A little help

I have maybe 5 hours of work to do in my 8 hour day. Here, there are people to talk to, without clearly not doing my work.

Also, I love baseball, but I can honestly say that if it weren't for the regular "conversations" that take place on this website, I'd be much less likely to be here. I can read an article anywhere. There are far fewer places to participate.

I am a fairly new baseball fan. About the 4 years ago I met my wife, who for some reason loves baseball and the M's. She would make me watch M's games almost everyday. She would even buy us tickets to games as a gift. So instead of asking her lots of stupid questions like why did they change pitchers and what the hell is a bulk? I just started reading blogs.

At first I read USS Mariner, Lookout Landing and DOV. What I found was USS was way too serious. DOV was crazy. Lookout Landing on other hand would tolerate stupid questions, but at the same time had good natured humor, which I like. Because of my wife and LL I am a devoted M's fan, and on occasion I even know what I'm talking about, when I talk about OPS, K/9, or why a ground ball pitcher is better with our outfield defense.

I would also like to mention she does not approve of my dislike for Raul.

because it is funny and the analysis is deeper and more insightful than the average newspaper article. Also, the people here seem to enjoy baseball to the same degree and at the same level as I do, which is rare.

The best way to improve blogs would be to keep them civil. This varies depending on the moderator; the people in charge of the site need to be constantly vigilant that debates and off-topic threads don't get out of hand. Jeff is pretty good about that, though.

Name: Tomas Escobar
Age: 23
Location: Seattle/Issaquah
Occupation: Student (History, Math)

and people with the same interest.  Nothing bothers me more than the casual Mariner fan.  

I'm able to talk about someone other than Ichiro and have people understand that I'm talking baseball.

With the blog, even losing has become interested.  Some of the best times have been during GTE...its nice to be able to vent with people that understand.

My name is Kyle...22 years old/23 next weekend...work in finance.

31 yo
civil engineer

1. I like to hear informed fans' thoughts.
2. I like to participate in discussion occassionally.
3. This site wouldn't be this good and popular if wasn't for Jeff and his writing.
4. Fascinated that Corco has more enthusiam for my profession than I do.  (Don't get me wrong, I like what I do).

Only Librocrat knows my real name (privacy thing).

LL gets me through the offseason. I love the analysis I find during the offseason, but I do not care for game-by-game analysis because I already watched what happened. Also, fantasy baseball is going during the regular season and I spend a good deal of time managing my teams (e.g. watching every baseball game I can). If I miss a game, a standard article on the game is good enough to get updated (although, I do occasionally peep in and read the play-by-play win probabilities Jeff posts).

I do enjoy the interaction in this community. Being able to connect people with like interests is what fuels blogging communities. Those like interests really depends on the author of the blog. There are plenty of Mariners blogs out there, but I can more relate to LL than places like DOV or USSM.

The one thing I would change for a lot of blogs is the format. I am not fond of LL's format (not Jeff's fault and it is changing), and other places like DOV and USSM. You rarely find good formats. If I knew XTML, AJAX, CSS, etc., I would be tempted to start my own blog.

Name: Evan
Age: 24
Location: Utah
Occupation: Student (Finance - Asset Management)

Oh, I also do not come around LL during the season because I spend a lot of my time on financial blogs about stock/option trading. There is only so much time to go around everywhere and participate on a regular basis while still being able to watch as many baseball games as possible. Sorry, Jeff. :(

Ah, and another good thing about blogs, I agree with Paul; you learn a lot of random, but interesting, things when people go off on tangents. You can come into a community like this and ask random questions (like you) and people will answer your questions and direct you to hidden gems on the Internet. Blogs are the kind of place where you can learn a lot about a little and a little about a lot.

Good luck on your paper.

I live 3000 miles from Seattle (Boston) and as such, have no one to discuss the M's and watch the games with - at least, not on the level that I would like to.  This is a place where I can do that.

This community is intelligent, entertaining, and varied.  The discourse is amazing and the content ranges from extremely educational to hilarious to legitimately useful (beer/music recommendations, people helping each other find jobs/apartments, etc.)

There's legitimately no other way for me to interact with people who care about the Mariners as much as I do, and I love it here.

Name: Thad
Age: 24
Location: Boston, MA
Occupation: Law Student

I think the mainstream sports writers do a decent job, but they're in a different business.  
Because of their ties to the org they cover, there's going to be a lot less critical analysis and a lot more straight coverage.   That's not always bad; I think beat writers provide things that blogs never will (due to access), and that's nice to see.

But blogs in general have an advantage in their distance from power, and they're also able to use their readers as a form of parallel computing - a number of people with time on their hands can either create new tools (tRA!) or simply provide a better perspective for examining a specific issue or decision.  
It's really cool to watch that happen, and this blog  (more than any other) seems to encourage that sort of thing.   It obviously wouldn't work if Jeff did nothing and just told everyone to, in essence, come up with something cool to talk about.  And it wouldn't work if Jeff did everything and wanted to keep the attention solely focused on him.   There's a balance there that's obviously a skill, but I don't know what I'd call it.    

I should say that I started reading this years ago, at a time when I didn't really realize it would evolve into what it is today.  I thought the community seemed nice, and they were coming at problems in an intelligent way.   As time went on, the community itself became a reason to keep coming back - and over time you find non-baseball commonalities with people.  

How could blogs improve?  I don't know.  It'd be interesting to see a blog-like approach to the 'beat writer' concept, but teams have no incentive to give credentials to bloggers, and I'm not really sure bloggers would have much incentive to become in essence poorly paid beat writers.  
So in the absence of anything original, i think it'd be awesome if both blogs and newspapers could get out of the Manichean view that blogs are written by dumbasses in their basements (without editors!  OMG!) and that beat writers are corporate shills who add nothing to the conversation (unless, y'know, the shoe fits...).  

i'm 31, my real name actually is Marc, and I work in state gov't, so again, i'm gonna be circumspect here.   I'm from Tacoma.  

Demographic info:

Name:  Alex Saul
Age:  20
Resides:  West Point, New York (hometown Sammamish, WA)
Occupation:  Student/Army Cadet (Military History)

your thoughts on why you guys visit the website.

First off, I'm a huge Ms fan as is everyone on the site. I love the analysis done primarily by Jeff but also by all the other posters here, and the culture we have here. Another aspect, probably more important than the analysis, is the humor of the site. There are too many inside jokes to count, even with our newly dead memes, and you're be hard pressed to read any diary or thread and not find at least a comment that makes you crack a small smile. The sense of community is just great. I mean, we've had all sorts of get-togethers, ranging from football and softball games to just meeting at random Ms games.

What makes it more appealing to you (if this is the case) than the standard newspaper journalists who are paid to cover a team?

I think in the world of baseball the only real advantage a newspaper journalist has over a truly good blog is access to the team, and perhaps better writing depending on the individual cases. Bloggers in general love baseball and, at the risk of sounding arrogant, probably know more about what makes a good player or team than your basic journalist or beat writer. I would predict that this while start to change rapidly int he future, however, as the journalism community is already starting to discard some of the more meaningless stats when evaluating baseball in terms of better ones. Furthermore, blogging allows interaction, humor, and to be honest, vulgarity and bluntness that can't be experienced in a normal newspaper.

If there was one thing you could improve about blogs in general what would it be?

In general, I think blogs latch onto rumors too quickly, but I don't think this is any different than the internet in general and probably reflects more about human nature in general.

Why Do I Visit Here?
Two reasons; baseball and personal. I love baseball and baseball-related research and specifically the Mariners. It's the interest in research that propels me away from more traditional media. Once you dip into the blogosphere well, it's amazing how little you get out of newspapers and even mainstream online sites like ESPN or Yahoo. Ergo, it's natural for me to hang out at a place like this.

Why I hang out here rather than USSM (which I do read) is the diaries and threaded commenting makes it much more a group participation and that ties into the personal reason. That added group participation makes this much more social of a destination. We can talk about anything, many of us have actually met in the "real world" or done collaborative work elsewhere. It really is a place to just kind of hang out at, especially during those 9-5 hours.

Improving blogs in general? Installing a better sense of community around them. That's what makes this place distinct. There are many people who rely on this place for both baseball and non-baseball things and thus they work to defend it. Not just in terms of driving trolls out (Graham mostly) but in almost working tirelessly with newbies to teach them our general ideas if they're open to it (many many people).

Matthew Carruth
22
Currently live in Seattle and work as a software engineer and writer/editor

I had wanted to focus on LL as an online community for a similar project at Norhtwestern's journalism school, but unfortunately the two other people I was working with were girls and the prof agreed with them that a community about food and dining was more legit than LL.  I mean for this site to be devoted to baseball (a sport played 7 months of the year) and to be incredibly active year round is pretty ridiculous.  LL ftw!

I have a feeling my answers will be pretty similar to stuff that's already been said, but here's my story -- feel free to pillage from it as you will.

I've been a pretty big Mariners fan my entire life, but I always felt that my rabid fandom was inhibited by a lack of like-minded people around me. Sure, in the big years (especially 95 and 2001) everyone wanted to jump onto the bandwagon and start going to games with me, but even then I found myself spending so much time explaining why Griffey had left the team or Randy couldn't pitch every single night that it was a bit frustrating. During the bad years, especially the 2004 collapse to present, it was even worse. Rabid Seahawks fans would mock me for choosing to watch an August or September game on Sunday instead of the Hawks. I'd buy tickets to games, offer them to friends for free, and still not be able to find anyone who wanted to "waste their time watching those losers". The same friends who scored box tickets to the 2001 playoffs while I couldn't get my hands on any (being a poor high school student at the time).

Then, about a year and a half ago, I was working an internship in IT at a particularly boring company that left me with a few hours of free time on my hands at the computer every day. Browsing for Mariners news surrounding Mike Hargrove (and what at the time I hoped was his imminent firing), I came across the Mariners Blog-O-Sphere. I started off as a lurker, reading all the sites to feel them out and get engrossed in this whole new world of actual intelligent baseball discussion, and eventually started to post when I felt I had something to contribute. What I quickly discovered, though, is that of all the sites the one that I felt most comfortable at was LL. Even when I don't necessarily agree with the prevalent opinion (such as the Bedard trade, which I was all for), I feel comfortable voicing that opinion without worrying my IP will be banned next time I sign in.

The community here is truly unique... It's a group of people who are brought together by our mutual love for the Seattle Mariners (and all the health-related issues that we'll inevitably share from that emotional investment), but the conversations here are at their best when they have nothing to do with baseball. Just look at any OT diary, or the hysterical GTE moments in a game thread. It's like being in a virtual sports bar with dozens of friends, acquaintances, that kooky guy from Idaho who we all make fun of but can't imagine the place without, and the annoying Angels fan who drops in from time to time so we can forget our differences and unite against a common, extremely obnoxious enemy. It's a community in every definition of the word: something bigger than the individuals that form its parts, brought together by a shared passion. It's also a great place to discover a new beer! Find me that in the New York Times or on ESPN.

So what would I improve? If anything, I'd find a way to give myself more time on here (those 3 hours of free time every day at work are looooong gone). One idea that comes to mind is a mobile device-compatible version of the site. My Dash has a great web browser, but it doesn't read blogs very well -- especially in heavily nested comment threads. I'd love to be able to sit at the game and post to the open game thread between innings.

Anyway, hope that all helps. Here's the vitals:
Name - Brendan
Age - 23
From - Seattle (Bellevue if you want to get specific)
Occupation - project manager in retail communications

I really enjoy the atmosphere here. We have all sorts of people here, and that mix makes LL a fun place to "hang out". LL has really turned my baseball experience around; I am no longer a "casual fan". LL has taught me so much about the M's, baseball and comma use that it has become one of my main sources of wasted time. Also, the comedy on the blog is fantastic, so that's nice. It has gotten to the point where every time I visit LL I expect to either learn something new or laugh my ass off.

And, although I've only been to the first softball meeting, I've enjoyed the get-togethers. I thought it was great fun getting to know each other and see what kind of people we have reading this site.

I guess the last reason I visit this site is because I don't have a real job so I have, more or less, 20 hours of free time a day. Take out 10 for eating/sleeping and most of the day I'm just chilling haha.

I don't see any reason to change the blog, or try and improve it. I think we have a good community of people who post regularly, and people respect each others' opinions...for the most part. I think that most of the poeple who come here regularly would be against any major changes because LL is a great respite from work, boredom, drinking, or school.

Brayden
23
Mercer Island
Basketball player

Though he'd be much, much better if he spent most of his posts talking about how much we need Griffey back.

This is definitely more than I needed, but it's all good stuff!

I started over at USSM a few years ago.  I didn't have many friends up at UW who were interested in the M's so I started reading stuff over there.  Jeff's game recaps drug me over here.  This place is pretty amazing.  Its not nearly as big as USSM so the community is a lot better.  Plus the nested threads and diaries help alot.  Its just a lot of fun too.  Jeff's a pretty great writer and I really think this place does a great job of educating people because we've got a ton of viewpoints and nobody is too much of an asshole or retard.  Its also great when I'm out of WA to keep up on everything.  Oh and I like numbers and a few of us around here like them too.  I can't wait for the season to start.  Then I can stop talking about numbers and start talking about how awesome JJ Putz is.

Name: Bryan M
Age: 23
Occupation: Grad student
From: Lacey, WA
Reside: Berkeley, CA