Gatekeepers

Today Maury Brown interviews KC Star writer and BBWAA President Bob Dutton about L'Affaire NeyerLaw and the process for credentialing members. Dutton addresses what has turned out to be the central issue in the controversy, which is the alleged need to be at the ballpark a lot to be a member, and Neyer and Law's alleged lack of a need to be at the ballpark to do their jobs:

Brown: Is there a need to be "at the ballpark" to add value to the BBWAA with the advent of MLB Extra Innings and MLB.TV that allows writers the ability to see games, and therefore, the only difference is physically being at games?

Dutton: Physically being at games, I believe, means more than your question seems to imply unless you see no value in direct contact with players, management, staff, etc. I believe the access granted to such people through our credential, which is the result of negotiation with MLB and the MLBPA, is the primary benefit most members value. That is also the main reason the association places a premium on members demonstrating a need to be at ballparks.

I understand that this is a thorny issue, and that Dutton himself notes that it's not a hard and fast standard of the BBWAA, even if it is one that seems to hold sway with many of its members. Still, the notion Dutton seems to be getting at is that, in the BBWAA's mind, the essence of being a baseball writer is the process of reporting -- talking to players, management and staff -- as opposed to the written product that results from that process.

Which seems silly. It's the Baseball Writers' Association of America, not the Baseball Reporters' Association of America. Why give precedence to process over substance? As so many have demonstrated, it's quite possible for a BBWAA member to go to 162 games a year and write nary a damn enlightening word. Neyer and Law could provide a staggering amount of high-quality analysis sitting in their dens all summer (they don't, but you get what I'm saying).

Ultimately this is about gatekeeping. About ascribing the defacto title of "professional baseball writer" to only those who pass a test that is largely irrelevant to what should be the whole damn point: good, informed, and informative baseball writing. The problem with gatekeepers, though, is that even if well intentioned, they tend to keep consumers (in this case readers) from getting what they want. I believe that there are thousands who want the voices of guys like Rob Neyer and Keith Law voting on postseason awards and, ultimately, the Hall of Fame. I also believe that those same thousands (not to mention Rob and Keith themselves) would like to feel that the sources they know and trust are an accepted part of baseball journalism as a whole.

Maybe the latter point is debatable -- there are those who get off on iconoclasm and outsiderism -- but I'm a traditional guy. I like to imagine Neyer and Law sipping brandy, smoking cigars, and exchanging tales of the day with rumpled sportswriters. That's not going to happen, though, because the BBWAA, like all gatekeepers, believes it knows better.

Ultimately Rob and Keith will be just fine. One or both of them will eventually get in, and even if they don't, the world won't end. But the BBWAA has reached a key moment in its history. Going forward, it has a choice: it can continue to honor process above craft and risk its demise as a relevant organization, or it can define its mission in a way that makes sense given the obvious direction in which baseball writing is heading.