Adam T. Vaccaro

I don’t know a lot about Berlin Patch.

I’ve written and/or edited for its cousins in West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, the South End, Falmouth, Newton, Norwood…I think there are a few more…over the last couple of years, but I can’t imagine I’d even visited Berlin, CT’s site until today.

Having just completed a hard day’s work, I headed over to my favorite source for sports news — Rotoworld — to learn about what’s gone on today at baseball’s winter meetings in Dallas. Only a little bit of Red Sox news awaited me — they signed Jessie Carlson to a split major/minor league contract. Nifty enough, I suppose. He’s had his injuries, but if they want Daniel Bard and Alfredo Aceves in the rotation, bullpen bodies are in demand.

What caught my eye was the source: you’ve got it, Berlin Patch. And they weren’t just saying it. Berlin Patch — which covers Berlin High School, Carlson’s alma mater — broke this news.

Again, I get it, in the grand world of Red Sox Internet-fandom, from Sons of Sam Horn to Boston Dirt Dogs, not that big of a big deal. Especially on the same day Albert Pujols became a quarter-billionaire.

But in the small town of Berlin, it probably is. Having broken the news, the story will probably get the links and clicks to keep it as the site’s most viewed page for a week or so (that’s just a guess; again, I don’t know much about the Berlin site). Carlson’s brother tipped Patch off.

Where else can hyperlocals get this kind of traffic from national sports stories? Obviously, they’re not in the best position to break major sports news, especially when it comes to free agency and trades, and even if they were, they need to justify their reporting it with a local twist. But what about if they have recruits at their local high school planning to go play for Penn State next year? Get on that. See if they’re still planning on heading into a post-Paterno Nittany Lions experience. For that matter, any local recruit headed to a major program really should be pushed on the site; some of these colleges have big-time followings (like the Red Sox have in New England) and will want to know about these guys. And if a major athlete makes an appearance in town, make sure you’re on it. If you can somehow score an interview at the autograph session, I think even talk about the team and their season is worth publishing, since it was said there, in town. If you get something remotely juicy, you also figure to get the traffic.

These are just a couple of thoughts from my end; feel free to pipe in with your own.

Worth noting: the Berlin site published the story a day before Rotoworld picked it up. Lesson? The traffic might not come immediately, but if you break it, they will come.