There was recently a contentious battle between David Mauro and Dave Cameron for the $10,000 blogging scholarship. I live in Seattle. I'm a Mariners fan. I'm a nut about baseball analysis. I've been reading Dave's work at USS Mariner, Fangraphs, Baseball Analysts, and Baseball Prospectus for quite some time. He's increased my knowledge of the game by leaps and bounds over the years, and I started out as a pretty knowledgeable fan. I just want to take a few moments to talk about Dave, and why he really got an unfair rap in all of this.
Dave Cameron has never been anything but nice to me in person, even though I don't know him that well. I've had a blast at the get togethers he's sponsored with his SB Nation counterpart Lookout Landing. He puts up with so much crap daily on his site, that I wonder how he stays sane. I mean, we root for the Mariners, isn't that bad enough without people clamoring to bring back Griffey Jr? Or using results based analysis over and over again to make points? He tries his hardest to show people the light of modern analysis, and he endures horrible personal attacks all the time because of it. That's how much he loves talking baseball and about the Mariners. I know not everyone is a baseball fan. And I know that a lot of people think we're just a bunch of weird unmarried bearded guys in our mother's basements. But the work we do is important to us, and as Nate Silver showed; it can be used most spectacularly in other areas. (And for the record Dave is married, has his own house, and no beard)
I honestly do not know what Dave's personal politics are, and I don't care. He didn't ask for Red State or the Free Republic to support him. They only did it to try to bring down "The Kos Candidate". It made me sad to see a guy I respect as much as Dave be used in a political pissing match like that. I'm a Progressive Democrat. I read this site every day. I donated money to Democratic candidates. I volunteered on election day. But this is one of those times that I wish politics could just stay out of it.
To make a long story short, some of the other writers at USS Mariner have set up a way to donate money to Dave directly for his education. He's currently working on an BS in Economics at UNC-Greensboro. Well over 20,000 people voted for either him or David Mauro. If, just half those people donated $1. Dave would come out of this a winner too. Please don't punish the guy because some unsavory characters supported him just to taunt you. You can throw Dave some support here.
This is the first thing I've ever felt important enough to write a diary about. I hope you find it just as important.