Banned From MLB Trade Rumors

No Shohei Ohtani and the Phillies talk allowed. No mentioning who owns the Phillies baseball team and no discussion whatsoever that might lead someone to discover this blog.

This was the opening in a thread about the latest on Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani who will be posted this winter. I had previously noted in Phillies threads that exactly zero articles about Ohtani had ben authored by sports writers who cover the Phillies. When I saw this posted the morning of November 14, 2017 I took note of it.

Immediately the personal attacks began quickly - as within several minutes - the moderators jumped in to stop me from responding and advancing the discussion.

What is objectionable about this post that it would go into moderation? There certainly was something because this post went into moderation when I attempted to post it again, but other posts I made before and after the second attempt at posting went through fine. My guess is "John Middleton"was entered into the moderation filter.

Then the feces hit the fan. Attacks from new posters who had just made accounts flooded on demanding that something be done about me for exactly what I posted above in the screens and I complained about the censorship and received this response from Jeff Todd:

Sounds pretty nonchalant, however, that post is just for public consumption. Not even a half hour later I tried to make a post and it did not go through or go to moderation. My account was banned from posting entirely.

Here's some of what I recovered from a couple days back when something similar happened when the subject of Shohei Ohtani, the Phillies and the Orioles came up:

And the post that blew up the site and sent Jeff Todd and others at MLB Trade Rumors into a tizzy of deletions:

So MLBTradeRumors will not allow discussion about why the Phillies and Orioles have no interest whatsoever in the most talented Japanese player ever to be posted. They insist upon maintaining the fiction that all thirty MLB teams are trying to sign him.

Today after being censored and just before being banned I excoriated Jeff Todd for his sites blacklisting of this blog, pointing out that I had over the years made submissions for MLBTradeRumors blog roundup and been ignored. I have also had many posts in the past deleted when I used search terms in my post that would point someone doing so to this blog.

Everyone who writes about MLB professionally knows about me. People in MLB - beyond the Phillies - know about me yet I am totally blacklisted from the game. People who are grossly incompetent to speak about the Phillies are never the less invited onto national podcasts to discuss the Phillies. Those podcasters know about me and this blog but will not even have contact with me.

All the back and forth was removed by Jeff Todd as well. Some of it I pulled out of email notifications sent to my account:

It's not as if the years of online blacklisting and site banning in the comments have prevented everyone from finding this blog, a few have and even years after reading this blog they recall it later. There were others who yelled through their keyboard that they knew it was me too (calling me "Free_AEC" or just "Free"). I've never seen another baseball commenter noted and remembered by others like this, yet I am an untouchable with anyone who has any kind of professional relationship with MLB.

Here is another post by "Cat Mando" (someone who just popped up there) and my reply:

How much abuse, imprisonment, beatings, banning, public disrespect and being treated like a leper can one man accept?