Freaking Posnanski

Yeah, I've already produced a slobberfest of love for Joe Posnanski the other week. But bear with me, for here it comes again.

You see, I was looking around on his blog the other day. Specifically at one of his more recent posts about voting in a "first class" into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He starts off on a really great tangent* about Jackie Robinson and then nominates fifteen clear-cut HOFers and asks his readers to vote in a poll (which is no longer up there) for five in this group that they feel deserve to be part of a "first class". Which is pretty much an impossible task when you consider the names: Ruth, DiMaggio, Mays, Aaron, Williams, Johnson, Robinson, Young, Cobb, Wagner, Bonds, Gehrig, Gibson, Mantle and Maddux.

*How you can start a blog post -- or any written piece, for that matter -- with a tangent, I don't know. But Posnanski has managed. And it works.

Now. Assuming I haven't lost everyone on this post yet, just look at that list! Look at it!! That's a veritable who's who of baseball history, and there is absolutely no way that any baseball fan can or should have to distinguish between these players. Yet this is the challenge that Posnanski has posed to his readers.

Anyway, it's a fascinating topic, at least to me. So then I did something that I'm fairly sure I've never done on a blog written by someone I don't know: I read the comments section. And can I say, if anyone ever wants to shove it in Buzz Bissinger's face, they absolutely need show him the comments section from Posnanski's blog. Because for the most part, the level of writing and intellect from those who've left comments might only be a notch or two below that of Posnanski.

Readers detail the agony they felt as they struggled to somehow pick only five players from this group, and go on -- often in quite a bit of detail -- to describe the criteria they used to pick the players and their decision-making process process. And this goes on... for one hundred and eighty-three comments... and counting! How many of these comments contain a poop joke or even an all too easy swipe at Bonds' alleged steroid use, as Bissinger would argue the discussion would devolve to? As far as I can tell, that would be zero.

It's unbelievable, really. Like Michael Jordan or Tom Brady make their teammates better, freaking Posnanski's brilliant writing has raised the game for people leaving comments on his freaking blog. Unbelievable.