someone out there won't like it cuz someone won't so why worry? the rest of us do like it.

Everybody,

David is THE Godfather of baseball blogging. He is generous and conscientious and honest. His work is exemplary.

Al can be a bit grating, I've noticed as much when I've interacted with him. Defending Selig is ridiculous. He is a liar, a cheat, a thief and a disgrace. I have many times written about my amazement that so many wildly succesful men would allow a used car salesman to run their multi-billion dollar a year, internationally prominent organization.

It bears repeating that the commissioner of baseball owns the worst-run franchise in the game, one that is on the verge of being sued by the taxpayers of his state for fraud, a team that has been a laughingstock for virtually the entire time he's been in charge.

Al:

Expos fans are as much a bandwagon jumper as Mets fans. So, if this is what you meant by "Montreal has only itself to blame", you are wrong.

There were over a dozen corporations that bought into the Expos when Bronfman sold. They knew it was not a good business move, but, they did it out of civic pride. If you meant this about the blame, you are wrong.

Loria/Samson, the two-headed Tojan horse monster that greased their way in, and greased their way out. This was the height of disgust. If this is what you meant, that top Montreal businessmen allowed themselves to be taken by a couple of losers like this, who managed to impose cash call after cash call to the point where these businessmen's shares went down to almost nothing, so that Loria could make his huge profit.... if this is what you meant that Montreal has only itself to blame.... well, I can't argue there.

Tom

Btw, those were cash calls financed by.... Bud Selig's MLB directly to Loria.