Excerpt: "The Awards"

"In going over the ballots at BBWAA.com, I was most taken by the affiliations. It was just five years ago, at the 2008 winter meetings, that the BBWAA first opened its membership rolls to writers who made their living online. Christina Kahrl and Will Carroll of Prospectus, along with ESPN.com's Rob Neyer and Keith Law, were the first to be admitted. It's 2013 now, and in addition to Law with ESPN.com and Carroll with Bleacher Report, voters for the major awards came from places like FOXSportsWest.com, Yahoo!, CBSSports.com and MLive.com. I don't want to make a virtue out of necessity -- this is happening in no small part because newspapers are dying and the BBWAA needs members -- but it's a pretty significant change in a short time. I'm not ten years removed from having Rich Levin refuse my request for a winter meetings credential to my face with a team representative at my side backing the request, so seeing Will and Keith voting on awards…I've seen the revolution up close. It's something we should celebrate. (Now, if the organization would just drop its archaic objection to MLB.com's professional and dedicated pool of writers….)"