The Pastime

With Spring Training rapidly approaching, it’s time to familiarize ourselves with the best of the team-specific baseball blogs out there. Need to know the down-low on how that rookie starting pitcher is going to fare against your team? Better know where to go. In the first of a six-part series, I’ll start with the AL West, and highlight my picks for the cream of the crop.

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Los Angeles of Anaheim

6-4-2

As an Oakland fan, it’s hard for me to find anything complimentary to say about the Angels. It’s contrary to my nature. However, the consistently excellent (and frequently updated) 6-4-2 has plenty of interesting things to say. It may do double duty as an Angels/Dodgers blog, but 6-4-2 is still ten times its closest competition. Avoid Halos Heaven, it’s not a happy place.

Seattle

Lookout Landing

This was a very tough decision. Marinerds and U.S.S Mariner are both great blogs, with some great writing, but Lookout Landing is a hair above them, in my eyes. Even with the incomparable Jeff on vacation, things haven’t really slipped over there. Even though there’s no scoring system for my selections, I’ve got to give bonus points to LL for the work on Win Expectancy graphs. Also, the Carl Everett Rally Dino makes me laugh every time…

Texas

Lone Star Ball

There aren’t very many Rangers blogs. Striketwo lists just eight, the third fewest of any team. However, Baseball Time in Arlington, Lone Star Ball and Postcards from Elysian Fields are all excellent Rangers blogs. You really can’t go wrong by stopping by any of them. So how’d I pick the best one? Easy. Adam J. Morris, who runs Lone Star Ball, bought Mrs. Jose Lima’s infamous brown dress on eBay, and then interviewed her. Winner.

Oakland

Athletics Nation

How can you not pick AN? It’s the 800-lb gorilla of baseball blogs. It’s been written about in magazines and newspapers, and the interviews that Tyler Bleszinski has done with everyone from rookie league prospects to Billy Beane are reason enough. Even as outstanding a blog as Catfish Stew has to step aside for AN, although I want to give Ken Arneson a lot of credit; he’s a great writer and photographer.

What really sets AN apart is the consistent quality of writing, as Nico, baseballgirl and Blez are all very talented at what they do, and louismg’s cartoons are consistently creative and funny. Of course, you can make the case that I’m a bit biased, since I’m a long-time member of AN, but then again, there’s a good reason I find myself there every day.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 19th, 2007 at 7:04 pm and is filed under General Baseball, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.