“There’s No Live Blogging In Baseball”

A Louisville Courier-Journal reporter was ejected from a University of Louisville baseball game (can’t believe I’m saying this: Go Cards! On to the College World Series after thumping Oklahoma State 20-2 – What? No mercy rule in college play?) for live-blogging the event.

Chalk this one up to ridiculously pedantic, pettifoggerous, and over-killed enforcement of NCAA guidelines. Brian Bennet, the C-J reporter furiously blogging his analysis from the press stands was asked (okay, told) to leave the game because live blogging was a violation of NCAA policies against simulcasting and live representations of the game.

The U of L staff said if they didn’t eject him, they’d lose their ability to host further NCAA baseball games – an excuse C-J executive editor Bennie Ivory called "extortion and thuggery."

Yeah. Thuggery! A word like that gives this story a decidedly Southern feel.

Ivory also said it was a First Amendment violation, which might be a more difficult case to prove than the thuggerous (heh) actions of the NCAA.