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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

And the 116 pitch/5 inning of work routine he was so, so good at

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

Oh yeah ... that's it ... RIGHT IN MY VEINS [welcome back (softly), counsellor]

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Just had the old classic rock radio show "FLASHBACK" pop into my head after reading this. Love it!

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

That last sentence of the Skynyrd story basically sums up the human condition

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

There are no concerts. There's no fans in the stands. But games still take too long. I guess we can hold onto that.

Also, I came to hate SEO with a fiery passion in my time in PR. We were made to write SEO-friendly press releases for about a year. That ended. And the SEO manager was fired.

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

And That Happened was one of my regular reads on hardball, usually while waiting for my computer at work to boot up I’d flip through the headlines on the site and read ones that were about the Red Sox. Usually always read ATH, was a good way to see scores and have a laugh on occasion....rare occasion

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I had no idea "And That Happened" came from John Mayer. Now, I'm going to hear 'your body is a wonderland' in my head every time I read your morning recaps. Craig Calcaterra strikes again.

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

Oh, man, that Pos burn. I'm going to make sure he knows about it by posting it over to his...um...Substack...

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Is there such a thing as snitchsubstacking? Should there be?

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love too read words

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Nice to see you, old friend.

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Oh my goodness. Halladaysbicepts? Long time, no see.

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Canada? :-)

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I'm so deeply sorry about your dad. He's a good man. You're still in Florida? You are brave.

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I did not ask for all this

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Aren't we playing it a little loose when referring to Mayer as a "Rock star"?

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"Adult Contemporary Star"? Doesn't have the ring to it though.

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What's SEO?

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"Search Engine Optimization." The black art of infusing written content with various keywords and phrases that make it more likely to appear at the top of search results on Google, etc.

There are things one can do in this regard that are mostly benign. Putting the whole team or player's name in a headline instead of a nickname or just a last name. Being sure to have a "key phrase" -- preferably one that you believe will be a common search term for a given topic -- multiple times in a post. Stuff like that. Taken to extremes, though, it results in editorial decisions that would have writers looking to see what is trending already and compose articles aimed at capturing that traffic. In the end, you get the tail wagging the dog, with people entering crap into search engines dictating what you're writing, all because you need to get those clicks for your ads.

NBC was not on the extreme end of that. They didn't have us chasing SEO results at the expense of posts, at least for about 99% of the time I was there. Toward the end there was definitely a push for that kind of thing that made me a bit cranky, but there are places that are 1000x worse. There are outlets who check Google Trends and then decide what to write. It's just a perversion of journalism.

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

Bleacher Report comes to mind...

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Hey all! I was formerly "SophieTheGreatDane" at HardballTalk, but decided to retire the name since we lost our sweet Sophie girl a few years ago. Zoey has taken over as the canine-of-record in the household these past three years, so it was time to give her cuteness some screen real estate in my avatar. Looking forward to chatting more over here. Never did like what NBC did over the years to HardballTalk.

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Welcome! And same!

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I never considered how difficult it would be to ironically ask for an encore in a manner that other people would understand to be ironic at a Skynyrd show. Hmm!

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Aug 13, 2020Liked by Craig Calcaterra

I am anxious to post here as I never did at NBC. Only lurked.

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I looked up that Phillies/Cubs game. The winning run was driven in by a pinch hitting Carlos Zambrano in the 10th inning. I guess Craig wasn't too committed to the re-capping aspect at that point.

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I remember when the old blog was called "Circling The Bases." Had more character than "HardballTalk". New name does nothing for me because I don't drink coffee and "Cup of Protein Smoothie" just sounds shitty. I guess I'll never be satisfied. Still, I'll never get tired of the cranky rumblings from a fellow jilted Braves fan and Craig's "pinko liberal" leanings actually align with the majority of us in Canada so I feel right at home. (I posted *very* sparingly as Jon3068) May these new beginnings lead to an empire.

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