Congratulations are in order for NY Daily News Yankees beat writer Mark Feinsand, who was announced yesterday as the next Chairman of the New York chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

Feinsand has spent the past four seasons covering the Yankees for the Daily News and the previous six as the Yankees.com beat writer. Some might criticize him for “going legit” and working for a newspaper outfit, but at a time when that was the only way to get the BBWAA card, it was a choice that any of us who write primarily in cyberspace would have also made.

Many in the web community have criticized the BBWAA for being stale, stodgy and not progressive enough in including the ever-growing Web community into its gates. That’s changed in recent years, most notably with Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus receiving her BBWAA card.

For the New York chapter to bestow this honor to Feinsand is a sign of progress. He’s a top-notch reporter and writer, and regardless of the distribution platform, that’s what matters. That was part of the discussion Phil Pepe and I had more than five years ago when discussing why Internet writers don’t have BBWAA cards (Phil was, and is, a proponent, for the record), and it should continue to be the focus.

Perhaps in his new role, Feinsand can be an advocate for the Internet writing community that is working every day to be a complementary resource alongside the stalwarts of the BBWAA. It’s where he came from, after all.

Good luck, Mark, and well-deserved.