Opening day – the day every baseball fan anxiously awaits each spring. This year, Hostess decided to pay tribute to the beloved “holiday” with a tweet.
In case you missed it, it looked something like this:
Something Needs to Be Done about MLB’s Instagram Strategy
When I first started following Major League Baseball on Instagram, I’ll admit I was pretty excited. At my age, you can’t exactly pull out a pack of baseball cards and browse through them leisurely. But for some reason you can do it on a smartphone without drawing any strange stares.
Unfortunately, what I’ve seen so far from MLB on Instagram has been surprising. First of all, it’s posting way too much. Yesterday for instance MLB posted 35 pictures in one day. And 18 of them were of Clayton Kershaw. Granted, he did throw one of the greatest games of all time on Wednesday, a no-hitter with 15 strikeouts. But the smart thing to do would be to post a few pictures and offer a link to a gallery with more of them. After all, the Instagram news feed can only feature one photo at a time. I haven’t seen pictures of my friends in days due to the constant flood of images from MLB. Continue reading “Something Needs to Be Done about MLB’s Instagram Strategy”
The Sad Plight of the New York Mets
On the mantle in my parents’ living room there is a picture of me at a Mets game, five years old eating ice cream out of a plastic helmet and loving life. Without giving away my exact age, that means I have been a Mets fan for about 25 years.
As any Mets fan knows, the team has its fair share of great moments that are inevitably followed by soul-crushing disappointments. But lately, the Mets have had greater problems than anything that’s happened on the field. Starting with the revelations that Mets ownership had invested with Bernie Madoff the franchise has suffered one embarrassment after another over the past five years.
Blogging Lessons from Fantasy Baseball: Use Your Assets Wisely
Earlier this week I participated in the annual player draft for my fantasy baseball league, a time-honored tradition that takes place all over the country and helps drive the $3.6 billion fantasy sports industry. In years past, our league had used a traditional “snake” format for drafting, which simply means that teams draft in a linear order in each round, the order reverses the following round and this continues until all team rosters are full.
This year, however, we decided to try a new auction format, where each team is given a budget of 260 virtual dollars to bid on players any way they desire. The auction draft is more complicated than a traditional system but can also be more stimulating, as the level of strategy necessary increases immensely.
Continue reading “Blogging Lessons from Fantasy Baseball: Use Your Assets Wisely”
Why Should I Outsource My Creative Content?
One of the most comical aspects of watching a Little League game is when a team runs out of pitchers. Some teams don’t even have one kid who can throw a strike, which makes watching a coach scratch his head while searching for someone—anyone—who can get the job done, even funnier.
Major League teams, however, don’t have this problem. There are rotations, and bullpens to relieve starters. You will rarely, if ever, see a position player run in from left field to pitch. While most Major Leaguers know how to pitch, it’s just not their job. An All Star, Triple Crown winner like third baseman Miguel Cabrera probably could take the mound if needed; but he shouldn’t ever have to. And even though he probably has done his share of pitching, it doesn’t mean he is good at it.
Continue reading “Why Should I Outsource My Creative Content?”