Butt-hurt Buster and ESPN paywall dreck

Much of Buster Olney's baseball stuff this offseason has been behind the ESPN+ paywall.

Why?

If paywalling is supposed to indicate a value level, and not just Red Satan trying for more bucks, why?

What brought this to a head was a piece where he said MLB needs to encourage Bryce and the Phillies to be like the NBA on player recruitment.

I Tweeted:

@Buster_ESPN You're apparently too clueless to know that the NBA has tampering rules that they actually fine ppl over, and so, if MLB went NBA on "recruiting," Bryce Harper wld be cutting Adam Silver a $50K check? https://t.co/SuTBOU6mo2

— ATrealDonaldTrump  🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) March 9, 2019

And, that set him off.

He Tweeted back that I obviously didn't read the piece because he does acknowledge that.

I said, no, because the paywall, because IMO the paywall (for ESPN stuff) often isn't worth it, and because, if he did acknowledge the NBA's tampering fines, he buried the nut graf below where the paywall kicks in.

So, he said:

Then you critiqued and complained about the content of a piece you acknowledge you didn't read. That's kinda funny.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) March 9, 2019

No problem, Buster.

As I told him back? No more and no less funny than what ESPN decides to put behind a paywall.

Basically, since Jim Caple stopped doing his baseball old box score trivia columns, I have found little of interest on ESPN on baseball. For more than five years, I've thought it was the weakest coverage area of ESPN's three major sports. Maybe that's in part the Benjamins, as it has much less invested than in football and probably less than in the NBA.

But, even as Yahoo's web layout quality continued to decline, among free sites, give me Jeff Passan and Tim Brown ahead of anybody at ESPN for any portion of that time period. (Of course, Red Satan has now stolen Passan.) I might halfway take Craig Calcaterra, even. And, of course, Ken Rosenthal is better, but I'm not paying The Athletic's paywall, either. I'm frugal and not that much of a sports nut. Buster's one compadre, who has gone to The Athletic himself, definitely not worth it. Dave Schoenfield? Meh. Much of Buster himself, meh.

Football has long been good because of ESPN's investment level. Hoops was good with some of Simmons' acolytes when Grantland existed. (Note how many of them did NOT follow him out the door.) Still is.

Hockey? Not a major sport.

Maybe this is kind of like Times Select, the first NY Times paywall, which "hid" only columnists.

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Meanwhile, I'll regularly update teh stupidz.

March 26, more Buster derp and duh: Bet you didn't know before Buster told us all that there will be a hot trade market this summer for Madison Bumgarner.

May 12, the claim that Jon Lester is in the conversation for Cooperstown. Age 35 and just over 45 WAR? Not in my conservation. Call me back in two years and we'll talk then.