When bloggers go bad - Peter Abraham, the egomaniacal beat blogger

Update: 11:20 PM. I have a bit of a conscience, so I have removed the pictures. It is not right to make fun of the way someone looks in such an obvious, non-funny way. That was sophomoric, and I'm better than that. As for the rest of this post, I suggest you read it.

I will preface this by giving Peter Abraham the same compliment I have always given Peter Abraham: he changed the way beat writers attacked covering baseball.

Now the bad. While Abraham claims to be the bloggers best friend (for example his blogger month this past February where he lent a day to many different Yankee bloggers) it is all a front. In reality, Abraham is all about getting the attention and looking like a hero to what he believes are his fans.

Exhibit #1.

February 1st, I post the following blog entry:

Want to head down to Florida for Spring Training Baseball? Read this for some money saving tips!

then, I sent Abraham the following email:



(click to enlarge)

Basically, I was giving Abraham the chance to use my idea, but at least give me a hat tip on his blog.

In a few hours, nary a mention of my email, my suggestion or my tip.

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2008/02/02/spring-training-travel-guide/

Notice the URL is "Spring Training Travel Guide" and notice the time - not even 12 hours after my post. If you click the link, you will see that he changed the title of the blog post to 2nd annual Spring Training Travel Guide. This is because I called him out on stealing my idea for a post, so he had to scramble. This is one petty fat man.

Exhibit 2.

No email to prove my suggestion to Abraham for this blog entry, but I have the following:

Some important 2008 Yankee Ticket on-sale dates

(2/21 - 7:30 PM)

and of course, a little over 12 hours later on Abraham's blog:

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2008/02/22/time-for-tickets/
(2/22 - 8:57 AM)

Once again, no hat-tip in the direction of NYYSI.

Could these have been coincidental occurrences? Of course. However, it is highly unlikely.

Fast forward a few days, and suddenly Abraham is complaining about Kaybli, Nick and myself posting links to NYYSI in his blog comments. If you have ever waded through the comments on the LoHud Yankees blog, you will know that the majority are asinine at best and unreadable at worst. For whatever reason, I have always taken part in these blog comments, trying my best to raise up the level of conversation.

All of a sudden, my inbox was getting flooded with threatening emails from Peter Abraham for "spamming" his blog.

Here are some samples:

There I am accused of "trying to make a buck". Check out NYYSI - not an ad anywhere. This site is not about making money. It is about getting good Yankee Stadium information out to the general public and Yankee fans in particular.



Here, I am once again accused of "spamming". All I was doing was taking part in the "conversation" in the blog comments, just like anyone else. Keep in mind, the blog has the option of creating whatever name you want, and linking to whatever site you want. Abraham has many of his little pet female bloggers posting in his comments with names that "promote their blogs" and "clutter his comments section with spam". I guess I understand him not coming down on these types - he has probably never gotten any sort of admiration from a female in his life.

Finally comes the hilarious email where he threatened legal action by CCing his legal department:



wow. So, my response to that:



I can't go on any further with this garbage. It is clear that I have wasted far too much time and energy on this "battle" with a wacko beat blogger gone awry. I will readily admit that I am embarrassed I have let it get this far. I just hope before you fellow Yankee bloggers out there think of Peter Abraham as friendly to bloggers or "one of us", you will take a look at this story and realize that Peter Abraham is about one thing: himself.

Update: 3/25 7:53 AM. Thought I'd give Abraham a fair chance at a response (from the comments section below:

Quite professional, publishing private e-mails that were labeled as such.

Meanwhile, if you check the archives of my blog from January 2006 and the archives of The Journal News from that month, I wrote a "Spring Training Travel Guide." Shocking as this may be to you, you didn't invent the idea of travel tips.

And it's unethical and unprofessional to post "come read my blog!" in the comments section of somebody else's blog.

You have posted links to your blog or other such pleas for readers 89 times since Feb. 1.

I'm just asking you to leave my readers alone. People have e-mailed me complaining about your spam.

Thanks

Sure is a lot of research you did there. 89 times? You should look into this word:

ob·ses·sion (əb-sěsh'ən, ŏb-) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. Compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.
2. A compulsive, often unreasonable idea or emotion.

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