And that Something is Joe Posnanski, the leading sports columnist of the Kansas City Star. For years I read Joe and took him for granted. I remember when he started his 'Cup of Joe' and I thought it was a totally natural extension of his writing. Little later after that experiment he started his widely successful blog. It's funny because he initially got hired by SI because of his blog….and now I have a feeling of wanting him to fail at SI so that he can come back…

I remember discovering Joe's first blog. He had started a blog for local sports legend Buck O'Neil. He had these great, exciting, and insightful posts about the 'Behind The Scenes' behind The Soul of Baseball. He talked about the red dress story of Buck – Buck loved red dresses, he would often approach random red dressed women – he talked about Buck's take on baseball, he talked about Buck's take on the Royals, and he started talking about the Royals. Actually he talked about a lot more than the Royals. He talked about baseball, he talked about metrics, and he talked about his talking: writing. It was inevitable: he had to start a blog because he was why people were reading about Buck O'Neil, but not just for Buck. It's funny because his blog is what got him into SI initially.

He had become a Star. He became a voice of the Kansas City Star newspaper. He participated in multiple baseball talks at the Negro League Museum. He became a voice of Kansas City. On his blog he had become a voice for Bill James and the greater theory of using spastics to explore baseball. He became a voice for himself allowing us the privilege of gaining deeper knowledge into how he thought.

Those are really the thoughts we'll miss in Kansas City. Joe has always been a great author, but what made him legendary in Kansas City is his way of thinking about situations, and people, and ideas that set him apart from other sports writers. He neither claims originality or intellectuality with these ideas and that's his strength, he knows when to ask, when to read, and when to question.

We'll miss Joe's constant writing in The Star, but we can't help of feeling happy for his contributions to the Kansas City community.