Rec.sport.baseball

From Wiki Gonzalez

rec.sport.baseball (often shortened to "r.s.b" or "rsb") is an unmoderated Usenet newsgroup for the discussion of baseball.

rec.sport.baseball was formed in 1989, when the World Wide Web didn't exist (much less Baseball Primer) and newsgroups on Usenet (http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=gtype%3D0) were the only discussion forums available on the Internet. It quickly became known for a large number of sabermetrically and analytically savvy posters, and for the high traffic that ensued when they clashed with trolls, fanboys, and one another.

rec.sport.baseball still exists, but nowadays much baseball Usenet discussion is carried on in newer team-specific newsgroups under the "alt.sports.baseball" hierarchy.

Many Primates were (or still are) frequent posters to rec.sport.baseball:

• Ryan Adams
• David Nieporent
• Dan Szymborski
• Sam Hutcheson
• Chris Dial
• Voros
• Vinay
• Mike Emeigh

Baseball Prospectus also has its roots in rec.sport.baseball, as many of its founders and contributors met each other on the newsgroup.

It also has the oldest surviving internet reference (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.baseball/browse_thread/thread/834b96fbbae57d27/7e9bc2ad5312620d?q=Anthony+Giacalone+RSI#7e9bc2ad5312620d) to RSI.

At one time, traffic in rec.sport.baseball was so high and noisy that some statheads successfully completed a procedure to create a moderated subgroup, "rec.sport.baseball.analysis", that would focus purely on sabermetrics. It was in this newsgroup that Voros first announced DIPS to the world.

External links

• rec.sport.baseball today (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.sport.baseball)
• alt.sports.baseball.* groups on Usenet (http://groups.google.com/groups/dir?sel=gtype%3D0%2Cusenet%3Dalt.sports.baseball%2C&) - team-specific discussion forums
• List of Free NNTP News servers (http://www.elfqrin.com/hacklab/pages/nntpserv.php) - Collection of open public news servers to access rec.sport.baseball if your ISP's news server doesn't carry it.