Two blogs bring you the best of the Bulls

It's amazing the way blogs take off, and the way new niches, new areas of coverage come into vogue and become widely-read.

Take baseball. I'm sure that not-so-many years ago there were just a handful of blogs covering, say, all of Major League Baseball. That would naturally be followed by team-specific blogs, then blogs covering sideline elements -- say, the business of baseball.

Now we have blogs starting to cover Minor League Baseball, and the Durham Bulls in particular are blessed to have not one, but at least two sites providing tremendous coverage of the team.

A gold star for Adam Sobsey, who's covering the Bulls for the Independent Weekly's Triangle Offense blog -- for now. I say "for now" since Sobsey's writing is stunningly good, and I mean he's-going-to-get-snapped-up-somewhere-national-someday good.

Take this passage from Sobsey's latest update, which besides drawing Kafkaesque conclusions about the Bulls' last twenty-four games, is simply a joy to read.

Righty reliever Joe Bateman was promoted to Durham from Hudson Valley. There was no corresponding pitcher move off of the Bulls’ roster, so the first assumption is that Charlie Montoyo asked for another arm to take some of the stress off of his overworked bullpen. Bateman threw a scoreless ninth inning for the Bulls yesterday, with two strikeouts. He is 29 years old; not a prospect anymore, a little Dale Thayer-like in his six-year history of pitching well but impressing no one. At this point, Bateman is a salvaged but still-utile part, the equivalent of an alternator or a half-empty jar of capers.

The Bulls received second baseman Joe Dillon via the trade that sent Adam Kennedy to the Oakland A’s. Dillon had been playing for the A’s AAA affiliate (wow, that was a lot of As), the Sacramento River Cats. It is not clear what a river cat is, exactly, and I would certainly not like to see the team mascot, which I picture as a wet, sneezing, mangy, shivering, scrawny, starving, homeless tom. Come to think of it, though, is there any such thing as a river cat? Cats hate water.

You can follow Sobsey and the Indy Week's Bulls work via RSS.

Another look at the Bulls this season is available through Watching Durham Bulls Baseball, which covers everything from the day's pitcher matchup to game recaps, links from around the web, even some statistical analysis every now and then.

Author Chris Wise says on his bio that he's lived in the Triangle since 1990 and has been attending Bulls games regularly for four years now.

Both offer a great way to get into the Bulls' season -- which resumes, incidentally, tonight, with David Price taking on the Louisville Bats at home.

Comments

[Brion Val]

Thanks for posting links to these. Earlier today I sent an email to the Bulls bitching that I couldn't find out who's pitching tonight from their website. Chris' blog will fill the blanks in nicely.

[Erik Landfried]

Some folks in Sac-town debate what a river cat is as well: http://wickedsmaht.vox.com/library/post/what-is-a-river-cat.html