I decided to make a commitment this past weekend to cover the FLA 2 congressional race and in particular, the GOP attempts to defeat Allen Boyd (D). I made e-mail inquiries to all the GOP candidates as to the status of their campaign while indicating that I was a conservative blogger. My inquiries generates only two replys. One from Santa Rosa Beach attorney Barbara Olschner and the other from Tallahassee businessman Eddie Hendry. In fact, both candidates returned my EMs personally. Four others failed to answer.

I recieved a comment on my blog from another blogger in supports of independent candidate, Paul McKain.

This is not an ego thing by any stretch. But candidates are going to have to get their stuff together if they want to defeat Boyd. They need to be sending Tweets, EM updates or making blog posts.

Admittedly, these are all grass roots operations. Each campaign is in it’s infancy. Lets hope it gets better as the candidates get more organized. But they must do so quickly and effectively.

I know what she meant. Sometimes I find myself with changes in my life or more simply a loss in desire. Admittedly, I often struggle with the direction I want my writing to go in this little space that Joe McDonald has been so graciuos to provide me.

Recently, I considered starting a new blog that would be my outlet for current events and poltical themes. Keeping this space as strictly sports was something I wanted to do because I knew that my political views were different than those of the many Mets fans who came here.

I’m not a professional blogger or writer. Not that I wouldn’t desire going in that direction, so I’m keeping my options open. But for now, Getting Paid to Watch is back with its multi-themed, um, theme.

John Franco is back in uniform, working as a Spring Training instructor. And his responsibilities are? “I do what Darryl does,” he says. But Darryl Strawberry’s job description is “to be Darryl Strawberry.”

“I’ll have to grow,” Franco said.

Franco, always a conspicuous presence in the clubhouse when he played, is quieter these days. “I’m on the other side of the room now,” he says.

I know what they mean about Franco. I was a frequent foil for Franco and catcher Rick Cerone in 1991. For some reason I was always getting fined in the kangaroo court that Franco insisted upon. We’d often wished Franco were an everyday player who’s energy and exhuberance the team could have fed off. I wonder if Darryl still gets on Franco about the two walk-off homeruns he hit off of him when he pitched for the Reds.

He had a vision for blogging about his beloved New York Mets so started a blog understandably called Metsblog. It quickly became the go to place for Mets fans everywhere and the model with which so many sports blogs are measured. He created sister blogs for other New York teams and even other Mets blogs. He took the plunge and went pro and after a year forged a relationship with his Mets new TV network, SNY. Today he’s live blogging in Port St. Lucie. Often before his eyes, his Mets go through the routines of spring.

I spoke to Matt a few times when I first starting blogging about the Mets a couple of years ago and he thought he’d never get the kind of access he’s getting now. But his passion for both his Mets and what he was doing created a path to success. He must now see he exceeded his wildest dreams.

Matt Cerrone has gone beyond being a success story. He’s proved to be a visionary and setting a template for new media in sports. While many of the nations great newspapers are dying, people like him are filling a void by doing it a way people may have always wanted anyhow.