Winter Meetings

Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings begin today and it's become such an event that newspapers, television stations and Web logs are all covering it closely. At the winter meetings, all 30 teams gather to talk to free agents and their representatives, to discuss trade possibilities and to hire people for the upcoming 2007 season.

ESPN.com is doing its part to keep people informed on the meetings. On the baseball index page is a link to a running diary page where reporters will be checking in with information as it happens. It's only been a few hours and the public has already learned that Yankees reliever Octavio Dotel is looking to become a closer with a new team, Ted Lilly is rumored to be signing with the Chicago Cubs and that the Red Sox are talking with the Giants and Dodgers about a potential trade involving Manny Ramirez.

Boston.com has a photo gallery with narration written by Nick Cafardo, detailing the needs of each of the 30 teams in baseball. The gallery is broken up into sections, starting with high-payroll teams and working its way down to the low-payroll teams. Boston.com is also regularly updating its Extra Bases blog with information as it occurs.

MLB.com itself has extensive coverage of the event with news, team previews, a team needs checklist and live video casting via MLB.TV.

And of course, bloggers everywhere are weighing in their two cents with coverage. My personal favorite is MetsBlog.com, run by Matthew Cerrone, who was the subject of my midterm feature article. Cerrone links to news stories, conducts interviews with fellow bloggers and journalists and posts and actually has someone at the Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., feeding him any inside information he can get his hands on.

Oh, the Winter Meetings are every blogger's dream.