Damn you, Derrick Hall. We should have known when Hall left the Dodgers in 2004 for greener pastures in Arizona, he was going to leave a trail of breadcrumbs from Los Angeles to Phoenix for his favorite employees. The Snakes' gain is Dodger bloggers' loss, yet it's hard not to feel anything but gratitude and warmth for Josh Rawitch.
Rawitch is a super-nice guy, but that he survived multiple Dodger regimes is also a testament to his canniness. He didn't create Blogger Night to wow us (although that happened too). He used it as an opportunity to introduce us to the Rawitch Fairness Doctrine. Write what you want; I know I can't change that, he said. But at least consider the team's point of view.
Then came his ballsiest move, at least in the social media arena: giving bloggers media credentials. Rawitch trusted us not to make (complete) asses of ourselves in the Vin Scully Press Box, and gambled that access to the team would give us a perspective beyond our myopic fandom. It worked, at least for me: observing players before and after games, interacting with journalists, treating Dodger Stadium as a workplace instead of a playground.
So enjoy the desert, Josh, and be thankful, Diamondbacks bloggers. Who knows if the Dodgers' new VP of Communications will change things up, but I'm grateful I was a Dodger blogger during Rawitch's tenure. For me, being a blogger is being a fan, and I'm a little more of both thanks to Josh Rawitch.
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