SportsGrid Presents: The Top 25 Sports Bloggers, Writers, And Tweeters
Top Under-The-Radar Performers
Chris Brown, Smart Football – The phrase “armchair quarterback” exists for a reason – football fans who aren’t directly involved with the games they love wish they were. Brown’s Smart Football is the ideal blog for such people (and there are many). His mammoth treatises on various strategic elements of football (such as legendary coach Bill Walsh’s signature offense) generally come complete with video examples and X-and-O diagrams – perfect for making an outsider feel as wonky as possible.
Were anyone to actually commit the entirety of Brown’s blogging output to memory, they’d probably be well-versed enough in strategy to be a coach in some capacity. And while it takes more than that to coach, the amazing thing is that a blog with that much information exists at all. And because he somehow has even MORE information inside his head than he shares on his own blog, Brown also writes here during the college football season.
Ken Pomeroy, kenpom.com – Sports fans have a love/hate relationship with number crunchers, in that some love them and some hate them. (We at SportsGrid are firmly in the pro-numbers camp.) For college basketball, Ken Pomeroy is that number cruncher. One might expect college sports fans, who often share especially intense personal connections with their favorite teams, to find Pomeroy’s methods especially cold and soulless, but even among those who might critique some of his methods and results, there’s an underlying respect for what he does. And it’s easy to see why, because what he does (attempt to rank every Division I NCAA basketball team – over 300 total) is pretty ambitious.
He does it with a litany of advanced, efficiency-based numbers. One of the most important is effective field goal percentage (both offensive and defensive), which adjusts for the additional worth of a 3-pointer. Another interesting stat is expected Pythagorean winning percentage, which predicts what a team’s record should look like based on points scored and points allowed (this is then used to figure out whether or not a team is lucky). Pomeroy blogs about his findings on his site and Basketball Prospectus – and admits in the latter piece that no, his numbers are not infallible (considering his rating system currently has a not-quite-deserving Duke at #1, it’s good he admits it). The real test of his ratings, however, comes at NCAA Tournament time. We’ll be watching.
Paul Lukas, Uni Watch Blog – In sports, uniforms matter. If you have any doubt about this statement, ask yourself this question: if a basketball player was barreling at you on a fast break, would you be more intimidated if he was wearing this… or this? What about if you were trying to sack this guy – the mustard and doo-doo color palette doesn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of others, does it? These are the topics explored by Paul Lukas, who takes a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in professional sports uniforms in his Uni Watch blog and column on ESPN.com. Lukas also provides cool insights into the history of said uniforms, and the effect that uni’s have on the most important games.
Rany Jazayerli, Rany on the Royals – Joe Posnanski’s writing on the dreadful Kansas City Royals is impressive, but they’re just one topic of many that he covers. Really, Posnanski can write on just about anything that’s going on – he live-blogged this year’s BCS title game in college football, he’s writing about Al Michaels for the Olympics, etc. Jazayerli writes on just the Royals. How, with no other topics to fall back on, can he possibly make a team so bad so compelling?
The answer: passion. Jazayerli is a huge Royals fan and blogs like one – and honestly, the team’s lack of success probably makes for better blog fodder. Jazayerli is unrelenting in his criticism of the Royals organization when he feels it’s warranted (which is most of the time), and let’s face it: the team’s results – one (barely) winning season in the last 15 – speak for themselves. Jazayerli’s fed-up rant from the end of last season, “I’m Done,” is a long-but-well-done summation of what a lot of Royals fans have probably been thinking for a long time – but of course, he wasn’t really done. As his Twitter bio says, he’s a “pathetic Royals fan all the time,” and that’s not changing. (Oh, and he’s not even a writerby trade.)
Stephanie Wei, Wei Under Par – While most of us might wish we were sports insiders, Stephanie Wei is one (she played golf at Yale). She now lends her expertise to her blog Wei Under Par, and occasionally to the Huffington Post. And in case you haven’t noticed, the actions of one particular golfer means that commentators on the sport are in higher demand than ever. Wei felt the impact of this demand more than anyone, and used her blog to take advantage. She covers all corners of the golfing world, from this detailed breakdown of Tiger’s speech to this breakdown of on-course fart noises. Also, this headline is hilarious.
Most importantly – passion for the game. Wei says right there in a sidebar on her site: “Golf is my first love.” Then, she shares a quote from Arnold Palmer that calls golf “without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.” Yeah, she’s got the passion thing covered.
Will Carroll, Injury Expert – Injuries are among the most unpleasant aspects of sports, but they’re inevitable – and one poorly-timed injury can harm a season, a career, or (gasp!) a fantasy team. With this in mind, increasingly information-hungry fans want every telltale sign that a key player might be more susceptible to a certain injury – and what the consequences of any given injury might be.
That’s where Carroll comes in. He’s a multi-sport injury savant, writing for Baseball Prospectus, Football Outsiders, and providing commentary on basketball injuries as well.
Indeed, Carroll’s become such a prominent force that he’s found his way into the mainstream, in recent years becoming a member of both the Baseball Writers Association of America and the Pro Football Writers Association. And if all that still isn’t enough, he’s a thrice–published book author. He’s also a tweeting machine, always a plus in our book.
