Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA), Decade Two

Thank you for considering our crowdsourcing campaign: The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA), Decade Two.

The IBWAA was created July 4, 2009, to organize and promote the growing online baseball media, and to serve as a digital alternative to the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). We’ve done that.

Like we said at the time, “the IBWAA seeks neither to replace nor disparage the BBWAA, but we do offer distinctions.” And we’re happy to poke fun at the old guard. We’re inclusive; they’re exclusive. We’re digital; they still use snail mail and a fax machine. They’re staid; we rock.

In our second decade we’ll continue to welcome all-comers, we'll help them network, and we'll celebrate their successes. We’ll continue to advocate – for press box and clubhouse access, and for better pay. Beginning with the launch of this initiative, we will increase our efforts to recruit student writers (welcoming high school upperclassmen in 2019) and increase the granting of scholarships (membership fees waived) to those who qualify. If you write regularly about baseball on the Internet, you qualify.

Your contributions will help fund the work of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America and its proud papa, Howard Cole, who in turn will continue to support the efforts of hundreds – the current and future members of the IBWAA.

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About Howard Cole

I'm a Los Angeles-based news and sports writer with a focus on baseball, currently publishing at Forbes. Additional writing credits include Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Westways, Guardian, Orange County Register, LA Weekly, Prevention, Voice of San Diego, Bakersfield Californian and San Jose Mercury-News. In an earlier life, I produced news-talk radio, worked Boxing Press Operations for the 1984 Olympics (Evander Holyfield’s year) and was cut on by Dr. Frank Jobe. The son of Brooklyn parents, I was born in what is now the Scientology Building on Sunset Blvd., a Puig’s-throw from Dodger Stadium.