New Blogging Month of the New Year to be my Last

Happy New Year, everyone!

Over the past several years, the first post of the year has always been the one in which I posted the top five things I hoped to accomplish in the coming year of blogging. However, this year, that has changed.

After contemplating for well over a year as to when would be the right time to end my time blogging, I have finally decided that the time has officially come. Thus, on January 20th — the six-year anniversary of my blog — I will be posting my final ever blog post.

Getting to this point has been a difficult process, as I’m not one to quit anything easily, especially things that I love — or at least loved at one point. But I feel confident that 2017 will be a great year all-around in many different aspects of my life, and I am content with the decision to quit my blog.

I will be posting Hall of Fame related posts over the coming three weeks, with my final definitive reason for leaving and recap of my blog being posted on January 20th. Until then, I hope you all have a great first day of 2017.

Blogging Resolutions for 2015

Happy New Year, everyone!

As I’ve done for the past few years, I wanted to take the time to go over the main things I’m hoping to accomplish, blogging wise, throughout the coming year. Some of them are the same as my 2014 goals, but a few of them have been altered a bit.

The five main resolutions/goals I have for this blog in 2015 are as follows:

1. Blog at least once every 5 days:

Last year my goal was to blog at least once every four days. I was able to accomplish that goal, but not without a great deal of work. There were a few times that there was simply nothing to write about, and I had to basically make things up as I went along due to it being the fourth day and not wanting to break my goal. It was very stressful at times. And therefore, while I’m not saying I won’t be able to get a post up every four days or less in 2015, I’m adding one more day to my maximum gap in entries to give myself a little slack — just in case.

2. Post 100+ blog entries:

Because I’m adding a day to my goal of number of days between entries, naturally the number of blog posts I publish this year will decrease. In 2014, while blogging at a breakneck pace at times, I was able to put together 128 blog posts — the most in a single year in the history of this blog. I’m going to be a lot busier this year for several reasons, and thus I had to keep close to my 2014 goal of blogging 100 times. My only other option was to give up blogging altogether. But I didn’t want to do that; at least not yet.

3. Get more views than 2014:

Every year of this blogs existence, I’ve recorded more views in each year following the previous one. With that said, I’d love to keep that going in 2015. While I’ll be blogging a little less than I did in 2014, I really hope to get more views than I did last year. Even one more total blog visit would make me happy. Having accumulated just over 80,000 views in 2014 — around 3,000 more than 2014 — I would really be astounded if I could get to a nice round number of 100,000 blog views for 2015. But if I could get to even 81,000 visits between now and December 31st, I would consider this blogging year a success.

4. Go on a 3-post-blogging-streak:

In 2014, this goal was a five-post-blogging-streak. But just like some of the previous goals, I’m changing this one a bit to go a little more conservative for 2015. Last year I was able to get up five blog posts on five consecutive days, but it was difficult. It started with my post on the MLB award frontrunners at the All-Star break, on July 14, and continued through the entry I posted on the second half of the MLB season setting up to be exciting, on July 18th. Even though I did that five post run, I’m only shooting for three this year. Easier, but still not extremely easy.

5. Reply to every comment that is left:

This is one of the two goals from 2014 that stayed exactly the same. The reason for that is it’s very easy to accomplish, as it takes less than a minute (usually) to answer a comment. I don’t get too many comments left on my blog, but when I do I want to always make sure I reply to them. Whether the comment is a question, about something I’m up to or the post itself, or a general comment or statement, I feel the obligation to reply back. Without the readers this blog wouldn’t be what it is. Replying is my way of saying that the reader is appreciated.

So, there you have it. My top five blogging resolutions/goals for 2015.

As I stated last year — a recurring theme in this blog post — I hope to make this my best year of blogging yet. If I can accomplish what I want to (and plan to), I feel it truly will be. That’s always the overall goal, to get better and better. I think 2015 is going to be an exciting year.

Three-Year Anniversary of ‘The Unbiased MLB Fan’

Today marks the three-year anniversary of the day I sat down to begin ‘The Unbiased MLB Fan’. Starting this blog was more of a spur of the moment thing than it was me looking to begin a long term blog. At the time, I never could’ve imagined that I would keep at it long enough to be typing up a three-year anniversary post; to his day, I’m still surprised that I kept with it. But I’ve come to love blogging, and interacting with fellow baseball fans; and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

To commemorate the occasion, I’ve decided to take a look back at the past three years, as I did last year on the two-year anniversary, using a timeline, of sorts, to tell the basic story of how my blog came to be where it is now. The first twelve recaps are the exact same ones I covered last year, in case you missed them, with the rest being since last year (click the headers to be taken to each post):

‘Explanation of Me’ – My first blog post

As the header would suggest, this was the first blog entry I ever published. It covered who I am and the fact that I have no favorite team that I root for more than another team. While it does a decent job at getting the general point across, looking back, I’m fairly appalled at how horribly written it is. The post doesn’t flow, the grammar is terrible, and my punctuation is sub par. Given, I’m by no means a professional writer now (I’m sure there are tons of issues with this post) compared to my writing style now, it’s almost as if it was a completely different person who wrote that first post. I suppose, in a way, it was.

‘MLB Logo and Its Designer’ – My first interview post

I didn’t start out with interview intentions. I merely emailed Jerry Dior (the designer of the MLB logo) to ask him questions I had about the design process and the story behind the logo. It wasn’t until a month later that I had the idea of putting the questions into an interview format for a post on my newly established blog. In the days after posting it, I noticed that people seemed to have a good reaction to the interview, so it was at that point that I decided to begin interviewing ballplayers. The interviews took off from there. I’ve now conducted over thirty interviews, and plan on continuing to do them in the future, as long as the players continue to be willing.

July 23, 2011 – Signed Up for Twitter

This has nothing to do with my blog, but it has everything to do with its success. Signing up for Twitter not only allowed for a way for me to get in contact with ballplayers for interviews, but it also served (and still serves) as a way of spreading the link to each new post around to baseball fans everywhere. If it wasn’t for Twitter it’s very possible that I would’ve discontinued my blog, as my reader base wouldn’t have been as fast to grow.

How Bernie Williams Became My Favorite Player Ever

This is more of a personal entry than it is an informative one. In this blog post, I detailed exactly how Bernie Williams came to be my favorite player to ever play the game of baseball. There’s a great story behind it, but I really don’t want to say much more than that. If you’re truly interested, feel free to click the header to be taken to the post I did on the subject.

Bernie Williams’ Reflects On 9/11/01 – Ten-Year Anniversary

Yet another Bernie Williams post, but this one is more somber than the first. With the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 approaching, I decided to contact Bernie Williams on Twitter to ask if he’d be willing to share his own personal experience and memories from that horrid day. He agreed to it, and after a bit of back and forth conversation, of me detailing exactly what I wanted him to talk about, I received an email from Williams, containing a fairly long response. If you don’t read another blog entry from this anniversary post, I suggest you read this one.

The Blog Post That Put My Blog On The Map

Ozzie Guillen and the Miami Marlins played a large part in making my blog as successful as it is today. The article I wrote on the “new look Marlins” caused my blog to absolutely explode in terms of views. In the months following when I first posted the entry, I received day after day of several hundred view days. In all, that one post racked me up over 11,000 views, all by itself. While things have backed off slightly since then, I still have a fairly large reader base, and it can all be traced back to that one post.

Ranking After the 2011 Year of Blogging

After a year’s worth of blogging, I was fairly anxious to see how I would stack up against all of the great blogs around the MLBlogs community. I was fairly stunned when the results came out, stating that my blog was the 35th most viewed blog of 2011. That alone gave me a reason to continue blogging.

The Blog Post That Got Me the Most Views For A Single Day

While my post on the Marlins netted me the most views for a single blog post, the entry I posted on the Cleveland Indians-Carolina Mudcats exhibition game, for some reason, led to the most views in the history of my blog on a single day. I’m still not all that sure as to why, but people came flocking to my blog on that particular day, netting me a total of 892 views. I haven’t had a day since that’s received more than 615 views.

First MLB Game Recap Entry

Living in North Carolina, I don’t get the chance to attend an MLB game all that often. As a matter of fact, this particular post recapped the first MLB game I attended since starting this blog. Therefore, it was the first MLB recap I’d ever done. I’ve since done numerous MiLB recaps, and will undoubtedly be doing several more this season.

Trip To the 2012 State Farm Home Run Derby

The all expense paid trip I received to the 2012 State Farm Home Run Derby, courtesy of State Farm, is by far the best thing to ever come out of this blog. While I’ve been fortunate enough to experience several blogging related benefits since then – which range from getting free stuff, to meeting ballplayers in person that I’ve interviewed – I feel confident in saying that nothing will ever top this.

Triple-A National Championship Game

As the MiLB equivalent of a World Series game 7, the 2012 Triple-A National Championship game is the most significant minor league baseball game I’ve ever attended, thus it’s the most significant MiLB blog posts I’ve done. Getting to see the Reno Aces win the National Championship, along with meeting 2011 American Idol winner, Scotty McCreery, made this great game even better. (I plan on attending the 2014 Triple-A All-Star game in July, so that will probably top this.)

Ranking After the 2012 Year of Blogging

After coming in 35th at the end of the 2011 blogging year, I had no idea what to expect going into the 2012 results. While I received over five times the number of views this past year as I did in 2011, I was still eager to see where I would rank. When the rankings were posted, I was ecstatic to find my blog at the number 17 spot. I truly appreciate all of those who read my blog.

2013 Durham Bulls Fan Fest

I was really excited to attend this, as I had never been ON a professional baseball field. It was really cool to make my way, with my dad, out onto the field for a bit of catch. I didn’t take batting practice, though I could’ve, but if the Bulls have Fan Fest again anytime soon, I’ll be sure to take my shot at BP.

My Favorite Interview — Q and A With Negro Leagues’ President Bob Kendrick

Though not a baseball player, this was my favorite interview I’ve every conducted to this point in the history of my blog. Bob Kendrick is extremely knowledgeable of the history of the Negro Leagues, and he was very courteous throughout the process. I learned a lot about the Negro Leagues that I had no idea about. Take a look at it. You’ll probably learn something too.

Seeing Mariano Rivera for the Last Time

It wasn’t planned this way, but with Mariano Rivera announcing his retirement after the 2013 season, it happened to be that my dad and I were going to Baltimore for a game against the Yankees, and therefore he would be there. I was hoping to get an autograph, but even though that didn’t happen, seeing Rivera for probably the last time ever was memorable.

My Trip to Safeco Field In Seattle

Having only been west of the Mississippi River once (on my trip to the 2012 Home Run Derby), I was thrilled to visit this ballpark on my 24 day trip around the country. It is one of the best ballparks I’ve ever been to, located in one of the best cities I’ve ever been to. The Mariners lost, but all around it was a great time.

Chipper Jones’ Bulls Number Retirement Ceremony

As with Mariano Rivera, this was likely the last time I’ll ever see Chipper Jones, as he retired after the 2012 season. Coming back to Durham for the first time in twenty years, Jones had his number ten retired by the Bulls and gave a brief speech thanking the fans for everything. It was an incredible night out at the ballpark, and I doubt any night out at a minor league game will ever top this.

Recapping the 2013 Season Out At the Ballpark

This past season was the first full year that I have been into tracking the top major league baseball prospects and heading out to the ballpark to get an autograph from them. I plan on doing more of the same in 2014, and with the Triple-A All-Star game taking place in July, in addition to all of the top ranked talent that’s supposed to come, it’s sure to be an amazing year. (I’ll recap it all again after the season is over, as I did this past year.)

Ranking After the 2013 Year of Blogging

After my first year of blogging, I finished 35th on the top 100 list, in terms of views; after 2012, I finished 17th; and after this past year, I finished 8th. That’s truly amazing, in my mind, that I was able to do so, amassing over 75,000 views in 2013. I really had a fantastic time blogging in 2013, and with all of the great things that I foresee taking place in 2014, I think this is going to be the best blogging year yet.

Blogging Goals for 2014

This post wasn’t published all that long ago, but I wanted to include it nonetheless. Basically, this post covers my goals for the 2014 blogging year. I won’t waste time going over what each of my five goals are, for those of you who remember. (For those of you who’ve forgotten, and are curious, you can always click the header.) I plan on keeping to all of my blogging resolutions, which is better than I can say for my New Year’s Resolutions.

‘The Unbiased MLB Fan’ Fast Facts

• Total number of words written to this point: 193,824
• Total number of posts: 332
• Average number of words per post: 584
• Number of different country views: 124

As stated in previous posts, I hope to make 2014 the best blogging year yet; and that means posting content that you, the reader, enjoy reading about. So, if you have anything you’d like to see me do, or stop doing, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

Blogging Resolutions for 2014

Happy New Year, everyone!

As I did last year, I want to go over the main things I’m hoping to accomplish, blogging wise, this year. But unlike last year, this time around I’m making a couple of my goals a little more realistic.

The five main resolutions/goals I have for this blog in 2014 are as follows:

1. Blog at least once every 4 days:

I was able to accomplish this last year — with the exception of July/August when I was on vacation — and I don’t see any reason why I won’t be able to keep up the same pace this year. Although I had periods where I got up a post every 1-3 days, I feel four is a good number. Anything more would be too long to wait between posts, and anything less would make it too difficult for me to keep up. (I still want to have time to do other things, non baseball related. Imagine that.)

2. Publish 100 posts:

I was able to get 121 posts up in 2013, so I feel confident I’ll be able to do so again this year. But despite my optimism, I don’t want to increase my goal number of 100. Though I’ll probably exceed it, 100 is a nice round number (only 99 more to go). I guess a good goal would be to beat the 121 number in 2014, but we’ll see what happens.

3. Get more views than 2013:

Last year, this goal was to get 100,000 views. Considering the fact that I only amassed just under 76,000 views in 2013 (23,000 better than the previous year), I’m not shooting as high this season. Would 100,000+ views be nice? Yes, absolutely. I’m just not counting on it, and therefore my goal is to get more views this year than I did in 2013. That’s what I’m aiming for anyway — to get better and better every year. And more views is a part of that.

4. Go on a 5-post-blogging-streak:

Just like goal number three, I changed this goal for 2014. In 2013, my goal was to get more views in a single day (892) than I ever had. But that’s out of my control, so I don’t feel the need to keep that as a goal for 2014. Therefore, I’m changing that goal to having at least one streak during the year of publishing five or more posts in a row, day after day. I’ve never done that many, so it will be a challenging goal, but I’m going to do my best to tackle it.

5. Reply to every comment that is left:

This, as I stated last year, is the easiest goal of them all. But even so, I wanted to keep this as a goal, as I feel it’s a very important one — maybe the most important of them all. It may not seem that way, but although I don’t receive a tremendous amount of comments, anytime I do I want to reply back. Whether the comment is a question, about something I’m up to or the post itself, or a general comment or statement, I feel the obligation to reply back. Without the readers this blog wouldn’t be what it is. Replying is my way of saying that the reader is appreciated.

So, there you have it. My top five blogging resolutions/goals for 2014.

As I stated last year — a recurring theme in this blog post — I hope to make this my best year of blogging yet. If I can accomplish what I want to (and plan to), I feel it truly will be. That’s always the overall goal. I think 2014 is going to be an exciting year.

December Blogging Plans

It’s hard to believe, but 2013 is almost over. Just one more month — two and a half months until Spring Training! — remains until 2014 rolls around. It has been an exciting year, baseball-wise and just in general. I can’t complain all that much.

In the final month of the year, I hope to end with a bang by posting some blog posts that both entertain you and inform you. Other than a breaking news story that is impossible to foresee, my blogging schedule right now is fairly set. I don’t want to give everything away, but I will lay out a basic outline so you have an idea of what to expect.

Sometime next week, I plan to post a blog entry on a random baseball topic that presents itself as important at the time. From there, the 2013 MLB G.I.B.B.Y. (Greatness In Baseball Yearly) awards are going to be announced during the winter meetings in Orlando, and I’ll be publishing a blog post on those.

I also want to get two more interviews posted before the end of the year, with one of them being of Oakland Athletics’ top prospect, Addison Russell.

After that, I’m not sure.

I’ll probably do a post during the second half of the month, towards the final week, recapping the goals/resolutions I set for this blog in 2013 back on January 1st. I’m really thrilled with the progress this blog has made in the past year. Things have really come a long way.

So, with all of that said, get ready for what I plan to be a good finish to the 2013 blogging (and calendar) year . . . .

Blogging Resolutions for 2013

Happy New Year, everyone!

I wasn’t planning on posting anything today, but everyone else seemed to be doing it, so I decided that I would join in on the fun.

The five main resolutions/goals I have for this blog in 2013 are as follows:

1. Blog at least once every 4 days:

This shouldn’t be too difficult, but it all comes down to whether or not I can keep one of my non-blogging resolutions for 2013: Stop procrastinating. I’m one of the biggest procrastinators I know, and often I find myself taking a few days to write a blog post that should take just a few hours. Last year there were a few times where I went a full two weeks in between new blog posts, and I don’t want to do that this year. If I can get a blog entry up at least once every 4 days, I’ll be a happy guy.

2. Publish 100 posts:

This ties back into resolution number one. If I can manage to blog once every 4 days, or so, it’ll come out to 91 total posts. So, if I have a few times this year where I go fewer than 4 days between entries, I should easily be able to accomplish 100 new blog posts. I suppose I’m starting off the right way–the first day of 2013, and I already have my first blog post. (Only 99 to go.)

3. Get 100,000 views:

This is a bit of a stretch. I only managed to amass 53,384 views this past year, so it would mean nearly doubling that, but I’m making it one of my resolutions nonetheless. If I can blog as often as I want to, I feel it’s not impossible, however, this is one of my 2013 blogging resolutions that’s out of my hands. I can control whether or not I blog as often as I want to, but I can’t control how many people actually visit my blog. The way I see it, however, more posts equals more views. Hopefully that holds true, and I can reach 100,000 views for the year.

4. Have my one day record for views passed:

As with resolution number three, this is ultimately out of my control. I have no way of knowing whether or not 893 people will decide to click the link to my blog on any one day this year to break the old one day record of 892 views, recorded back on April 4, 2012. With 365 chances to accomplish it, however, maybe it will happen. Only time will tell.

5. Reply to every comment that is left:

My final resolution is the easiest of them all. I feel I did a fairly decent job at it this past year, but as with anything, I could always do better. There were a few comments last year that I failed to reply to for whatever reason, and looking back I feel like I should’ve. (Sorry.) Since it only takes a few minutes a day, this resolution shouldn’t be a problem.

So there you have it. My top five blogging resolutions/goals for 2013.

At the end of the year, I’ll revisit this blog post and recap whether or not I was able to accomplish them all. As stated in my last blog post, I hope to make this my best year of blogging yet. If I can accomplish what I want to (and plan to), I feel it truly will be.