Sandy Alderson Interview, Part II and III

Geoff Young has posted the middle and final acts of his sit-down with Sandy Alderson over at Ducksnorts. Part II is here and Part III is here. Two nuggets I found interesting:

Ducksnorts: What exactly are the daily responsibilities of your current position, and is there an off-season for you?

Alderson: . . . People used to think that it was a nine-month [job]… and I realized it was a 12-month proposition when some of the beat writers started taking their vacations during the season because there was so much going on in the off-season and they didn’t want to miss anything.

I'm just a part-time blogger and even I am beginning to know how that feels. I may be posting more now, but in December and January I really feel like I have to pay close attention to things in a way I don't during the summer. Sure, some big news may come like the Randolph firing, but for the most part it's just the day-in-day-out of the baseball season. If I miss tomorrow's recaps, there's always Friday. Over the winter, on the other hand, someone can be traded, signed, sued, suspended, arrested, or fired at any given time, and I'm really upset if I miss it.

Also:

Ducksnorts: Something that’s near and dear to my heart: Paul DePodesta has recently started a public-facing blog, which is really cool . . . What factors influenced you to start that?

Alderson: Well, first of all, I really believe in as much interface with the public as possible . . . The blogosphere creates another opportunity to communicate, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in Paul — in his ability to write, in his ability to self-edit if that’s necessary — to be as straightforward as possible under the circumstances . . . The other thing we’ve been toying around with is allowing people like yourself [bloggers] into the press box. I know there’s a lot of controversy about that among mainstream media and so forth, but our attitude is, the more access, the better.

Not sure I'd ever actually want to work from a press box -- can you drink beer in there anymore? Because I don't watch a game in-person without a beer in my hand -- but it's nice to know that someone in a position of power realizes that openness is a good thing.

Great job on the interview, Geoff.

And for those of you who don't read Ducksnorts already, by all means do. As is the case with almost all of the high-quality team-specific blogs, you don't have to be a Padres fan to appreciate it.