QUICK HITS
AGE 26
RESIDENCE Roselle
COLLEGE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
HIGH SCHOOL Lockport Township
PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE DoubleClick Performics (search engine marketing firm)
FAMILY Wife, Agnes

Taking his love of baseball to the next level, University of Illinois graduate Tim Dierkes developed the Web site mlbtraderumors.com, which pulls together relevant baseball rumors concerning upcoming trades or free-agent signings.

The Web site receives more than 150,000 page views per day with a high of 997,400 page views on July 31, 2008, the last day of the MLB trade deadline. The site, which began as a hobby, is now Dierkes’ full-time job thanks to its popularity.

Q How did you get involved with this site and what was the original goal?
A I started the site as a hobby back in November of ’05. I didn’t know of a Web site that collected all of the legitimate rumors in one place. I didn’t really have a goal early on. I just wanted to write every day and keep people coming back.

Q Do you have a background in baseball or was it just a sport you followed growing up?
A It’s just something I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid, especially the hot stove aspect.

Q What does it actually entail to pull the site off on a daily basis?
A It is just me on the weekdays. I have a rotating team of eight people for weekends now. Basically I read new articles from about 200 sites each day and write about the hot stove news. It is a 24-hour thing in a way, in that a trade, signing, or rumor can be posted at any time. I try to sleep normal hours though.

Q Are you in direct contact with your sources, newspapers writers, etc.?
A I have a few sources with teams. Beat writers and other journalists are in regular contact, and most of them are very helpful.

Q In the early stages of the site, how tough was it proving to people that you were a credible source of information?
A Proving MLBTR as a credible source of information is typically not a problem, because roughly 99 percent of the rumors include links to the source journalist. In general I am passing information along, organizing it, and adding my opinion. In the past I have dabbled in digging up exclusive information, which I realized is very difficult and requires many years of experience. I have learned that accuracy is more important than being first, so now I always run information by multiple sources before publishing.

Q What are the biggest pitfalls that you encounter?
A Probably the technical side of things. I need to ask for a lot of help with the technical aspects of running a Web site.

Q How do you differentiate between rumors that actually have backbone and ones just made up by random people?
A I have a pretty good filter at this point. I mostly stick to rumors published by people I know, in major newspapers or Web sites.

Q Have you gotten feedback from people within the baseball industry — general managers, scouts, etc. — about your site?
A A few people in the game have contacted me with kind comments. It is always a thrill to get an email like that.