When avid Boston Red Sox fan Jared Carrabis started his first blog on MySpace covering the Sox at age 16, his audience likely didn’t extend very far past his list of MySpace friends.

Fast forward ten years to today, where Carrabis has built a large and loyal audience through a full-time gig blogging on all things Sox and Major League Baseball for Barstool Sports. He has become appointment reading for baseball fans from Boston to Baltimore.

Carrabis called into Professor Patrick Johnson’s Writing for Media class via FaceTime on Tuesday, November 1, to talk about life as a Red Sox blogger.

Carrabis – a Saugus, Mass. native and graduate of Endicott College – has become a staple in the Boston sports media landscape, much to the chagrin of some of the old-school journalists who cover the Red Sox beat day in and day out.

His cult following on Barstool – a popular men’s sports and lifestyle blog which dubs itself “by the common man, for the common

man” – has led to other opportunities in the market for the young blogger.

Carrabis is a frequent contributor to Comcast SportsNet, including as a weekly co-host of “The Baseball Show” during the season.

He also joins 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak and Bertrand” midday show once a week, as well as a spot on the station’s “The Baseball Reporters” with Tony Massarotti, a current afternoon drive host and longtime Red Sox columnist.

And as if he didn’t have enough duties, he also has his own Sox-centric podcast, “The Section 10 Podcast.”

The older journalists on the Red Sox beat seem to have a problem with Carrabis’ openly deep affinity for the Red Sox. But he says that this approach is what makes him unique, and that his greatest strength is that he cares.

“They think that you can’t be a fan and cover the team at the same time, and I think that’s BS,” said Carrabis. “I don’t understand his dynamic that thee older journalists have, that you’re not supposed to be a fan. At one point or another we’re all fans.”

He says that the mainstream media has gotten the wrong idea about him based off his Twitter profile, which Carrabis describes as an “over the top” Red Sox fan, and not as professional has his blogs.

Carrabis blogged on MySpace for two years and then partnered with a Boston t-shirt company who paid for his own website in exchange for cross promotion of the company’s merchandise, before going to Barstool as a part-time blogger in 2014.

“In this industry, a lot of people are not okay with not being paid, but you really have to be,” Carrabis said. “No one’s getting rich right off the bat, but the good ones will get noticed.”

“I wrote for eight years before I ever got paid for something,” he added, figuring he would just fall back on his desk job if he couldn’t follow his passion of writing.

When people ask him for advice on how he got to where he is today, Carrabis suggests they start their own blog, as employers like to see that you can keep at it and build and maintain an audience independently.

“You have to be dependable with your blog, keep at it,” said Carrabis. “People don’t want breaking news, they want your reaction.”

Even while blogging about his favorite team as an unpaid hobby, Carrabis was always consistent in getting his takes on the web.

In 2009, when news broke of David Ortiz’ name being linked to a list of players on Performance Enhancing Drugs, Carrabis left a night of drinking at a college house party in order to get a blog up.

“I walked home at 10 o’clock at night through this sketchy neighborhood just to write a story on a blog I wasn’t getting paid for,” Carrabis said.

But now Carrabis is getting paid, and says there are “no days off.”

“I actually had to build a gym because I never leave the house, unless I’m at Fenway,” Carrabis said.

A typical day for the Barstool blogger begins when he wakes up around 7:45 a.m. and reads the top stories. He’ll start writing at 8:30 a.m., and is expected to crank out at least 5 or 6 blogs a day.

Around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m., Carrabis tries to sneak in a quick workout until the night’s baseball games get underway at 7:00 p.m.

From there, he’s watching six to eight games at once on three TVs in his office, in order to cover the entire league intelligently. And Carrabis doesn’t go anywhere without his laptop, because “if you’re awake, you’re technically working. That’s the way of the business now.”

Carrabis also says that it’s not really necessary to “be there” in the locker room anymore, because the more traditional journalists get “the watered-down stories,” and it’s just as easy for Carrabis to build relationships with players over the phone or through texting and Twitter.

“For me, I tell the story of the team, and I think facing the players every day makes it harder for me to tell it like it is,” said Carrabis. “I’ve burned a few bridges with guys, but that’s the price you pay. If you suck, I’m going to write about it.”

It’s safe to say Carrabis is not on speaking terms with Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz, who has been the subject of lots of criticism by Carrabis on his blogs. Carrabis said he even had a run-in with Buchholz’ wife at Fenway Park toward the end of the season.

Carrabis added his Sox podcast to his arsenal last year, in addition to his writing.

“The first episode was so awkward because it sounds like we were recording it in a library where people are trying to study,” Carrabis said.

Carrabis – and his co-hosts, Pete Blackburn and Steve Perrault – have settled in and become more comfortable on the podcast, being more enthusiastic and passionate through practice and repetition.

Carrabis says that his podcast has mended a lot of fences with the old school journalists, because he doesn’t have them on to attack them; Carrabis invites them on to give them a forum and allow them to better understand his persona.

The podcast and his writing also paved the way to Carrabis’ radio and TV spots. His radio spot on 98.5 The Sports Hub began when he would just start calling into the “Zolak and Bertrand” show from his car on his lunch breaks. Now, he’s paid to come in studio once a week, in addition to his weekly appearance on The Sports Hub’s “The Baseball Reporters” in evening drive.

He says that you have to create your own opportunities in this highly competitive media landscape.

“You have to do what’s best for you, even if it means taking less money,” Carrabis said. “[The other Boston sports station] WEEI offered more than double money, but for solo shifts at night after Red Sox games.

“It would have just been me and the drunk callers after the games,” he added. “And, I work better with a co-host.”

His TV duties on Comcast SportsNet involve appearing on the panel on “The Baseball Show” with host Bob Neumeier, WEEI host and former Sox infielder Lou Merloni, and Sox beat writer Sean McAdam. Carrabis says that Comcast is the better station to be at in Boston.

“You don’t want to go NESN [owned by the Red Sox] because it’s team propaganda,” Carrabis said. “They don’t let you have an opinion.”

While Barstool Sports may still be known for its “Guess That Ass,” the Barstool Smokeshows, blogs on teacher sex scandals or videos of some frat bros jumping off a roof, Carrabis says that Barstool is growing and “becoming a legitimate media company.”

His baseball blog on Barstool attracted over one million visitors per month in its first year, which is impressive.

A national baseball podcast is in the works for Carrabis. He said longtime MLB pitcher and former Red Sox Curt Schilling was a candidate to join him, but Carrabis calls him “too much of a loose cannon right now,” perhaps in reference to Schilling’s outspoken conservative political views.

As for the future for Carrabis, he’s looking forward to being able to buy a house next year, and continuing his blogging for Barstool along with appearing on TV and radio in Boston.

And the diehard Red Sox fan is loving every minute of it.

“A huge benefit is that my hobby is my job and my job is my hobby,” Carrabis said. “It’s what I love to do.”

For more, check out Barstool Sports at www.barstoolsports.com, or follow Jared on Twitter @Jared_Carrabis