Blog F'in Champs

Will The Fightins become a full-time job?

by E. James Beale

If you're one of the million or so Philadelphians who both love your hometown baseball team and tend to procrastinate at work, you have just found yourself smack dab in the middle of a hell of an era. With more than 60 Phillies blogs up and running, if you know where to look, you can entertain yourself for days with in-depth analysis, spot-on commentary and inside access to your local team's to-ings and fro-ings. And if you don't? Well, you're likely to spend half your day reading the philly.com comments page and wondering why philliesblog.com won't ever refresh (it doesn't exist).

Fortunately, The Phield, a recent online tournament set up by a former senior writer at philliesnation.com that ran parallel to March Madness, has separated the delicious online wheat from the tasteless online chaff. The basic premise of The Phield was simple: Sort the best 65 (!) Phillies blogs — an eclectic combination of Phillies beat writers, die-hard fans and a gentleman who simply appears to want to go to the zoo with Roy Halladay — and let the voting public decide the winner. In a rare win for democracy, the finals saw the two best — Beerleaguer and The Fightins — square off for the championship. The Fightins took home the chip.

The winning site, which will turn three in June, is the brainchild of a guy best known as meech.one, the site's founder and main contributor. Unlike many of the contestants, meech isn't a professional writer or blogger, rather a fan with a 9-to-5 (hence the moniker, to avoid the boss). Years ago, meech was an online commenter when Jesse Pugh, who was starting a site called Bugs & Cranks, asked him to cover the Phillies. Over personal objections — "I don't think I'm a good writer, I really don't," he (incorrectly) deadpans — meech agreed, and after several months, was getting twice as many hits as the next most popular contributor. He had outgrown the site. Soon, The Fightins was born.

How did meech and his gang end up the BFCs, though? Simple: tone. In a sea of Phillies analysis, commentary and insta-punditry, The Fightins is a break from what can sometimes feel like the rigors of fandom. You won't find a debate about the merits of Placido Polanco's UZR, but you might find a joke about his huge dome, and if he does something amazing, you'll probably find a post with lots of exclamation points celebrating it. The Fightins has managed to capture all the off-the-field hilarity that comes with a slow-paced game played over a long, long season. When the television cameras spot someone with a bootleg "Cole Hamles" or "Shane Victornio" jersey, you better believe the site is going to catch it, and meech's obsession with announcer Gary "Sarge" Matthews — there are more than 50 posts tagged "Sarge Matthews," and meech's 2008 Christmas card was a picture of himself, his son and the Sarge — has become a running in-joke. The site is half-snark, half-fanboy and it's caught on in the clubhouse. Last August, Jayson Werth was seen wearing a The Fightins T-shirt postgame, and Todd Zolecki, longtime Phillies beat writer, is on the bandwagon: "It's funny. It's irreverent. And you know their T-shirts are good when players are asking about them."

I caught up with meech last weekend, after the Phils' final spring training game of the year. A red Phillies cap topped his round, stubble-covered face, and his World Series-edition custom-made Charlie Manuel No. 41 jersey was left unbuttoned over a red tee celebrating the 2008 championship. Drinking from a $6 Miller Lite bottle outside McFadden's, he waved me over.

"I mean, I didn't even mean to start the site," he explains. "If I'd have been asked to write a Flyers blog, I'd have probably done that." Just think: Jim Jackson's mustache was this close to becoming Sarge Matthews' hats.

Given that so many of the blogs The Fightins beat out are either run by mainstream sites or, like CSN's the700level.com, are now officially under a corporate banner, you have to wonder how far away The Fightins is from becoming a full-time job. "Far," says meech. For the foreseeable future, this is a hobby. And, while meech would love to do nothing but write, don't expect much to change even if he does go mainstream. He wants nothing to do with the press box, and vows never to clean up his language.

And why should he? The Fightins has a title to protect.

E James Beale will never go mainstream, unless you pay him. Offers welcome at e.james.beale@citypaper.net.