Playing Pepper with Daniel Shoptaw of Cardinal70

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was founded in 2009. The BBA was founded with the purpose of encouraging collaboration and communication among Baseball Bloggers across the country. There are currently 346 Baseball Blogs that are members of the BBA. Our old blog home of DBF is a current member, and LasordasLair is awaiting membership. The president and founder is Daniel Shoptaw, who also writes his own Cardinals blog called cardinal70.com

Every year, Daniel sits down and talks Baseball with bloggers from every team. He calls this his “playing Pepper Project” . He interviews various bloggers of each team, and asks them questions about their respective teams that they cover. Each day he posts the responses for each team in their own article. These responses are what inspired Daniel to create the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.

Each day he publishes a post containing the responses for each team. He does one team per day, until all of the 30 MLB team’s articles are published. Today is the day he publishes his Dodger playing pepper article. Daniel recently sat down and spoke with Stacie and I, and asked us various questions about the Dodgers. We spoke with Daniel as he asked us questions about the Dodgers ownership saga, and the sale of the team, the Dodger’s off-season moves, prospects that could make an impact on the Dodgers this year, and where we think the Dodgers will finish in 2012.

Here are the questions that Daniel asked us for his article.

1. What was your opinion of the team’s off-season?

2. Will the ownership issue continue to make anon-the-field impact?

3. Who is more likely to repeat their 2011 season,Clayton Kershaw or Matt Kemp?

4. Is there a prospect that will make an impact on the team this season?

5. Where will the team finish in their division and what are you most excited about for 2012?

So there are the questions that Daniel has asked us. Please check out our responses to Daniel’s questions here…. Playing Pepper-Cardinal70

Two other blogs also contributed. Ernest Reyes of DodgersBlueHeaven, and Gareth of FeelingDodgerBlue. You can find their responses on the same page with ours as well.

We always enjoy talking to intelligent passionate fans of other teams, and discussing their opinions about the game, and the Dodgers. We especially like it when they ask us questions. I want to thank our friend Daniel Shoptaw for the interview. Please check out the article on his Cardinal70 blog. Daniel has described his blog as an “everyjoe blog”

"It’s just a regular joe blog. I root for the Cardinals and typically give them and management the benefit of the doubt. I’ll criticize when necessary, but I’m not big on general bashing. So let’s give it a shot, see what happens."

Trust me when I say, that his blog is anything but regular. Daniel’s blog is extremely well written, and organized. He is very active in the Cardinals blogosphere, and is also a member of the UCB (United Cardinals Bloggers). Daniel is also a very knowledgeable. insightful Baseball fan, and a very nice guy who has helped Stacie and I into the BBA community. We appreciate his efforts and he has also given us the idea for our brand new Gagne’s Game Over Game Ball Corner This is where we award the “Game Ball” to the player, or players of the game, whether it is a Dodger, or an opposing player. (Hopefully we will have way more Dodger game balls, then opposing players with game balls). I got the idea from Daniel’s blog, because he has a section called heroes and goats. That is where he crowns the hero and goats of each Cardinal game. He also provides approval ratings for each player. Whether you are a Redbird fan or not, I highly recommend you check out his site. It is definitely worth the read. You can find our Game Ball Corner at the top of our home page.

If you can think of any questions you would like to ask Daniel, you can reach him here cardinal70@gmail.com  you can also follow Daniel on twitter here- www.twitter.com/C70 Daniel also does a weekly podcast on the UCB found here Blogtalk radio UCB , and one over at Gateway to Baseball Heaven Podcast Please also don’t forget to follow us on twitter- twitter.com/lasordaslair  and check us out on Facebook too Lasordaslair Facebook

Again thank you to Daniel for his time. Check out his article, and happy reading!