Behind the Keyboard with Barry McBride of the Orange and Brown Report

Welcome to the first installment of a new series here at Midwest Sports Fans called Behind the Keyboard.

The goal of this series is pretty simple: to learn more about the people behind the blogs that we all read every day. We are not necessarily looking for the featured blogger’s take on their particular sports or teams of interest, but rather to find out more about what makes them, and their blogs, tick on a daily basis.

The first keyboard that we are going to go behind is that of Barry McBride, who runs the Rumor Central portion of my personal favorite Cleveland Browns blog: the Orange and Brown Report. I am almost embarrased to say that I just found their site about midway through the 2008 season, but I immediately paid the nominal monthly fee to join and have access to the greatest insider info on the Browns available anywhere.

Barry was nice enough to fill out the Behind the Keyboard questionairre I sent him, and the results are as follows:

Quick Hits:

• Name: Barry McBride
• Current Blog: Orange and Brown Report: Rumor Central
• Current Blog launch date: December 2008
• Blogging Since: Before they called it blogging. 1996.
• Other blogs contributed to: Greedwatch (1996-98), BrownsTNG (1999-2001), Bernie’s Insiders (2001-2005), OBR (2006-now). None of these sites ever fit neatly under the labels of of blog, fan site, community, news site, whatever. They’ve got elements of each. I like it that way.
• Current Location: Suburbia
• Hometown: I’ve lived in five different places in Ohio
• Day job: Fox Sports Interactive / Scout.com
• Favorite Team(s): Browns, Buckeyes
• Favorite Athlete(s): Bernie Kosar, Phil Niekro

MSF: Why did you start blogging and what keeps you going every day?

Barry McBride: I really got involved in this back in 1995-96 when the Browns were ripped out of Cleveland. I ran a site called “Greedwatch” that was, for all intents and purposes, a blog about Modell and other NFL owners ripping off fans. The technology was different, but it was very blog-like in tone and use of links. The site quickly began just focusing on mocking the Ravens, which was a lot of fun back then. It matured into the OBR, which does a number of things, but includes three different blogging areas for our writers and Browns fans.

What keeps me going everyday is that I just love doing this. I get to talk football with Browns fans all day. I can’t imagine anything else I would rather be doing.

MSF: What has been your biggest challenge thus far?

Barry McBride: It’s all about time management. Juggling a sports site – particularly one that asks fans to support it financially – and another job is tough. You give up a lot of other things to do it, as any hard-core blogger will tell you.

MSF: Are there any athletes/celebrities that you have found yourself, for lack of a better term, obsessed with blogging about? (meaning that you always seem to post about even their most insignificant contributions to the daily sports media cycle). To what do you attribute this “obsession”?

Barry McBride: Back in 1999, I found myself doing multiple updates per day about the Browns’ attempt to sign LB Jamir Miller. It was sad, really… if I could track where Miller stopped for lunch I would do it. These days, anytime I have a chance to make fun of Brian Billick, I do it. It’s my civic duty.

MSF: If you had the opportunity to get one post you have already written in front of the eyes of every sports blog reader in the world, which one would it be and why?

Barry McBride: One entry that I’m particularly proud of is calling out the Browns for sniffing around defensive lineman Christian Peter back in the earlier days of the expansion franchise. I want to win as much as anyone, but after Browns fans watched Art Modell rip their team away, the last thing we needed was for the team that Paul Brown created to be rebuilt using players like this, an accused rapist whose actions sparked a movement. At some point, there are places you don’t want to go in order to try to win. The response we got to the article was incredible, and it was one of our first articles to get the attention of the mainstream press .

MSF: If you were told that you could bookmark five sports blogs other than your own and never visit any others, which five would you choose?

I subscribe to a large number of different blogs. I don’t want to insult any bloggers out there by not listing them, but I’m very fond of a number of Cleveland blogs such as Waiting For Next Year. And MSF, of course. Mark Leonard and Ace Davis on our own Munilot.com blogs are both very good. The blogs I like the best are ones that have a clear point of view, highlight stories that otherwise wouldn’t get much press, and remain staunchly independent.

MSF: What is one prediction that you went on record about that you are the most proud of?

Barry McBride: About halfway through 2007, I told listeners on our radio program that “Derek Anderson’s value is as high as it will ever be”. I was one of the last DA skeptics left after the strong start in 2007, and pat myself on the back for trusting my own eyes about what I saw in camp that summer. I’m proud of that one. Usually I defer to the other writers on our site, but every once in a while, I get something right.

MSF: Are there any on-record predictions that give you great shame just thinking about?

Barry McBride: I predicted the Browns would finish 9-7 last year. Oops.

(Editor’s note: 9-7 was our official prediction for the Browns last season too. I guess we all missed that one pretty badly.)

MSF: Are there any posts you have published and thought later, “why the hell did I post that?” Did you keep it live?

Barry McBride: I got furious about the Indians dumping CC Sabathia last year and ripped on Dolan pretty hard-core. I still think Dolan’s kind of a worthless lump and have a real negative view of some of his business ventures, but went overboard. I realized that I should probably STFU about sports other than the Browns and the NFL, because I don’t know the details as well as I do on my own turf. I wound up pulling them down.

MSF: Bob Knight once said that coaching, for him, was an endless pursuit of the perfectly played game. From a blogging standpoint, how would you define the perfect blog post?

Barry McBride: It’s one that reaches beyond the web browser and changes things in a positive way for fans.

MSF: If you could publicly ask yourself any question, what would it be and how would you answer it?

Barry McBride: Question: What do you think people want to know about you?

Answer: Squat. Fans come to the OBR because of the Browns and their love of sports and the city, and the information and analysis we can give them. Keeping your own ego in check should be Rule 1 for every blogger, particularly a sports blogger.

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To read Barry McBride and his fellow OBR writers’ work, click the logo to the right and head over to the Orange and Brown Report.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’re a serious Browns fan, you shouldn’t even think twice about paying for the premium OBR package. In addition to their tremendous in-season coverage, they do a great job of covering the Browns’ offseason maneuvering and draft preparation. (And no, the OBR in no way compensates me for these recommendations. But I love their site, and Barry was nice enough to be first Behind the Keyword guinea pig, so I’ll pimp their great site as much as possible to anyone reading this.)

The Rumor Central portion of the OBR, which Barry McBride manages, does not require any fees. Here are some links to the most recent Rumor Central posts:

• In this post, I make the Internet implode
• Voices of Pittsburgh
• Some positive press for Mangini
• RAC remains at rest
• Some people love being miserable

Thank you to Barry McBride for participating in the first Behind the Keyboard, and thank you for reading. If you have any suggestions for future bloggers that you would like to see highlighted in this series, leave a comment below or use the email address provided for tips at the top of the sidebar.

Tags: barry mcbride, brian billick, Cleveland Browns, derek anderson, msf interview, NFL, sports bloggers

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