Joe Posnanski to SI (well, more so)

As you probably saw today, Joe Posnanski has been offered a Senior Writer gig at SI, and will be leaving permanent employment at the Kansas City Star. Great news for a great writer.

One issue, though. Posnanski says he’ll keep the blog. I assume it will stay independent, but one can’t help but think that either (a) that will change soon; or (b) even if it doesn’t, he will be given much more latitude to write more free-form stuff at SI now that he’s permanent.

Now, if you read SI stories (like this one), you quickly notice the little “story highlights” capsule to the right of the headline that kind of gives you the first-week-1L-case-brief version of the story. Assuming Joe does get more bloggy/informal at SI, this could present a problem. Specifically, I can’t help but think that the people who write the “story highlights” are going to commit mass suicide after the first time they have to distill a 7,500-word, 17-subject, 4-Posterisk post into three bullet points, one of which probably has to reference Skyline Chili per Posnanski’s contract.

But good luck all the same, Joe. The staffers’ lives are in your hands.