If you wanted to read about baseball fifteen years ago, what you had were a bunch of newspaper writers and a handful of magazines such as The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated and Sports magazine. And then after January, there were a handful of preseason magazines that would give news about teams and how they looked for the coming season. Today, there are not only dozens of mainstream media outlets on-line, but also thousands of bloggers out there, most of whom are pretty darned good at what they do.
The Fan has been ahead of the curve, behind the curve and sometimes along side it. Please don't scoff, but the Fan was an early pioneer of the heady AOL days. The Fan joined that network and ran a music trivia site there and was chatting as far back as 1992 when all we had was 1200 baud connections. Basically, you would click to start the program and then go eat dinner. The site was probably up by the time dinner was finished.
Even in those early days, whatever baseball news on places like AOL was "powered" by networks already established. The Fan was also into IRC and bulletin boards, which were the early days of content based discussion. Bulletin boards catered to specific tastes and interests as did IRC groups.
The Fan got behind a bit because of work stresses and marital situations and kid situations no different than many of the sea of humanity. And then as a senior executive in charge of customer service for a software company, the Fan read an article on something new called blogging. The Fan approached the software company founder and asked if it was something that might work with our customers. He gave the green light and our company blog was created, the first in our industry and one of the first anywhere.
As the software company got larger, pressures were induced to squash customer comments and politicize the blog in such a way that the company couldn't look bad. The Fan fought the good fight and resisted until resisting was futile about two years ago. But the customers loved the site so much and were so angry at losing it that they went out and created their own where the company couldn't mess with them. Good for them!
A little after that blog was created, this site was born. The first year was fun and posting was faithful. But again, life pressures interfered and we humans only have so much emotional energy and blogging requires quite a bit of it. So it was give the blog up or melt down completely. Sanity won out. Occasional attempts were made to resurrect, but usually sputtered away.
Then our little software company that could became the bulldozer that still could but could no longer turn on a dime. A bigger fish bought us out and swallowed the littler fish and moved customer service to Georgia. The Fan was offered the chance to move along and continue what he started which was a gratifying offer. But the Fan has a little girl, now thirteen, who lives with her mom. Moving meant leaving her and the Fan couldn't be an absentee dad. The grown up son didn't want Dad to leave either. Thinking that being a dad was more important than being financially comfortable, the Fan politely declined during the worst economic time since the Depression. Good timing there, Dad.
And so, there is time for blogging. And you know what? It's fun again and different. Different how? Well, for one thing, the big boys like ESPN.com and Yahoo Sports discovered blogging and pros are doing it now. Plus, thousands of others have sprung up around the country and around the world. The Fan has joined a few link sites like sportsblogs.org and BallHype.com and it is hard to make a dent. Sportsblog.org alone has links to over 3000 baseball blogs and BallHype about two thirds of that. The Fan is now ranked something like 1813 on BallHype. Heh. And the Fan can occasionally crack the first page of posts on sportsblog.org.
It does matter, but it doesn't. The Fan didn't start this site because he wanted to be noticed. The Fan started this site because he loves baseball and always has. Sure, we all have a little ego and want to be respected and important, but here, that is a goal but not an obsession.
The cool thing is, just like in the old days of AOL and IRC and bulletin boards, social networks start developing. Who would have thought a Sicilian from New Jersey, now shivering in northern Maine would develop a social "hello" relationship with a much younger kid whose site features Jews in Baseball. And it matters because he has a unique perspective, writes well and is thoughtful and provocative. The Fan has made other "friends" from other sites and the social network is growing.
There are some sites that the Fan is just too unhip to join. Those that feature open swearing are just not places the Fan will choose to go. No big deal and no judgement here. It's just a choice, right? But there are so many unique points of view and interesting ways of looking at things. And underlying it all is a love for our sport. Baseball is special and there is just something deep about it that cuts through the crap and puts us all on equal footing. It's why national figures like Neyer and Gammons and others recognize and support bloggers they find interesting. Where else would established "stars" support a medium that might some day replace them?
Talent is more widely spread than most realize. The Fan always thought the only difference between this writer and Michener was that Michener was more focused and more organized. That certainly has some truth to it. But mostly, it's that few in previous generations had the opportunity. It's not like the Renaissance where families like Di Medici would sponsor all talented artists. You needed to get a break...a lucky break. The Fan remembers sending a poem to a well-known magazine and receiving a very nice letter back praising the poem. But the Fan was told that thousands of submissions were received every month and only a few would be published.
What's interesting is that the Internet has become the new Di Medici. We are all sponsored by this great free and freewheeling universe that allows us to create whatever it is we want to create. If it makes a difference or if it gets noticed, fantastic. But don't those with an artistic bent just want to create? Isn't that the real reason we do this?
Sure, the Fan would like to figure out how to make money at it. Sure, the Fan wants to be featured someday on Wednesday Wangdoodles {smile}. Sure, the Fan even dreams of being the next Big League Stew. Why not? But the reality is that it's just fun to write every day about something you are passionate about and the ability to make a few friends along the way. That's cool enough in its own right.
Speaking of that curve again, what the heck is Twitter?
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