BaseballHappenings.com

This is the second in the series of the baseball bloggers who have had a great impact on the vibrant baseball blogosphere that you see on the web today. In the first installment , Aaron Gleeman was profiled. Now, on to the story of baseball blogger Rich Lederer.

This blogger I am about to talk about is big time now and a household name. But, there was a time when he was first starting to make his mark in the baseball blogging world. I received this email way back then on his first blog entry ever, featuring Rocco Baldelli:

Hi, David. I am writing to introduce myself and my new baseball blog.

The title is Rich’s Weekend Baseball BEAT. The BEAT stands for Baseball Editorials, Analysis, and Talk. It is a blog for baseball fanatics, sabermetricians, and students of the game’s history.

The first article is about Rocco Baldelli (Is Rocco Baldelli The Real Deal?) and the rookie’s fast start, recent slump, extraordinarily high SO/BB ratio, and player comparisons. Check it out. I hope you find it informative and thought provoking.

That was the start of many great articles Rich Lederer would go on to write. That first article was one focusing on a player of the present. But, most his focus and expertise has been on players of the past. His passion has been educating people of the great baseball players of the past, including the unappreciated players like Bert Blyleven who has not been given his due by the traditional media.

The interviews you see throughout the blogosphere nowadays, I first saw this concept on Rich’s blog. The idea that any person with a home on the web could perform these Q&A dialogues with the baseball experts in the world had never crossed my mind. Now its mainstream, as you see beat reporters, current players, owners and GMs getting interviewed on blogs all the time.

Rich would go on to join an all baseball blogging network on all-baseball.com which recruited some of the best writers in the blogosphere. The network now exists as mvn.com , but alot of the heralded bloggers of all-baseball would go on to greener pastures before that merger took place. Most of these writers from all-baseball would go to start baseballtoaster. But, Rich went out and started his own site that still exists today. It is titled as Rich Lederer & Friends that includes articles by Rich and some of the biggest names in the baseball blogosphere.