The Ghost Of Moonlight Graham One Year Later

When John Calipari took over the UMass Basketball program in 1988 he said he wanted to “Create a love affair with the community and their basketball team.” Many people thought he was nuts. Afterall, he was essentially starting from scratch.

Seven years later, Calipari took UMass from a start-up to one of the best basketball teams in the country.

I reference this because exactly one year ago today, The Ghost of Moonlight Graham was launched. My goal was to create a love affair between the baseball community and the site.

The UMass Basketball program wasn’t built in a day and neither was The Ghost of Moonlight Graham, but the strides that were made in the first year can not be understated.

In one year, The Ghost of Moonlight Graham:

Has appeared on MLBTradeRumors.com eight times.

Has appeared on FOXSports.com, CBSSports.com, and Rob Neyer’s SweetSpot on ESPN.com.

Has written 584 articles in 365 days.

Is currently the No.1 baseball writer for BleacherReport.com.

Ranks 149 in the baseball category on BallHype.com. I started out over number 500.

Has appeared on the Frankie The Sports Guy show on WGBB 1240 AM New York. Great experience.

Is a member of the Baseball Blogger’s Alliance.

Has had site traffic increase 10 out of the 12 months this year.

The last fact is the fact I am most proud of. A site is nothing if people aren’t clicking on it.

Whether you have agreed with what I said or completely disagreed, I would just like to thank everyone who has stopped by to say hello over the last year.

I plan on making 2010 even better. I am currently working on a re-design of the site, which will allow me to produce even more baseball content. I am also working on some business development deals as well.

Again, a big thank you to everyone for reading The Ghost of Moonlight Graham.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

The Great Peter Gammons Leaving ESPN

Update: Well, it appears I got my wish and then some.

The MLB Network has officially sent out a press release stating that Peter Gammons will be joining the network, as well as MLB.com as an on-air and online analyst.

The press release also states that Gammons has signed a multi-year deal with NESN starting in 2010 to be a studio analyst and reporter. NESN is home to the Boston Red Sox.

Gammons leaving ESPN for the MLB Network is a massive blow to ESPN and their baseball coverage. As one of my commentors pointed out, ESPN’s coverage of sports in general lately has been mediocre at best.

With Gammons leaving, it just got worse.

As much as I like Buster Olney and Tim Kurkjian, I really don’t see a reason to watch Baseball Tonight anymore. The MLB Network’s coverage of baseball is superior and they cover the game with the respect it deserves.

You can view the entire press release here.

Original Post

It’s a sad day for baseball fans everywhere.

The great Peter Gammons is leaving ESPN.

My decision to leave ESPN and move on at this point in my life has been conflicted,” said Gammons in a statement. “I owe a great deal of my professional life to ESPN, having spent more than half of my 40 years in journalism working for the network, and the choice to move on was made with nothing but the strongest feelings for the people with whom I worked. ESPN gave me a great deal more than I gave it, and will always be a huge part of who I am.”

ESPN says Gammons is leaving to pursue future endeavors.

I idolize very few people in this world, but Gammons is one of them. When I was studying Sports Managment at UMass, Gammons was always the guy I wanted to be.

He was the most respected writer and analyst in baseball. He changed the way baseball was covered and his articles were always must reads.

Gammons is one of the main reasons that I write today.

I remember in college, my roommate Odie had a subscription to the Sunday Boston Globe–I really just showed my age with that one. When the Globe came to our apartment, we used to run or move briskly (there was very little running in our apartment on a Sunday morning) to the door in order to be the first one to read Gammons’ Sunday article–true story.

At the time, Gammons was the only credible “insider.” His Sunday article gave us information that we couldn’t get anywhere else. Today, there are hundreds of “insiders” thanks to people like Gammons.

Now ESPN said Gammons is leaving to pursue future endeavors, which means other opportunities. It doesn’t sound like Gammons is going to retire.

My guess is Gammons ends up in either of two places–the MLB Network or NESN.

Could you imagine if he ended up at the MLB Network? Tom Verducci, Jon Heyman, Ken Rosenthal, and Gammons all on the same network. That is baseball geekdom at its best.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

ESPN Adds Phillips To Sunday Night Baseball…

Yesterday around 3:30 my coworker Pete screamed “Nooooooooooo.” This meant 1 of 2 things. Either someone in our office was sending him an unnecessary email or something happened in the world of sports he didn’t agree with.  Unfortunately for Pete both probably happened but for the purposes of this post we will concentrate on the later.  Pete’s reaction was to ESPN’s announcement that former New York Mets GM  Steve Phillips will be added as an announcer for Sunday Night Baseball. I had the same reaction to this as Morty Seinfeld had when he found out he was going to use a “low flow shower head”…..I don’t like the sound of that.

So now for 3 hours (4 if the Red Sox and Yankees are playing) not only do we have to listen to Joe Morgan compare everything under the sun to the Big Red Machine Reds of the 70′s but now we get to listen to Steve Phillips play GM for 3 hours.  I am not sure how adding Phillips improves a viewers listening experience. Phillips has spent most of his time on ESPN telling other General Managers how to run their team, yet he couldn’t run the Mets efficiently when he was their GM from 1997-2003.

Sunday Night Baseball just went from hard to listen to, to very hard to listen to.