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Athens, GA (Mar 27, 2008) - One of the best baseball web sites on the internet is Billy-Ball. Laced with humour, detail, and the pure love of the game, site publisher (and Boston-area resident) Bill Chuck (pictured left) is passionate about the site and about the game. Next week, his book entitled “Walkoffs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so grand) Finales" will be published by ACTA Books.

Eye on Sports Media talked to Bill at IBM's annual Lotusphere Conference last January about doing an interview. He agreed and we conducted it through a series of e-mails, finally finishing up recently.


In Part I of this interview, we talk about how he came to love baseball, the Billy-Ball site, and the forthcoming book

When did your love for baseball start?

I was introduced to baseball in 1959 by my dad and it was love at first sight. My father was old when I was born and there was a larger than normal generational gap, but he loved baseball and started teaching me when I was eight. My fondest memories were of just having catch with him when he came home from work. I remember watching the 1959 World Series with him and I was blown away by Ted Kluzewski's muscular arms and the fact that the Dodgers had a pair of brothers playing for them, Larry and Norm Sherry. I didn't attend my first game until 1960.

Since you grew up in Queens, the question has to be asked. Mets or Yankees?

I actually grew up in lower Manhattan in Stuyvesant Town and when I first became a real fan in 1960, there was only one team — the New York Yankees. I was almost as sad as Mickey Mantle when Bill Mazeroski hit his walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th at Forbes Field in Game 7 to win the Series (and get himself elected to the Hall of Fame). It wasn't until I was much older that I learned about my dad's mixed feelings about taking me to Yankees games. It turns out that my father, who grew up on the upper West Side of Manhattan was a big New York Giants fan and really didn't like the Yankees one bit. But, my dad was good dad and it saddened him when I was depressed about the Yanks losing when we went to a game, so then, and only then, when we attended a game together he rooted for the Yankees.

What gave you the idea to do Billy Ball?

Billy-Ball was an accident. I wish I was savvy enough to have known then, and now, what I'm doing. I'm god at what I do as a Communication Czar, helping on messaging, writing, and presentations skills, I'm just lousy at running my own business, B.Czar Productions, Inc, which I have for close to 19 years. The last real job I had was working as a marketing writer at Wang Laboratories, it was a horribly boring but filled with nice people. We worked in kind of a warehouse setting with rows of cubicles (don't worry I'm getting to Billy-Ball soon) but it was in that environment that I truly discovered the power of emails. I used to send out funny observations, comments or just some goofy writing to a bunch of co-workers and then email it. Slowly, but surely, I would hear laughter come from various locations amidst the aisles of cubes. Really neat instant gratification.

When did you start it?

About ten years ago, at the start of the season I sent my baseball observations to about six people. I did it the next day as well and the day after that. I began to get requests from some friends of the people who I originally sent it to and they asked to be on the list. What the hell, I figured. Soon the list was about to 50-60 names and growing. This column needed a name and while many were suggested, Billy-Ball had the right sound and attitude. I found that when I mentioned B-B to a client (and I did this often) they would ask to be added to the list. This always was good for me because it gave me share of mind when they were thinking about hiring someone of my ilk (I'm a professional ilkist). My wife Max (often known as Mrs. Ball) has a wonderful cousin, who is a gifted playwright and professor at NYU, Steven Drukman. Steven's partner at the time Geremy had this sense somewhat like "Field of Dreams" if you build it they will come and built my website in the hope that in the ever expanding internet bubble it would be bought by some content hungry conglomerate and we would all become instant millionaires. I haven't checked my email today, but I think we are still waiting for this to happen.

How much of your time dies it take to manage the site and produce content during the season?

This is one of those "back-in-the-day" answers. Back-in-the-day, when I first really started producing Billy-Ball, I would get up between 6 and 6:30 and be finished by 8 AM. The goal soon became to be finished by 9 AM. When I'm healthy, I now get up around 5:15 and hope the column is out by 10 - that doesn't include my Sunday work where I search for stories that are unusual to include and try to write some leads.

If you know them, what are the demographics of the site readers?

From what I know about my readers I seem to be pretty much all over the board. One thing I do know about because I relate so much of the present to baseball history, my site skews a little older than most. I also know I have a fair number of fathers and their grown sons; a nice, but still too small number of women, and a bit of an international audience. I think the greatest appeal of Billy-Ball is that even more than the stats I'm interested in the great stories that make the sport unique and I'm so glad that my love for the game comes through.