A friend forwarded me a link to this story about a reporter from the Louisville Courier-Journal who was ejected from the press box at a University of Louisville baseball game for live-blogging.

Apparently, the Louisville sports information department told the blogger, Brian Bennett, that he was not allowed to provide live updates on his newspaper's Web site and took his credential away when he proceeded to make 15 updates by the fifth inning. Louisville won the game 20-2 to earn a berth in the College World Series.

The NCAA issued a memo yesterday stating that blogs are considered "live representations of the game" and "no blog entries are permitted between the first pitch and the final out of each game."

The rules appear similar to those set by Major League Baseball, though the NCAA takes it a step further by singling out blogs specifically.

I have a season credential for the Nationals, and on the back of it are some rules from the commissioner's office that read: "While a game is in progress, [the media] shall not transmit or aid in transmitting any game information on a play-by-play or pitch-by-pitch basis more frequently that once every half-inning of play." In other words, they don't want reporters dishing out constant play-by-play updates, because that's the job of the broadcasters and other folks who paid for the rights to transmit the game.

These rules -- particularly the NCAA's singling out blogs -- are silly for a number of reasons. For one thing, the First Amendment should protect the right of a blogger to write whatever he feels. The Constitution does not read, "You have a right to free speech, but you need to wait until the game is over, OK? Thanks."

Furthermore, I don't see how a blog can unequivocally be considered a "live representation" of the game. If the blogger is writing about the quality of the press box food or the color of the umpire's socks, he's hardly creating a live representation.

In this case, Bennett was not providing "play-by-play" or "pitch-by-pitch" updates on his blog. Most of the posts were pretty basic, simply updating readers on the score, who was pitching and any key plays. And even if he was doing a live play-by-play, I fail to see how that's infringing on the turf of rights holders. Given the choice, very few people would prefer to watch an online text update over a live television broadcast. And while newspapers and Web sites may not pay for rights, they are paying for staff and resources to cover the event, which benefits everyone. Folks involved in a relatively low-profile sport like college baseball should be embracing media outlets, not alienating them by revoking credentials.

This has never been an issue for me or anyone I know personally, because most reporters have no need to update readers more than once an inning. You'll rarely see our beat writers make more than one or two blog posts per game because they have other fish to fry. But I suppose if the Nationals were to make the World Series or something, a newspaper might send a blogger to give more frequent updates with analysis, and they might be toeing the line of what's considered acceptable by MLB and the team. And if that happened, I would defend the right of the blogger to keep at it on First Amendment grounds.