Many MLB players are joining the throng of bloggers on the internet, and you can find many of them over at MLB.com – from Huston Street to Jorge Cantu.  Other players do it on their own and I present to you two of my favourites, Curt Schilling’s and C.J. Nitkowski’s.

The first blog I will discuss is Schilling’s, which can be found at 38 pitches. Curt has only been at it for about a month but already he has proven himself to be an entertaining blogger and I expect even better things to come from him.  He answers questions from blog readers, discusses issues of the day (Papelbon’s move to the pen), and recaps his starts. Here’s an excerpt:

With one out in the second Gibbons chased a good split, and then Millar comes up. For 3 years he’s talked trash, in person, through text messages, over the phone, about how I better never throw him my curve ball.

Last year in Baltimore I started him off with it, he took it for a strike. Today I shake Tek 3-4 times, Millar calls time out, steps out and says to Tek “What the hells he want an 0-0 curve ball?”Curve ball strike one. Curve ball again, yanked foul, now he’s laughing, and I am trying not to. Curve ball again he lays off. Count gets to 2-2 and he freezes on a 2 seamer inside for strike three. I don’t know if he’s debating the call or just talking, one never knows with him, but he never looks my way as I go into the dugout.

 

C.J. Nitkowski’s blog is a bit of a different story.  I suppose I should have prefaced the article by saying Nitkowski is a FORMER major leaguer, but what can you do.  He used to run his own site called CJbaseball where he provided restaurant reviews from when he was on the road and also found time to preach the word of God. It seems now he has gone in another direction after signing a contract with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan.  It is quite interesting to read about the differences in the Japanese game from MLB (for instance, pickoff moves are not allowed to look like a potential pitch – otherwise it will be called a balk.)  C.J.’s Manager is also the legendary Sadaharu Oh, Japan’s all time home run king. Although he never played in the states, he did play against some of the games great pitchers, such as Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton and Bob Gibson.  Surprisingly, he reveals to CJ that Seaver, not Gibson, was the toughest he went up against.  It really is a good read and CJ tries to throw some jokes in there as well, hit and miss, usually more miss than hit but at least he tries.  It can be found at CJbaseball.com.