If you’re reading this then in some ways the comment is a redundant, but after several months of planning and testing I’ve finally been able to give live with the new website design.
Here’s a short video in which I go through the new features and layout.
As we’re now into February, I’ve started to firm up plans for BaseballGB for the coming season.
I’m going to get back into the swing of doing a weekly round-up of British baseball news, with various other features on top. It was my plan to do that last year too and this was scuppered by the BSUK/BBF website issues that resulted in a significant drop-off in fixtures, scores and league tables being published, but hopefully that’s behind us now.
Whilst in previous years I’ve tended to concentrate on longer articles for MLB stories, this season I’m going to be doing a bit more classic blogging. So shorter posts, perhaps, but on a more frequent basis. I’ll also be adding in my Monday ‘MLB Early games’s column, which somewhat went by the wayside in the second half of last season and the guilt felt in receiving several messages and emails seeking it out was balanced out by gratitude that some people cared enough to notice and get in contact!
The one other main change is that I had previously written occasional Oakland A’s columns (‘Thank you for the A’s’) here. These will now switch to my latest venture into the unknown that is our recently launched Oakland A’s UK YouTube channel. If you haven’t seen that yet, the short ‘About the channel’ video is embedded below.
If you’ve got any other ideas of features you’d like to see, or if you’re keen to get involved, let me know in the comments section or by sending me a message using the Get In Contact form.
Cheers!
If you’ve not found this post via a link on Twitter, you’ve probably just had a bit of a surprise.
Yes, it all looks a bit different, doesn’t it?
It’s been a while since I gave the website a new look and this one has been in the making for a few months. The dawn of the offseason was a good time to dedicate some hours to finalize it all as a distraction from the relative lack of baseball games to enjoy.
All 2,250+ posts from March 2006 onwards are still here, just with a new lick of digital paint. The formatting on some of the older posts may not be perfect, but I hope you’ll forgive me for not going through every single post from the archive. That would have been a big project in itself -Â I suspect we’re past the 1 million word mark combined over all the posts, which took me back a bit when I worked it out -Â and the new design is primarily about moving forward.
The main change from a navigating point of view is that the home page is more of a designed offering, linking to recent posts and highlighting a few featured articles, rather than immediately taking you to lots of posts. More people tend to come to the site direct to a specific post via a link or search rather than hit the homepage and browse about, so immediately linking through to all the posts didn’t seem so important and not doing so means those who do visit the home page get a more tailored view.
The posts can still be found easily by clicking on the ‘All posts’ link on the navigation menu, or choose the relevant sub-category if you’re particularly interested in MLB, British Baseball or another available option.
The new site design is also intended to fit the current publishing routine. In years past there has been a variety of writers on the site and it’s now developed to being written mainly by myself, with some fantasy baseball offerings from Mark George and the odd piece of baseball history from Joe Gray courtesy of his Project Cobb press releases.
That’s fine with me, it’s so easy now to put together a good-looking blog that most people want to start and stick to their own place to follow their own muse however they wish. Still, if you’d like to join in, even just on an occasional guest basis, then please use the Get in Contact page to drop me a line.
The final point from a design perspective is that my trusty old BGB logo has been replaced by a simpler and, hopefully, quite stylish new logo that ties in with the colour scheme and overall look of the new site (the old logo is still on the Baseball Basics for Brits articles and I’ll update those at some point over the offseason).
I hope you like the new look and please let me know if you find any glaring bugs along the way.
Thanks for your continuing support of the website.
Cheers
Matt
On Monday I published the latest installment in my ‘Weekly Hit Ground Ball’ column completely oblivious to the fact that in doing so I had reached a landmark.
It was the 2000th post on the BaseballGB website.
Not for the first time – and certainly not for the last – Joe Gray’s attention to detail came to the fore and left me wondering quite how I had missed it. When I logged into the website the number was staring straight at me. By then the post counter had ticked its way to 2001 courtesy of Joe’s excellent article about the Croydon Pirates’ 2005 European Cup adventure – not quite a space odyssey, I think, although we’ll have to wait for the second part of the story to find out – and I’m not sure how I hadn’t noticed we were closing in on the big round figure.
Rather than put it down to a woeful lack of insight, I’ve decided instead to bring ‘fate’ into the equation as a convenient way to excuse myself.
I’m the sort of person who likes to quietly get on with things. I spend many hours, perhaps a few too many for my own good, in quiet contentment watching baseball and writing about what sparks my imagination – alongside other interests – and I enjoy it immensely. As the lead writer at the website it would probably help if I was more inclined to make a song and dance about things – things like our 2000th post, for example – as a way to promote what we do, but for better or worse that’s just not how I am.
If I had seen the post counter at 1,990 I may have felt under an obligation to plan out the 2000th post, feeling that it would be the right thing to do. Instead, I just carried on writing in my usual way and I’m glad that’s how it worked out.
Those 2000 posts have been written over a period of 7 years, roughly three-quarters by myself. with Joe and Mark George adding over 430 excellent contributions and several other writers chipping in along the way.
For some websites, taking 7 years to publish 2000 posts would seem a bit tardy, but the emphasis here has always been less on quick, short news posts – there are many other websites and blogs that do that really well – and more on writing something a bit more substantial.
Creating 7 solid years of posts, averaging out at 285 per year, doesn’t seem like a bad effort. Despite my ponderous promotion skills, even I’m prepared to commit to type that this shows we’re a dedicated bunch.
From post 1 to post 2003 and counting , the basic idea has remained the same: ‘what can us British baseball fans write about – and in what way – that adds something a bit different to the great mix of baseball writing out there?’. And that’s the way it will stay, whether we’re covering British baseball – from the current season to documenting the sport’s rich and varied history – or taking a British-eyed view on MLB.
Here’s to the next 2000 posts? Well, why not.
Although it’s probably best not to rely on me to know about it when we’re closing in on 4,000.
Following on from this week’s Weekly Hit Ground Ball column, I’ve updated the first volume in our Baseball Basics for Brits series.
Volume 1 takes a look at the MLB season, from the way the divisions are structured to how the regular season schedule works and the different rounds of the postseason.
The Volume has been amended to:
As you will see, our new website design has been launched today in good time for the new baseball season.
You may be familiar with the overall design. It’s using the BoldNews WordPress theme by the WooThemes company, which is used on various other blogs. I really like the standard design and functionality that the theme offers, so I haven’t undertaken a significant amount of modifications to it at this stage beyond adding the site logo and a few subtle tweaks here and there.
One of the benefits of the theme, indeed of all the WooThemes products, is that you can do quite a lot of customization fairly easily. I’ll be continuing to work on this over the next couple of weeks, so you’ll see the design develop during that period, but it seemed a good idea to get the new design up so that the extra functionality it brings can start to be used as soon as possible. This includes:
All of these points combine in some way, but the final one listed gets to the heart of the overall change that this new design is part of.
We’re aiming for a more flexible writing arrangement this season and the new design has been chosen to complement this approach. Several articles can be displayed in the top, prominent area, so a greater number of the longer, less time-dependent, pieces of writing will be highlighted, whilst the post area below will allow us to add in shorter pieces much more easily than before without them being overshadowed.
Shorter pieces – traditional blog posts, if you like – tended to get lost in the shuffle in the old design with the consequence that I often saved up ideas and comments with the intention of working them into longer articles. Often other news would then come along so the shorter idea would go by the wayside and I would regularly think back to the topic and consider it a shame that I hadn’t published something about it after all. In particular, posts that are more immediate and current are much more likely to inspire you – the readers – to share your own thoughts whilst the story is fresh in your mind.
All in all, when I was reviewing the site’s 2011 content over the Christmas/New Year break, this was one key area where I thought we (particularly myself) could be doing an even better job.
In line with this, I’ve decided to make some changes to my two main weekly columns that I’ve written for several years.
I won’t be writing my weekly Monday morning MLB column, Weekly Hit Ground Ball, this season. My plan is to give myself the space to write two or three 400-500 word pieces per week rather than one 800-1,200 word article. If a topic does deserve a longer article then it will of course still be covered in that way; however moving away from the rigid schedule should give me more licence to explore different themes and stories.
As for my weekly Thursday morning British Baseball Beat column, this will continue but in a slightly reduced and different form.
You may have read on the BaseballSoftballUK website that I shall be writing the weekly National Baseball League round-up for the the BBF website this season, with the occasional pinch-writing stint from fellow writers here. Dave Hill, Michael Jones and Matt Cartwright combined to cover the AAA-North and South and the AA-Midlands divisions brilliantly last year on the BBF website and BSUK’s aim is for each division to be covered by someone, with stories and reports hopefully available on the BBF website early each week.
My previous British Baseball Beat column approach was to cover each league in turn, but this would now largely duplicate the pieces on the BBF website, so it makes sense for me to change things around. I’ll continue to preview some of the top games scheduled for the upcoming weekend, but I’ll also use the column more as a collection of notes/curiosities/off-the-field news and commentary.
That’s the thinking behind it all.  I hope that the changes in design and approach amount to a welcome evolution of the things that you already enjoy here at this website. Sharing a passion is always a great place to start when it comes to creating something worthwhile, but it’s important that a strong starting point doesn’t lead to complacency and that you always look to new ideas and ways to keep things fresh and exciting, both for those reading the content and for those writing it. Along those lines, I’m always keen to add new writers into the mix so please get in contact if you would like to contribute to the site.
As with any new design, testing doesn’t guarantee that every little gremlin will be found so if you do find any quirks or errors then please pass on the details. There will be a certain amount of tinkering as the new design beds in, so please accept my apologies if any temporary oddities crop up along the way.
Thanks for your continued support. Enjoy the upcoming season.
Cheers
Matt
After a brief post-World Series breather, baseball is back to keeping hold of my attention and taking up most of my spare time. Which is just how I like it.
Calling it an offseason in MLB doesn’t really seem accurate. It’s the no-game season; that’s the only thing that we’re missing. Admittedly, the games are the best and most important part, but the point is there is still an enormous amount of stories and events to keep us occupied.
That’s applicable as a baseball fan first and foremost, but also as the editor and main writer here at BaseballGB. There is no shortage of things to write about.
On MLB alone, now is a great time to reflect on the engrossing season that we have just enjoyed. I’ll be doing my division-by-division season review, keeping my promise of looking back at our predictions to see how right, or in my case wrong, we were. Player transactions and off-the-field developments, not least the ongoing Collective Bargaining Discussions, will also give us plenty to discuss.
There is of course a wonderful wide world of baseball out there beyond MLB that deserves our attention, including the areas that can provide those of us with ballgame withdrawal symptoms a chance to follow games over the winter months.Â
Britain doesn’t quite offer that, but it will be the source of plenty of discussion around future developments in the sport on those shores. The news today on BaseballSoftballUK about a major baseball and softball facility development project at Farnham Park near Slough is one of many reasons to be optimistic for 2012 and beyond. There’s plenty of work to do to move the sport forward, and it’s not all going to be easy, but it should be well worth the effort.
And the relative lack of ballgames does have one upside: extra time to catch up on some baseball reading. Continue reading
The process of updating our Baseball Basics for Brits series continues with a revised version of volume 2.
The second volume in the series covers the construction of MLB rosters. It can be a relatively dry, somewhat technical subject but it’s one that deserves to be covered for two reasons:
There haven’t been any real changes since the first edition of the volume from 2008 to either roster construction rules or how teams use their allocation of 25 spots each day. Continue reading
The first couple of months of the new year are my standard time to review the content and features of BaseballGB and to plan for the upcoming season.Â
One of the tasks I’m working on is reviewing and updating my Baseball Basics for Brits series. The stats show that this is one of the most frequently accessed parts of the site, not least because the BBC website kindly links to it on their baseball page. It’s always been an objective of this website to encourage more Brits to take an interest in the sport and having a series that explains the basics in a way specifically written for a British audience is part of this.
I’m going to be updating the first four volumes one per week over the next month.
Volume 1 focuses on how the MLB season is structured. There haven’t been many changes relating to this since the guide was originally published, although some amendments might be needed in the next couple of years.Â
I’ll definitely need to update the list of teams next year to take into account the Florida Marlins being renamed as the Miami Marlins as part of their move to a new ballpark. The sections on the leagues, divisions and post-season will also need to be rewritten if potential changes to them are actually introduced. It looks almost certain that the post-season will be expanded to ten teams in the near future, maybe for the 2012 season, while the recent discussions in regard to a potential realignment of the leagues and divisions appear to be at the very early stages and may not come to anything for the time being at least. Continue reading
It’s Christmas time once again.Â
Brewers fans had their main present a few days ago in the form of Zack Greinke, while Phillies fans got an unexpected early treat in the form of the returning Cliff Lee. Other teams have picked up useful players along the way as well (my A’s acquiring Hideki ‘Godzilla’ Matsui, for example) and if you’re still waiting for a present or two (fans of the two New York teams would fall into that category), fear not as they may arrive in the new year.
A bit like the thousands of presents ordered online that are currently stuck in transit.
Part of the appeal of Christmas is that it gives you a chance to look back at the last year with friends and family. 2010 was another very enjoyable year from my perspective as editor of this website. It was a great year of action in MLB and in the British leagues, although the Great Britain national story didn’t turn out quite as well as we all hoped, and that made writing about it all the more fun.
My personal highlights were starting a regular column focusing on British baseball, which seemed to go down well, and making my national media debut on BBC 5 Live. It was broadcast at five to seven on a Sunday morning and the presenter bungled the website name (“Baseball UK, umm …. GB!”), but it was a nice bit of recognition for the website anyway.
Thanks to all who have contributed comments or who have passed by over the past year.  I wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year (full of baseball, of course).
Cheers!