We interrupt this—as Channel 11 used to say in promos when a team no one expected anything from was playing well—“surprising” New York Mets start to bring you the announcement of the winners for the third annual Greg Spira Award. Well, actually the announcement is here.
Congratulations to Lewis Pollis ($1,000 first place for his piece on paying front office talent), Cee Angi ($200 second place for her profile on the great Vin Scully), and Rob Arthur ($100 third place on the sounds that the bat makes and what it means). Given the state of freelancer remuneration today, all recipients were especially happy to hear the news. You can read the winners on the link, and if this sounds good to you, and you are under 30 years of age, just have a baseball piece published or presented containing original analysis or research. The piece must be published (online or paper) between January 16 of this year and January 15, 2016.
Greg Spira was a solid colleague, a good friend, and a great Mets fan. He hated games in poor weather, but he might have even ventured to an April game to see this Mets start in person. He died from kidney disease in 2011. He would have been 48 today.