Up until Friday afternoon, I had never heard of the Milwaukee Brewers-themed blog, The Plushdamentals, much less, it’s 16-year-old scribe Curt Hogg.
But now, I’m simply the next guy to email him blindly asking for a Q&A.
You see, the Brown Deer (Wisconsin) High School junior is the guy who, last week, took a shot in the dark and, in the process, scooped the world on the Ryan Braun PED story.
That’s right, Hogg is the self-proclaimed “up-and-coming journalist” (and who can debate that now?) who, on February 14, posted this:
According to sources, the results were not immediately sent to Major League Baseball as they should have been. Instead, the test samples were brought back to the collector’s residence in Kenosha, Wisconsin. There they remained, refrigerated, overnight until they were mailed in the next morning. While it is not assured that there is sufficient information to show that the test was mishandled, it supports Braun’s case.
Sound familiar?
I had a chance to talk with Hogg and ask his about his whirlwind couple of days in the national spotlight.
HOVG: Alright, dude…you’re blowing up right now. What has been the craziest thing that’s happened in the last couple of days?
HOGG: The whole thing has been pretty insane, but the morning after the Braun news broke I got a tweet from a University of Wisconsin student saying they were discussing my journalism in her advanced journalism class.
HOVG: The situation is pretty intriguing, really. If you’re wrong…it’s cool. You’re guilty of taking a shot in the dark. If you’re right…you’re a hero. Did you spend the last nine days waiting for your just desserts or just going about your daily routine?
HOGG: I didn’t really wait too much to see if my report was going to be true. I was more waiting on the actual verdict on the Braun case.
HOVG: Have you heard from your unnamed source since you first reported the story on Braun’s sample being mishandled or do you think it was forgotten?
HOGG: I’ve talked to the source, yes.
HOVG: I saw in your Deadspin interview that you didn’t have school on Friday. What do you think the reaction is going to be Monday when you return? Business as usual…or something else?
HOGG: I’ll be getting a lot of “Hey Curt! I saw you on the news dude!” and stuff like that. It’s going to be complete chaos, so pretty much business as usual.
HOVG: Lastly…a two-parter. Where do you think, if anywhere, this will take you? And two…where do you want, if anywhere, this to take you?
HOGG: I don’t think one story by itself can carry so much momentum as to take me places beyond my “15 minutes”. But add the notoriety to what I hope will be improved writing, and I hope to go places. And as for part two, in the immediate future I see studying journalism in college and going from there.
So what’s next for Hogg? Who knows?!? Heck…who could have predicted this? Find out what dude is doing by hitting up his site or following him on twitter at @CurtKnowsBest.
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