Welcome to the Blogosphere, Jacoby

MLB must’ve decided last year’s player playoffs blogs were so awesome, that they’ve forced given a player on each team the opportunity to “write” one. And Boston’s lucky short-end stick-drawer selectee is Jacoby Ellsbury.

Say hello to Jacoby Ellsbury: The Blog.

I have a sneaking suspicion that much like Sean Casey doesn’t write his blog posts at WEEI (though clearly the videos are all his work), Jacoby doesn’t actually write the posts over at his blog. More likely he “writes” them by telling some lackey at MLBlogs generally what he wants the post to say, or gives the lackey a quick phone call to answer some interview questions – and the lackey then feeds that into the RoboAthleteClicheGenerator3000 to spit out generic prose about the game.

The tell-tale giveaway? RACG3000 left in a tiny little tidbit that indicates it was taking dictation from Jacoby, not written by Jacoby himself:

One reporter was asking me after the game what my speed was in track. I told him my split time in college one time at Oregon State, running the 60. was 4-2. That’s not official. But put that in there. It might have been 4-1, I don’t know. I love to run the bases though. It puts a little stress on the defense.

If Jacoby was penning the posts himself, I somehow doubt he’d need to remind himself to include that certain factual tidbit…. he’d just include it. I’m betting MLBlog lackey forgot to remove that request notation from Jacoby in the writeup.

It’s still a fun read, though– because even though Jacoby surely doesn’t go back to his hotel at night after a late game and crank out posts on his laptop, the thoughts behind the actual writing are his. I thought this was an interesting look at fielding:

Did I think I was going to catch it? To be honest, no. I came in running full speed, and I kind of glanced down at shortstop Jed Lowrie, thinking maybe he had a shot at it, hoping he had a shot at it. I just kind of kept my head down and went for it and felt like I kind of kicked in a different gear midway through that.

You’re just hoping to get there. I’m kind of peeking at Lowrie and making sure we don’t collide. It’s loud out there, it’s the playoffs. Even if someone calls for it, you’re probably not going to hear him, so you just have to be aware of where he’s at. It ended up being a big out.

I really don’t get too fired up about diving catches, but I was pretty fired up about that one. Late in the game like that, playoff time. First out of the inning. You kind of want to kill a potential rally. I’ve made some nice catches this year, but this one was definitely my favorite one of the year.

I was just hoping my arm could reach out long enough. I didn’t know if I had enough reach in my glove, but I made it. I looked at it for a second and I had it, so I just made sure to secure it.