SportsGrid Presents: The Top 25 Sports Bloggers, Writers, And Tweeters

In anticipation of SportsGrid, Mediaite's upcoming sports baby (babies having babies!), we've decided to count down our list of the top 25 most influential sports bloggers, writers, and tweeters currently shaping the online sports narrative. In April, SportsGrid will take Mediaite's proprietary Power Grid algorithm and apply it to sports, gauging the performance and popularity of over 5,400 players, teams, coaches, front office execs, and members of the sports media. To get a leg up on the launch, and the crazy arguing that will ensue (LeBron vs. Kobe, Ohio State vs. Michigan, Stuart Scott vs. local sports anchor Chip Carter), SportsGrid's Dan Fogarty and Glenn Davis count down their Top 25 sports bloggers and internet personalities. There are plenty of heavy hitters on the list, but much like every good lineup needs a three-point specialist or a defensive stopper, this squad wouldn't be complete without writers who serve a more niche audience. Think of them as Bruce Bowen, minus the contempt from their peers. Note: if you are not a fan of the gratuitous use of sports puns when arbitrarily ranking bloggers, TOO BAD, because we're going to the hole until the fat lady sings. With that in mind: every team needs a couple of goons to start fights, and some bangers on the inside... The Wild Cards Drew Magary, Kissing Suzy Kolber – Will Leitch famously took the high road when Buzz Bissinger flipped out on sports bloggers, calmly sitting there and providing a rational counterpoint to the lunacy spewing forth from Bissinger. In so doing, he showed everyone that hey, maybe these strange "bloggers" are just...regular people. Using a slightly different tactic, this is how Magary, who also contributes to Deadspin, handled the Bissinger situation. The post is Magary in a nutshell - mind-blowingly over-the-top, unfathomably profane - but wow, pretty funny, too. He does a reader mail Deadspin feature with the same qualities, his Asshole Coach Digest documents some truly horrifying behavior, and he also writes occasional scripts on Kissing Suzy Kolber that often feature stunningly bawdy roles for New York Jets coach Rex Ryan. And Magary gets bonus points for lampooning this Chris Berman rant. Gregg Doyel, CBS Sports - Writers need a unique style, a persona, to truly stand out. Gregg Doyel has it: it's called being a...well, as Deadspin once diplomatically put it, a "rather disagreeable little fellow" (and as they not-so-diplomatically put it in that same post, "a genuine douchebag"). Doyel does keep a CBS Sports blog, but that blog is secondary to his column, which is where he really makes his mark. In it, he says he's paying attention to the Winter Olympics only to see if anyone else dies and disagrees with everyone pretty much just for the sake of disagreement - and that's just in the last few weeks. He has a reader mail column, too - "Hate Mail" - where he revels in his "rather disagreeable" image, and does much the same thing on Twitter. He's such a contrarian that he makes a not-very-bold-statement sound like a leap of faith - while flat-out admitting the claim he's making is actually not very bold at all. Also, he once did this with his hair, which should prove he fears no mocking, and if anything, lives for it. Jason Whitlock, Fox Sports – Whitlock, who is affectionately referred to by Bill Simmons as "Big Sexy," combines traits of several other well-known sportswriters. Like Joe Posnanski, he's written (and still writes) for the Kansas City Star. Like Stephanie Wei, he has a strong background in sports (he played football at Ball State). Like Simmons, he raised his profile at ESPN, and like Gregg Doyel, he makes his bones on unapologetic, provocative opinion pieces (and tweets). Speaking of tweets, one area where Whitlock stands alone: his hilariously photoshopped Twitter picture. Like Simmons, Whitlock is more of an online-heavy media personality (lots of similarities between these two - maybe it's why they get along so well, certainly better than Whitlock and ESPN itself). We've linked a tweet here where Whitlock strongly criticizes Deadspin, and an interview where he does the same to ESPN. Clearly, this is someone unafraid to mix it up with the big influencers in the sports media world - and that candor is the reason Whitlock's an influencer himself. Next: Top performers under the radar... Top Under-The-Radar PerformersChris 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. Who do you go to when you need quality buckets, and there's only 140 characters or less on the clock... The Tweet-Point SpecialistsEric Stangel, @EricStangel - The head writer for David Letterman may seem like an odd choice for a list of sports bloggers, but Stangel consistently delivers the goods on his twitter account. Named one of CNBC's most influential sports tweeters, Stangel shined during the Vancouver Olympics, with tweets ranging from musings on NBC's coverage to questions that legitimately need answering. What does that third guy do? Dan Jenkins, @danjenkinsgd – Given the at-best uneasy coexistence between "old" and "new" media, it was refreshing to see old media legend Jenkins (79 when he joined Twitter, now 80), not only embrace Twitter last year, but immediately master it. The guy just has fun with the medium, nicknaming himself "the Ancient Twitterer" and using his over half-century of experience covering golf to bring an interesting perspective to just about everything he sees. It was an especially good thing he was around when 59-year-old Tom Watson nearly pulled off the greatest win in golf history at the British Open last year, only to falter in a playoff - Jenkins' tweets were about the only things that weren't depressing for golf fans at the time. You're never too old to get in on the social media game (but maybe you can be too old to win the British Open). Old Hoss Radbourn, @OldHossRadbourn - Baseball is steeped in tradition, folklore, and history unlike any other sport in America. And what would all that history and tradition be without someone to lampoon it in hilarious faux-old-timey language on Twitter? The mystery creator of this account takes on the persona of Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn, one of baseball's greatest 19th-century pitchers. (Check that link if for no other reason than that the page is sponsored by the Radbourn Twitter creator, and features one of "Radbourn's" best lines.) From the "first names with just the initial" naming convention (resulting in things like "M. Ramirez" instead of "Manny Ramirez" - we don't need to tell you which is funnier) to the hilarious faux-old-timey language we mentioned before, there's something for everyone here. Even if you're not that into baseball. Next: A hypothetical team of sports bloggers is only as good as it is deep... The Key ReservesJoe Posnanski, JoeBlog - Many people consider Posnanski, a Sports Illustrated senior writer, to be the best sports columnist in America. In addition to that unofficial title, he might well be the country's premier long-form sports blogger. His motto for his personal blog is was "Curiously Long Posts," and they are - but more importantly, they're always good. He squeezes the maximum out of every topic, including many he just couldn't fit into his SI pieces. Posnanski has a definite regular-guy appeal about him, manifested in such tales as this one involving his childhood hero, mediocre 1970s Cleveland Indians second baseman Duane Kuiper, and uses his average, well, Joe-ness to expertly convey the human element of sports, which is what the best sportswriters do. Just as importantly, he does it with solid, funny, accessible writing. Just how readable is Posnanski? He made a 9,000 word opus on the recent history of the notoriously awful Kansas City Royals not only bearable, but engaging. That's talent. Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter, ESPN.com - Every football fan should follow one (or both) of these ESPN analysts on Twitter. Much has been made of ESPN's stingy Twitter guidelines (let the Sports Guy live!), but Monday Night Countdown's resident NFL insiders need not worry: they dish very little in the form of sports media criticism. Instead, the two provide some of the best NFL tidbits under 140 characters - injury updates, lineup changes, and contract negotiations - as they happen. Nowhere is their mastery of Twitter more apparent than during the NFL combine. Wondering what Ryan Matthews ran in the 40? Bam. Want to know how high Tim Tebow can jump? Pow. What about coaches' wives and their business cards? Whammy. Dan Shanoff, danshanoff.com - Let's get this out of the way - yes, he has appeared on Mediaite. But he's more than worthy of inclusion on this list, connections to this site or not. He wrote for ESPN. He currently writes the Wake Up Call (Shanoff's WUC) every weekday morning for the Sporting News' Sporting Blog. He has a personal blog, also linked here. But most interestingly of all, he has Tim Teblog, which is just as it sounds - a blog devoted entirely to ex-Florida quarterback/NFL hopeful/Super Bowl commercial star Tim Tebow. It's impressive that Shanoff is devoting this kind of energy to Tebow at all, since he's already writing on every sports-related topic imaginable for the WUC, but if Tebow actually becomes an NFL star (still very much in question), Shanoff's chronicling of him may become his most significant blogging contribution. Grant Wahl, SI.com - The senior Sports Illustrated writer has some serious journalistic chops, reporting two classic SI cover stories: the famous Chosen One LeBron cover, and Where's Daddy?, a detailed look at the mating habits of the North American basketball player. But his real value on your RSS feed will be measured in the mad scramble for World Cup knowledge this summer. Wahl's blog on Fan Nation delivers the goods when it comes to the other Football, and will provide a great study guide to quiet some of those guilty feelings while you cluelessly watch the most popular sport on earth you ignorant American. Ives Galarcep, Soccer By Ives - There IS a market for soccer info in the U.S., as Ives Galarcep can attest. He writes for Fox Soccer (and previously worked for ESPN Soccernet), but his blog affords him the greatest potential for coverage - and he takes full advantage. His tagline is, "The world of soccer with an American voice," which about says it all. He and his team do as thorough a job as anyone covering the Major League Soccer scene, but they also do yeoman's work reporting on happenings from around the world. They dutifully track the most relevant new developments with their ongoing ticker feature, and even better, they often actively encourage reader participation. When they do, the readers respond in full force. If you care about this summer's World Cup (and you'll get sucked in, just like you did with the Winter Olympics), Galarcep's blog just might become destination viewing. Jason King, Yahoo Sports - College basketball has a lot of teams, and unless you went to a perennial top 25 basketball school, it can be hard to keep up with the ebb and flow of a particular season. Enter college sports expert and Kansas City Star alumnus Jason King (a lot of those on this list), who will do the legwork for you. In addition to giving you confidence once your coworkers break out the brackets, King does a great job of interviewing players, as seen in this piece on Derrick Roland's comeback from a gruesome injury. Katie Baker, All over - Again, to get this out of the way, yes, she has appeared on Mediaite. And really, if this truly is a problem, we have to ask: are you questioning our taste in writers? Because that would hurt. Regardless, Baker has earned her recognition. We can't help but find ourselves agreeing with her thoughts on postgame interviews (plus it's surreal to a read a "normal," pre-Thanksgiving account of anything involving Tiger), and her take on the New York Post's perpetually irritated Phil Mushnick. She's shown an uncanny Deadspin knack when guest-editing that site, and also has a Tumblr. And, impressively, on top of all this, "a day job." Spencer Hall, EDSBS - Do you love college football unironically while also wanting to distance yourself from the game juuuust enough to occasionally laugh at what a ridiculous (and corrupt) spectacle the sport can be? Then EDSBS is the team for you! Hall, along with Holly Anderson and Doug Gillett, are the squad behind Every Day Should Be Saturday (started by Hall under the pen name "Orson Swindle"), as funny (and snarky) a college football blog as exists. Just check out this piece from a couple weeks ago - see? We told you this blog was funny. Notable running features include The Curious Index (or, "Orson Swindle's Curiosities, Rumin-ations, and Various Eccentri, By Every Morn Ougtn't Be Satur-day Morn"), and the Fulmer Cup (named after former Tennessee football coach Phil Fulmer), which ranks college football teams by their respective amounts of player lawlessness. And yet, these people genuinely love the game: in the Orson Swindle FAQs section (clearly written by Hall himself), he says of himself, "Has college football problem." Next: Your starting lineup... The StartersA.J. Daulerio, Deadspin - A runner-up in for Mediaite's top online editor of 2009, A.J. Daulerio runs Deadspin, the biggest, baddest sports blog on the block. Since he's been given the keys, he's broken stories on Josh Hamilton's momentary fall off the wagon, and famously emptied his inbox full of tips about the crazy sex stuff that may or may not happen at ESPN. Journalistic ethics aside, the ESPN episode proved that Daulerio was not afraid to take on an entity that effectively controls the way we view sports. It also showed that Deadspin is more than just fights, boobs and athlete dong, but an important voice, that, if ignored, will totally put you on blast. Brooks, Sports By Brooks - Brooks bills his site as "Sports Celebrity News," and sure enough, if you go there you'll find mostly stories of sports figures' exploits outside of the game. You'll find something about the wife of disgraced ex-Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach selling his Texas Tech gear on eBay, you'll find something about Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari's commemorative bottle of bourbon. But most likely, you'll find boobs. Lots of boobs, even if they're creepily young boobs. Brooks also might highlight an amusing error or two from around the Web...but we know why you're really visiting his site. Jason McIntyre, The Big Lead – Perhaps best known for their Jason Whitlock interview and MSM bullying at the hands of Colin Cowherd, The Big Lead is second only to Deadspin in its ability to deliver pertinent gossip and insightful observations on sports culture. The driving force behind the site is editor Jason McIntyre, a former sportswriter who spends equal time reporting on sports and the interesting characters that cover it. McIntyre's interviews with sports media personalities are among the best you can find online, and the site has also gotten respect from an unlikely place: Cowherd, the popular ESPN Radio host who famously crashed the site, has credited TBL numerous times in the past year. Will Leitch, The Sports Section - Here's a guy who's just all over the place. Along with Joe DeLessio, Leitch provides a thoughtful look at New York sports on The Sports Section, NYMag's sports blog. In addition, he's still a frequent contributor to Deadspin (witness this new Roger Ebert piece, one of the best Leitch has ever written), which he founded, and he's got a Tumblr, nicely accented by the tagline, "Because, sometimes, I just don't think people have enough access to my opinions." Leitch is keenly aware he's carved out quite a spot for himself in the online opinion-sharing arena - and it's warranted. He's a good, entertaining writer and his passion comes through in his pieces (including his movie reviews, which he generally saves for Tumblr, where he admits being a movie critic was always what he really wanted). But what might have been his most important contribution to blogging came on TV. You've probably seen it by now: Costas Now, Buzz Bussinger goes crazy, Leitch keeps his cool, takes the high road, comes out the bigger man, etc. Even mentioning it at this point seems like overkill. But it really was huge. It got bloggers talking - bloggers like this very list's Spencer Hall and the ex-bloggers of Fire Joe Morgan (one of whom, Michael Schur, also appeared for a taped segment on that same Costas Now). It also got bloggers looking, well, an awful lot better than the mainstream media - because if Bissinger was anywhere near an accurate proxy for the MSM as a whole, then...wow. Aaaand at center... at 6'1, according to IMDB!... from Boston!... The #1 Draft Pick (And Soon-To-Be Free Agent?) Bill Simmons, ESPN - Not a blogger, per se, but no list of prominent sportswriters who rose to fame mainly through the internet would feel complete without Simmons - in large part because his career made possible those of several others on this list. He's been subject to more ridicule as he's gotten more and more famous, but is there anyone for whom that's not true? Really, Simmons is at the peak of his powers right now - he's as widely read (and listened to)as he's ever been, he has a #1 New York Times bestseller, over 1 million Twitter followers (he uses the site obsessively after initially trashing it), and ESPN's acclaimed documentary series, 30 For 30, was his brainchild. Look for Simmons, a former Jimmy Kimmel Live writer, to try and leave a bigger mark in the television world on the heels of 30 For 30's success - and his soon-to-expire ESPN contract might afford him some newfound flexibility. SportsGrid is Mediaite's new sports site (duh) launching in April. Follow SportsGrid on Twitter!

SportsGrid Presents: The Top 25 Sports Bloggers, Writers, And Tweeters

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SportsGrid Presents: The Top 25 Sports Bloggers, Writers, And Tweeters

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