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March 28, 2007
Fired!
ESPN has discontinued offering Fantasy Baseball Correspondents, effective immediately, so I’m out of a “job.� I found out second-hand from another correspondent, who tried to post a new story, only to discover the uplink had disappeared. He informed someone upstairs, who replied: “I sent an email to the correspondents to let them know that we are discontinuing correspondents this year. Thanks for all your help!�
Neither I nor many of the other correspondents received said email, but in my case I’d bet he was using something like tex05@scottlucas.com, which I deleted after 2005. Given that this was my sixth year, I would’ve preferred they’d used the actual, working email address listed in my ESPN profile, and I also would’ve preferred they’d cut us loose before the busiest time of year for a fantasy writer, but oh well.
That said, I’m not displeased. Five years ago, the correspondents were an intergral part of ESPN’s fantasy product, and I was proud to be part of it. There was a group of people back then: Kent Williams, Mick Doherty, John Gizzi, maybe me, and several others, who were equal to or better than any paid roto writer. As ESPN expanded Eric Karabell’s role and added more paid writers over the years, the correspondents became superfluous. Until 2005 I used to receive 4-5 emailed questions per day during March. Last March I received a ten, total. So far this March, four. This was to be my last year.
I’m still (online) friends with several former correspondents, and when the ESPN gig proved too stifling (you can only write so much about fantasy ball for one team) I created the blog you’re reading now. Plus, I now have the affiliation with Jamey Newberg.
So, to make a short story very long, if you’re looking for fantasy advice about the Rangers, I’m afraid you won’t find it here. It was (mostly) fun while it lasted.
Also, my fantasy league with eleven other fired correspondents has its draft on Sunday. It’s an ESPN league, of course.
Posted by Lucas at March 28, 2007 02:58 PM