There has been a recent development on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat that I find quite refreshing. In the past, almost all coverage by your beat reporter centered around covereage of the players and the organization. In my mind, it was always the reporter who had to be carefull about what they said about a certain news item. If you talked unfavorably about a player, would you get that interview again. Similarly, the reporter had to walk the fine line with his employer and might have his job on the line if he wrote something pretty negative about the franchise.
For example, in the NBA It was fairly common knowledge that reporting on Michalel Jordan worked that way. The reporter would be carefull what he would write about him or else Air Jordan would cut you off forever from further interviews. Then again, what do we know about Mike besides his play on the court.
Thats the good thing about blogging for the most part. You can write commentary without having to answer to anybody. Now that EE is blogiing as well as being the beat reporter, its nice to hear opinion from the guy on the trail. Its certainly alot better than the cookie cutter coverage we get at DevilRays.com reporter Bill.
We'll see how long reporting and opinion lasts from the same guy. So far atleast I was wrong when I thought that this blogging venture by TBO was strictly re-branding their coverage as blogs. So far I have seen real opinions from the guys who have better access to the information.
Gaddis is blogging as well on the baseball scene from a national level.