The Loss Column — Baltimore Sports Blog and Community

I’ve been kicking around ideas lately for how to tweak things a bit with the site, keep it moving forward and whatnot. To that end, I’ve got an idea I think might be worth trying.

Starting today, all Loss Column comments become eligible for our new Featured Comment Feature. A lot of the best content on the site comes in the form of individual comments, and I want to feature and reward that. So every week I’ll pluck the best comments from the previous 7 days and put them into a post on the main page, linked back to their spot in the original discussion.

Then, at the end of each month the best comment of them all will be designated the winner, and the person who wrote it will receive a prize. For this month (actually 5 weeks — this week and all of March) the prize is a $10 iTunes gift certificate — enough to pick up one album of your choosing. It’s not a new canary yellow Mustang, but it’s something.

To become a featured comment your post must be:

– Intelligent.
– Well-reasoned.
– Fresh and new.
– Valuable.

Humor can earn you bonus points, naturally, but this isn’t Deadspin.

Edited to add: this basically describes the comments as they already are. I want to make sure everyone knows that the point of this is to keep the already good things going and have a little fun with it.

I’m the sole and final judge of who wins what, and I promise to be fair. That said, feel free to suggest favorites, offer up nominations, etc.

This first month will be a test run. If nobody’s feeling it then, hey, fun while it lasted. If it works then we’ll keep it going indefinitely.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Anything I might have missed? Lemme know…

Forgive me for a moment as I advocate for the best interests of the site.

If anybody out there has designs on doing any of their holiday shopping via Amazon, I’d like to encourage you to do so using the advertising link in the upper right. No matter what you eventually purchase, The Loss Column will get a small commission if you start your shopping by clicking through from there (provided you have cookies enabled on your browser). You’ll also earn my eternal gratitude.

Back to sports…

Once again I’ll be a guest this evening on Michael Popovec’s excellent evening radio show on 1570 AM. I’ll be there at 6 pm and sticking around for at least an hour, talking sports in that smooth, debonair way that only I can.

If you’re in the general area of the city you can tune your radio to 1570 on the AM dial, or you can listen in from anywhere by going to wnst.net and clicking on “Listen Live” in the upper left-hand corner, next to Nestor’s noggin (the stream requires Windows Media Player).

I’d love to hear from some of you if you get a chance.

And just in case I don’t get to it later today…

it’s Steve Trachsel (4-4, 3.89) vs. Jeff Francis (5-4, 3.70) tonight at the yard. Get in on it.

– Gird your loins and grit your teeth before reading this post at MLB Fanhouse about the ‘07 Orioles. It’s rough.

Unfortunately, though, it’s also probably a pretty fair representation of how the rest of the baseball world sees Baltimore. Nine straight losing seasons will do that.

Yet isn’t this the same way everybody saw the Tigers before last year? Not to say the O’s are poised for a run like that, but maybe they’ll do enough to shift next year’s focus from Anna Benson to Bedard, Cabrera, and Loewen.

– More roster moves today, including the demotion of Hayden Penn. Here’s the thing to keep constantly in mind about Penn: he’s still only 22 years old. For all of his inconsistency he’s still managed to do more at that age than most players, let alone pitchers. Patience.

– The Final Four is set at Georgetown, UCLA, Ohio State, and Florida. Everybody’s lamenting the lack of a George Mason — or anything close — this year, but the Hoyas are still a pretty compelling story. There’s never been a father-son coaching lineage where both members reached the Final Four, let alone at the same program. Considering that they’ve been virtually invisible for several years now it’s nice to see them doing well again.

And after the way they came back against UNC tonight? Don’t be surprised if they take it all.

– Finally, a bit of TLC housekeeping: I added a couple of links to the “Further Reading” section, most notably the Sports Agent Blog, which provides sports news from a business/agenting perspective.

I also switched up the advertising links in the upper right. I decided from day one that this site would never be driven by advertising, but that I would incorporate it in ways that make sense and don’t intrude on the reading experience. I feel like this configuration does that, but it’s always under consideration.

So if you have a need for baked goods, activewear for women, running gear, or anything sold by Amazon.com, start here. You’ll be doing us a big favor.

Like everything and everyone else these days, The Loss Column is now on MySpace. So what are you waiting for?

Befriend us.

As you get ready to ease into your weekend, I’ve prepared a treat for you. Or more accurately, a treat for me that I hope you enjoy. It is…(drumroll)…the official 2007 Loss Column logo (click for giant version):

Created at the suggestion of founding contributor Chris, it’s a Baltimore-centric take on one of the all-time greatest sports logos: the Golden State Warriors “city” logo (additional view here).

I’ve set up an account at Zazzle where you can purchase custom merch with the logo fully emblazoned.

Should you be so inclined, purchasing this shirt would be an insanely wonderful way to support the site. And in fact, anything else you buy from Zazzle using that link will also help us out.

I’m quite pleased with this, and if there’s any feedback out there I’d love to hear it. Thanks as always.

You might notice a slight difference to your right in the sidebar there. Allow me to explain.

The Loss Column operates — as you might guess — at a loss (no pun intended). That’s really not a big deal since our costs are relatively low, but at the same time there is a fair amount of work involved in keeping it going. My philosophy about advertising is that there’s nothing wrong with it as long as it doesn’t annoy the reader and/or get in the way of the content. In that spirit, I’ve had Google ads on the site from day one. Problem is, they’re not terribly effective. So what to do?

I decided on something that more or less works for everyone. I signed up for the affiliate programs at Amazon.com and CDuniverse.com, two sites that I’ve used pretty extensively and have no problem recommending. In particular, I’m a big fan of CD Universe. Their prices are generally pretty good, shipping and service are easy, and they offer a giant range of products (CDs, movies, games, and even — ahem — discreetly shipped adult items).

So next time you have some purchases to make in the book/movie/music range, consider starting out with the links at the right (with cookies enabled). Buy whatever you were going to buy anyway, and a small chunk of it kicks back to us. Easy.

The plan remains, down the road when we get bigger, to actually partner up with some select sponsors. Until that day, give this some thought. Also, if for some reason those ads annoy a lot of people I’ll give some thought to taking them down. Let me know if you’ve got an opinion one way or the other.

As always, thanks for reading and here’s to a big 2007.