Pretty Good Blog

One of the true pleasures of the offseason is having time to read about baseball whilst awaiting its return in the spring. I've written previously about those who write about the sport for a living - the professionals, if you will - but tonight I thought it was time to talk about the amateurs. With time the word 'amateur' has lost some of its original connotation and is often set in opposition to the word 'professional' (with all those unspoken undertones of sloppy or half-finished work) but I'd like to set the record straight - the French talk about people being 'amateur', and it simply means someone who has a passion for a particular thing (music, wine, baseball, writing...).

The reason I bring up the definition is because there are 'amateurs' out there whose work proves that just because you're not getting paid to do something doesn't mean that you aren't going to do it as well as somebody who does it for a living. Cursed & First's Beth earns her living doing something other than writing (about baseball, at least), but if you can read this piece and then try to tell me she's not a writer, then you need to go back to school and start learning your alphabet all over again.