I'm still not letting go of that whole "NCAA throws out a guy for live-blogging" thing a while back. I thought I'd get some perspective and therapeutic feedback from an authority - CSTV's Eric Sorenson - who no doubt has dealt directly with the NCAA, baseball and live-blogging than the rest of us.
E: Thanks for asking me back into your lair. Love what you've done to the place. Let's get to some of your questions.
CN: What did CSTV have planned for the Super Regional and CWS games with regards to live blogging?
E: Well, during the Supers, they had people at every site doing the live blogging thing - mostly just about the atmosphere and flavor of the site, along with providing some score updates and how it happened. And it's a good thing for CSTV to blog the Regionals and Supers since it's not like football and basketball where every game is on TV.
In Omaha, it was going to be the same thing. In fact, if you go back to last year's blog entries, I included everything from score updates to a few game pics to my "worst dressed fan". So it was all about the atmosphere AND game updates, not just a running tab of what happened in the game.
CN: When did you guys at CSTV find out that you wouldn't be able to live blog the games?
E: Last year, when I was blogging, J.D. Hamilton, the head of media at the CWS, pulled me aside about halfway through the series and told me I couldn't post score updates in my entries (I was half-shocked to find out that someone from the NCAA was actually reading my stuff... so that was bitchin' man.). So I just started blogging about the action/atmosphere, not the score. Though I saw that Lindsay Schnell, the girl from Oregon State, didn't bother with stopping the score updates... which was funny.
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CN: What was the reaction from CSTV?
E: At first it was just like the reaction a hot chick gets when a drunk frat boy says "I lovvvvve youuuuuu!". Roll the eyes and say, "here we go again." But when we got to Omaha, CSTV decided to lay low and see what happens. I voted for a sit in... and a stance of unified defiance, like everybody should shave their heads.
CN: What was your reaction?
E: (can I curse in this medium?) My reaction was I wish the NCAA would get the corncob out of its butt. Look, CSTV already has live score updates on "Gametracker" on it's site anyway. WTF? So while people would see my blog entries, I would write, "If you want to know the score and inning of the game, just look in the upper right corner of the page you're on and Gametracker will tell you." In the words of Frank Zappa, phhhhhewwwww!
CN: We haven't heard yet whether the Lousiville Courier-Journal is planning on suing the NCAA. Was there any consideration from CSTV or anyone else that you've heard?
E: No, nothing on that. But get this: On Friday, I was talking about the situation with Jeremy Mills, the dude who is the proprietor of that wicked website www.ncaa-baseball.com, and he pointed out to me that on the credential handout itself that the NCAA issues all media honks at the CWS, it has this in the literature:
"In-game updates on score and time remaining in competition may be publicly displayed by any media entity whether credentialed or not."
So this was freakin' crap from the beginning. I don't even know what the NCAA is enforcing. I feel like pulling a Brian Bosworth and putting on a t-shirt that says "NCAA. National Communists Against Athletes" (The Boz never was as clever as he thought he was... 'coz that's weak. But I get his point.)
I'm sure next year we'll all kick back with a beer or two and laugh at how this whole hub-bub was a bit of a laugh. Oh wait, this is the NCAA... they're trying to get rid of beer on 13th Street too. Egad!
CN: I usually want to shave my head every June, but Mrs. Corn Nation is all against it. Something about all the dents in my skull, maybe. Thanks for taking the time again. Wish I was there.