"MLB's DuPuy turns to blogging for the WBC" Jen Duhnke. Volume 8, issue 44, page 7

I have not watched any of the games from the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but I have heard a lot of disliking about this classic. With all of the negative surrounding the event, MLB and the player's union have made several attempts to put a positive face to the WBC. What actually seems to be working is the blogging by MLB President, Bob DuPuy. Bob Bowman, president of MLB Advanced Media, came up with the idea. It took a lot of convincing by Bowman to get the very busy DuPuy to agree to do the blogging.

DuPuy's daily blogging has offered a behind-the-scenes at putting MLB's global baseball tournament. He blogs 900 words on average and gives the reasoning behind the scheduling and organization and his own reflections on the crowds's reactions after each game. It is not often a high-level exective such as DuPuy would do such a thing.

DuPuy's blogs have drawn more than 550,000 page reviews. Fans initial blog comments were about settling the stadium deal in Washington, DC, that of which DuPuy described as "hard not to deal...personally". Apparently, he handled the matter and fans blogging comments turned to be more positive toward the WBC.

DuPuy said from Tokyo, "I would never have done it, but it has been fun so far," after the first-round of games. "Eventually, it will turn to work." Bowman said that he was sure that DuPuy doesn't want to keep doing these blogs after the end of the tournament, but it has been a tremendous assest for MLB because fans love to get that inside news.

I believe this was really a great idea. DuPuy listened to the concerns of MLB fans and took care of the stadium situation in Washington, DC right away. That is huge on building trust and loyalty with fans. And once he did that, fans started to see the WBC in a positive light probably because they were happy that they got what they wanted. At any rate, I don't know if DuPuy is going to be able to completely stop blogging all together. Now that his has started, I feel that fans are going to demand it because they already got some positive out of it. Maybe DuPuy will not have to keep doing the blogs, but I think that it should be in MLB's interest to keep something on these lines going.