Stefan : [laughs]

 

Marc : I am 58 years old, as you know I live in Israel. I’ve lived here now 2 months short of 8 years. I used to live in Philadelphia and I was a Phillies fan you know since the age of 10 years old. So you know, Phillies fan and Philadelphia sports fan since like the age of 10 years old. Also, I am an accountant and you know, I am a writer and since I have been in Israel, or even before I made out, yeah, I have been writing new, views and commentary on events here in Israel. About a year, let’s see, October of 2005, I started a blog on events in Israel and friends of mine said in the spring of 2006, “ you know you spend a lot of time on this blog, take some more time and do another blog on some other topic, you know where they make some money”. And so we came to where I’m partnering on this blogging-baseball, that is. I’m doing the content and he’s doing you know, marketing and positioning. 

 

Stefan : Okay.

 

Marc : And so , we started blogging-baseball in April of 2006, right at the beginning of Major League season. 

 

Stefan : Okay, excellent! And what is your approximate readership? I mean, I guess how many visitors you get in monthly or on weekly basis?

 

Marc : Well, right now, you know, as I say, it is a new blog. It is difficult to gauge the readership or level of fanaticism, whatever because it is a new blog. You know, I try to put a lot of stuff and a lot of, oh what is the term that I wanted to use, what I’ll call value added or info added content on the blog such as what I like, whatever players mention for the first time, you know in a pose they try to get a link back at his stat and the same with the team, you know, whatever, whatever as you probably see. You know I try to give anything that walks, crawls, lies, whatever pertinent in the article, you know, you try to give them a link within an article. I try to do a lot of info, value added type of articles when they’re release, you know, I try to during the season, I put a lot of emphasis on the Phillies but also generally Major League baseball in a sense of you know, major names and things like this.

 

Stefan : Okay. 

 

Marc : I can’t, right now, it is difficult to gauge readership. It is still a new blog, you know it has not picked up ahead of steam to the extent that I can see hundreds of readers you know, hundreds of views a day, you know what I am saying? You know, this is what I we’re aiming for, hundreds and thousands of view a day but you know, it is still a new blog. It’s still in its birth pains and learning to walk, and you know, learning to market in a sports environment. 

 

Stefan : Sure, sure. I completely understand. Well being that it is new, I guess that my next question is really invaluable. First of all, what is your point of differentiation? As we all know, the internet is so expansive and has so many repetitious, I guess is a good…..

 

Marc : Repetitious, you ain’t kidding! The repetition is incredible. What I try to do is comment and try to pull the best from a number of different articles on the same topic and tie it together. You know, make a more comprehensive, insightful blog article but not the same type of repetitious… you know, we are going to read… how many tens of people, how many tens of bloggers are gonna put the same AP content, you know, same…each try to look for some other people who write you know, and you try to pull some stuff they haven’t seen commonly on all of these repetitious articles. 

 

Stefan : Yeah, and that was what I was leading to, you know, your point of differentiation. It seems as if, what sets blogging-baseball apart from the other baseball sites or blogs by fan sites out there, while being informative, there’s real take on different views or opinion piece on every article that you have here, so …

 

Marc : We started to do that. We try to do that.  I mean, let me give you an example, by the end of last year, I started out last season, I started off the off season right down on Pat Burrel. Pat Burrel, you may not recollect by the name of Burrel because I see that most, quite a few of the commentators on the electronic media speak of Pat Burrel as Pat Beryl. I mean, living in Israel, I meet a lot of guys named Beryl, B-E-R-Y-L; B-E-R-L, okay, but Burrel, B-U-R-R-E-L, is Burrel, not Beryl. You know but I began the off season being very down on him as the number 5 and I share the view of a lot of people that Phillies need to put up some protection on number 5 spot, you know, protect Ryan Howard who best clean up. And I eventually, I can’t remember this guy, his name, but the guy that writes this annual baseball book and basically he came out with stats that you know, Burrel was one of the better number 5 hitters and did a good job of protecting Ryan Howard. Although, at the end of the season, Howard got walked a lot and we come to a certain point I think his last home runs is 58 home runs with 5 or 6 games left in the season. You know, I was really hoping that he’d passed 60. You know, there were articles winning over 50, there were articles that the Merris family were hoping that he’ll hit 62 so that he can take some of the, what was perceived as the stigma away from the record due to Mark Mcgwire and Barry Bonds and their purported use of steroids. While talking about that, steroids and domestic disputes and gambling, I try to stay away from these things on blogging-baseball. I try to keep it as pure baseball as possible.

 

Stefan : Okay. 

 

Marc : So what I am saying is I came around thinking that “Hey, he is not such a bad number 5 after all and the general manager of Phillies is maybe on solid gorund, not making such deal, not spending on 150 million dollars on a Serrano or somebody like that who may not do any better than Burrel and that number 5 spot.”

 

Stefan : Sure, sure. 

 

Marc : But anyways, you understand what I am saying you know, in general concept? 

 

Sefan : Uhmm. Absolutely. Does your blogging-baseball tend to, I mean I assume you try and cover every team equally or does it tend to be a little bit heavy on the Phillies?

 

Marc : As I have said before, I tend to in terms of coverage of teams, I tend to give a great deal of preference with the Philies. You know, the home town! The old home town! I should say that the team I know best, the team with the history that I know best, okay, I mean history of the Phillies from way Robin Robertson to Kurt Simmons and you know, I am not gonna say “Puddin’ Head Jones” because I don’t really recollect Puddin’ Head Jones. I haven’t seen him since Bobby Wine and Cookie Rojas, with guys like Gene Conley, and Art Mahaffey and people like that last seen of course and Tony and Garry Maddox you know, Curt Schilling to John Clark, etc. you know, on through the guys like Ryan Howard and Brett Myers, and Cole Hammels, Olsen and Jamie Moyer you know, I am most familiar with the history of Phillies. I mean I go back, the worst deal that I ever recollect, and if you ever looked at my early posts, real post, worst of all time Phillies deal, of all time, okay, they traded Jack Sanford, former rookie of the year pitcher 1958 or ’59, was it? I think it was ’58, they traded Jack Sanford to San Francisco Giants, it was either ’59 or ’60, for Rueben Gomez and Valmy Thomas who literally stunk up the place. I mean, Thomas was a catcher and he was terrible, no stick at all, and Rueben Gomez was a pitcher that if he has any potential, nobody ever saw it. Okay and they traded the guy Jack Sanford who went on to win 20 games for a few season for the Giants, went on to win the World Series for the Giants. Okay, absolute Old Man Carpenter, John Carpenter, the…  you know before Rowe, quote, unquote baseball library “worst deal I ever made.” You know, I’m saying, I go back and saw this history. You know, Don Carlsen and Duke Farrell, I do not know if you know any of these names. Nice guys that were around before you were born probably. 

 

Stefan : Sure, sure. But you know, the Philadelphia Phillies fans are one of the most fanatical fans out there based on our business and coming from my perspective, Philadelphia Phillies …

 

Marc : And I was never one of these guys going to the ball park all the time. I watch the game on TV, read in the papers, listened to sports top guys on car radio coming home from work, you know, when late at night you know, when after Johnny Carson was over but doing sports on the internet is kind of a pretty new thing with me.  Yeah we were pretty fanatic back in Philadelphia.

 

Stefan : Yeah… And what you were saying is a…..

 

Marc : And we got Philadelphians here, in Israel We’ve got Philadelphia fans here just as fanatic. 

 

Stefan : Yeah, what you’re seeing and what we’re seeing is a real resurgence of interest and the passion of the Philadelphia fans. Whereas autographed Mike Smith’s memorabilia used to be, autographed Steve Carlton’s memorabilia used to be, all that they went after. With the new resurgence and the new life and new blood of Brett Myers memorabilia, and autographed Ryan Howard memorabilia, those are the items that people are going after now in volume because it is an exciting team and …

 

Marc : Yeah, yeah. I have been predicting and I think finally this year it is gonna come true. First of all, the Mets are going to be watching over their shoulders as Phillies overtake them. Okay, and I believe finally this year, we are going to be seeing what I’ve been looking for since 2004 and that’s Phillies-Red Sox World Series. 

 

Stefan : Oh yeah

 

Marc : Yeah, I mean, can you imagine that? Big Packy going up against, you know, Big Packy on one side and Ryan Howard on the other, and Kurt Schilling and the other horses they have, you know, versus our horses. 

 

Stefan : Sure, for a lot of people, that will be a dream World Series. 

 

Marc : Yeah, yeah. Anyway, what else would you like to ask?

 

Stefan : I don’t want to take anymore of your time. I think it has been a great conversation of kinda where you came from and what the purpose of the site serves, and I guess what you see it doing in the future in the competitive scene.

 

Marc : I didn’t really cover that yet.

 

Stefan : Yeah, that was our next question.

 

Marc :  I was feeling our way, again in terms of what we see the site doing in the future.   I see a continuation on the one hand of game by game and real time baseball coverage and discussions of all the myriads and myriads of great all time baseball moments. At the same time, you know, I’ve got like three other baseball domains that I have not used yet. You know, our shells. When bought them last year at the same time we got started with blogging-baseball, you know I bought a domain called “Third Strike”, I bought a domain called “Old Ballgame”, and another one called “Highlights Baseball” and you know, at some point put my, channel my mind to be able to do something like an e-book or something like that perhaps a fiction tying baseball and World events. A long time ago, I tried to do something, I tried writing a piece model on Black Sunday, if you are familiar with the book in the movie.

 

Stefan : I am not actually. It is the first time I have heard of that. 

 

Marc : Oh. Black Sunday was about a terrorist attack at the SuperBowl.

 

Stefan : Oh, wow! 

 

Marc : An attempted terrorist attack at the SuperBowl. Yeah, and there was even a movie on it and actually the movie came out during the Carter administration.  So, this movie came out in like 1977. It was made for TV movie or it was a second version of an original movie and they pieced in a thing of Jimmy Carter walking to a seat. They show the president was in a stadium, you know, during the Superbowl, I once tried modeling that on the 1980 World Series. The final pitches of the 6th game, Tug Mcgraw striking out Willy Wilson the end of the game, you know, all the fireworks going off, I try to project in there that somebody was trying to perpetuate a terrorist event at the very moment the fireworks went off at the end of the game. But I could not carry it on after that point. You know, 26 years ago, hopefully my writing abilities have improved over those 26 years. You know what I am saying?

 

Stefan : Absolutely. 

 

Marc : So you know, I am looking at an equal, possibly I am looking at having these other domains feed off the blogging-baseball, and blogging baseball feed off the specialized areas in these other domains. You know one of the domains is called “Third Strike” you know, so maybe I do something totally about the great strikeout artists of Major League baseball history, for instance. You know, I mean, these are some of the things I envision.

 

Stefan : Great. Thank you so much. 

 

Marc : You’re welcome.