For those interested in the membership of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), The Biz of Baseball has now been updated with the 2009 "Badge List" – a list of the current members, all 725 of them.

The list is broken down by year each writer joined, from Seymour Siwoff of the Elias Sports Bureau in 1952, to Dot Com-ers Will Carroll and Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus, and Rob Neyer, and Keith Law of ESPN.com that were included to the ranks this year.

As mentioned, there are 725 badge members, but don’t think that they are all voting for baseball’s premier award -- the Hall of Fame. For that, you have to wait... and wait... and wait... 10 years, to be exact.

Another thing to note: We didn’t get last year’s list, but we have the list from May of 2007, and there is a clear sign that the sucker punch that the print industry is taking has hit the rolls of the BBWAA. From 2007 to 2009 the list has gone from 785 to 725, or a decline of 8.28 percent. In another sign that the print industry is under the weight of the economy and changing habits of news readers, Colorado Chapter Chair Jack Etkin is listed without a publication affiliation. Etkin was formerly with the Rocky Mountain News, which recently folded just 2 months shy of its 150 year anniversary.

This year’s listing has been updated with not only the Chapter leaders, but the Officers, and the Board of Directors.

Enjoy by selecting the following link, or access it from our navigation section to the left under “Resources”:

BBWAA - Badge List

Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He is contributor to Baseball Prospectus, and is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

Don't forget to register and log in on The Biz of Baseball site to get updates via your in-box, and see information only logged in members can see.

Subscribe to The Biz of Baseball, and follow the Business of Sports Network on Twitter

The interview was conducted today, and we’re looking to publish on Monday. The interview subject is MLB Network’s Matt Vasgersian.

Topics include the Manny Ramirez suspension, how MLB Network’s atmosphere changes when stories such as the Ramirez suspension or A-Rod story breaks, his thoughts on all the empty premium seats at ballparks across the league, what teams that are surprisingly at the top of the standings now might be there at the end of the season, how he embraces the blogsphere, and finally, what exactly happened after he went off-the-air on the day he compared a member of the Rockies' EMT staff to Eagles QB Donovan McNabb while a clip was shown of Rockies RF Brad Hawpe being carted off the field with a serious neck injury, and much more.

Look for the interview as early as Monday on The Biz of Baseball

See the complete list of interviews on The Biz of Baseball

Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey. He is contributor to Baseball Prospectus, and is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

Don't forget to register and log in on The Biz of Baseball site to get updates via your in-box, and see information only logged in members can see.

Subscribe to The Biz of Baseball, and follow the Business of Sports Network on Twitter

While a small portion of an interview with Stephen Borelli of USA Today runs on page 11 of this week’s edition of USA Today Sports Weekly, the entire interview runs today via USA Today’s website on their MLB page. The article entitled, Bloggin' baseball: Keeping up with baseball as a business goes into how BizofBaseball.com was started, Brown’s background, and some of his thoughts on the state of the game. Here are some excerpts:

Before launching the site, what was your baseball background?

In 2001 I was extremely fortunate to work with former Indiana Pacers General Manager, David Kahn on the key documents that would become a submission to Major League Baseball for the relocation of the Montreal Expos. Portland, of course, did not get the team, but it allowed for an extensive analysis on the market to see if MLB would work there. I also was the co-chair of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Business of Baseball committee and a columnist for both The Hardball Times and Baseball Prospectus before focusing heavily on The Biz of Baseball.

When did you come up with the idea for your site and how and when did it launch?

The idea was really an extension of some of the work that I had been doing for SABR. I had created a site dedicated primarily for researchers, but for the most part, when the word "business" is attached to most anything, it causes the average person's eyes to glaze over –sports economics is beyond boring. The concept we have is simple: sports is influenced as much by what happens off the field as what happens on it; help fans understand that. The site launched in September of 2006 and traffic, and media interest in what we are doing has tripled in just the last year, alone. The site is much like a house that never has enough rooms – we keep building on to it.

You have attracted prominent front-office executives, baseball journalists and industry insiders for interviews on your site. How have you been able to build such an impressive array of them?

To tell the truth, I've been exceptionally fortunate and lucky. For every interview published there have been two or three that never transpired. Being naïve, I simply felt that if I was asking decent questions, the platform to publish the answers on (internet only) would not matter. Each interview published has worked as a sort of business card for approaching the next interview subject. Landing Bob Costas very early on opened a lot of doors, as did interviews with former commissioners Vincent and Kuhn through SABR. I've been told pigs will fly before Commissioner Selig will do an interview with me, but I look forward to the day that might happen. I find him the most compelling figure in all of sports given how he's turned the game around.

In what condition do you see the game amid our economic crisis?

As solid as any industry can be in these trying times. If not for the incredible growth in revenues over the last 5 to 6 years, and changes that allow them to be more equally distributed across all the clubs, I wonder whether some teams would have survived a recession of this magnitude.

What's the worst thing that could happen to baseball?

Labor unrest. Strikes or lockouts. When the CBA was up for renewal in 2002, it came against the backdrop of 9/11. Between that, and the '94 strike, I believe the owners and players realized that fans had just about had enough of the bickering. Relations are a bit more strained than they have been over the last two rounds of collective bargaining, but hopefully both sides understand how important it is to keep the game moving forward.

What's the best?

That one day the World Series is as popular as the Super Bowl. They're very different animals, so I'm not holding my breath. Other than that, maybe that the Pirates or Royals win a World Series before too long. When that happens, it would be hard for anyone to say that there is no parity in baseball.

See the rest of the interview with Maury Brown on USAToday.com

Subscribe to The Biz of Baseball, and follow the Business of Sports Network on Twitter

Maury Brown of the Business of Sports Network, and BizofBaseball.com is the featured interview the latest edition of USA Today Sports Weekly, which is on newsstands now.

The interview is featured on page 11, and is entitled, “On his site, Brown makes it his business to decipher economics of game”

The interview features four questions and answers surrounding the creation of the site, the demographics of BizofBaseball.com, information on the staff writers, and how Brown sees the condition of the game these days.

Brown’s interview was originally far larger, and according to USA Today, should be published online sometime today. Details to follow, should the interview be published online.

Subscribe to The Biz of Baseball, and follow the Business of Sports Network on Twitter