Media Power Rankings for July

1. eBaum Nation, entertainment style Web site: The scrappy Rochester, N.Y.-based Web site outflanked Web giant TMZ by securing superior-quality footage of Jordan Crawford's much-talked-about but ultimately mundane flush over LeBron James. About two weeks before the release of the video, representatives of a local cameraman who had taken footage of the dunk at James' Nike camp in Akron, Ohio, contacted eBaum Nation (which offers humor-based viral videos, among other features). The site finalized the deal after learning that TMZ had lesser-quality video.

Mike Parker, the company's media relations manager, said eBaum Nation paid $5,000 for the footage, which the site released about 30 minutes after TMZ posted its copy. The footage from eBaum went viral instantly; ESPN, SI.com, Yahoo! and CNN were among the sites linking to the video. As of Thursday, Parker said the video had about 6.75 million views.

The site launched last February (eBaum is short for founder Eric Bauman) and has 12 full-time employees. "The day we released [the LeBron footage] was a pretty late night [at the office] for most of us, so there wasn't much celebration," Parker said. "But we definitely did enjoy the press mentions that followed."

2. Vin Scully, Dodgers broadcaster: These are the sweetest words I've heard this summer: "God willing, I will probably come back for one more year." That's what Scully told Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschkelast week. If his health remains good, Scully, 81, said he plans to call Dodgers games for one more year and retire after the 2010 season.

3. Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times sports reporter: Schmidt was in elementary school when Manny Ramirez debuted with the Cleveland Indians in September 1993. Last week, the 25-year-old reporter broke the news that Ramirez and David Ortizhad tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003. Schmidt reported earlier this year that Sammy Sosa was also one of the roughly 100 major league players to test positive for PEDs in 2003.

The reporter has been with the Times since July 2005. "I was hired as a news clerk and they told me they would never make me a reporter," Schmidt said. "As soon as they told me that, I wanted to be a reporter."

Schmidt worked as a clerk on the foreign and sports desks before he was hired as an intermediate reporter in December 2007. He cited assistant sports editor Jay Schreiber as the driving force behind much of the PED coverage at the newspaper.

"After SI reported the A-Rod story in February, I noticed that wherever I went, people who knew what I did kept asking me about that list," Schmidt said. "They kept asking, 'Is it going to come out? Who is on the list?' I didn't really have a good answer for them then, and I was not putting any effort to go after the list. I thought that if all these people were asking me about it, there was probably a lot of interest out there."

Schmidt described his beat as "performance-enhancing drugs, legal issues in sports and pretty much anything bad that happens in sports." Asked if he anticipates more names being unearthed from the list, Schmidt is circumspect. "I don't know," he said. "I really don't know. We'll have to see."

4. Jason Whitlock, Fox Sports and Kansas City Star sports columnist: A short list of those who felt the wrath of Whitlock's keyboard in July: Chauncey Billups, A.J. Daulerio, ESPN, Paris Hilton, LeBron James, Chad Ochocinco, Will Leitch, Steve McNair, Shaquille O'Neal, Stuart Scott, Stan Van Gundy, Serena Williams ... and yours truly.