Just a quick post about the recent changes to the design and layout of this blog.

I always intended on putting together my own theme when I moved from the free WordPress site to this domain in April (the ability to customise the site in whatever way I wished was one of the reasons I moved). Finally, it is in place. Hopefully there won’t be any little glitches, but please let me know if so.

Now that the main design is up, I can move on to the second development stage. I’m working on several features to add to this site to compliment the bread-and-butter part of it: the frequent blog posts. Although my enthusiasm (and impatience) is tempting me to plough on with these quickly, the plan is to hold fire and spend time introducing them during those dark November/December months when the baseball withdrawal symptoms are in full swing.

I hope you like the new design. Thanks for your continued support.

Well this is it, my new site is up and running with all of the posts and comments from the previous blog having been moved across.

Setting up this new site has involved a fair bit of planning and I thought everything was finally in place this morning. A few minor problems had to be ironed out, but apart from that it had all been plain sailing. Then I decided to check whether everything worked okay in different web browsers, as suggested by the Theme owner! I use Mozilla Firefox and this site displays without any problems there and it also works fine in Opera; however I tried it with Internet Explorer versions 6 and 7 and was met with a few displaying errors. What I thought was my “perfect” site is actually displaying a few imperfections in these browsers, with the footer not displaying correctly and a few lines appearing on the right hand side of the page. Talk about a kick in the teeth!

I’ve spent the morning seeing if any other themes fit the bill (and work in all browsers!), with depressing results (getting three columns to work in IE is not easy by all accounts). So I’m going to crack on with this theme for now as it was exactly what I was looking for in terms of layout and hope that the slight displaying glitches in Explorer don’t detract too much from the site. Obviously if there are any functionality problems then I will have to think again, but hopefully it will be fine and either the theme owner or myself can fix things in time. If all else fails I will have to find/build another theme, but with a bit of luck it won’t come to that.

Please let me know if you have any major problems.

A year ago today I published my first post on this blog. Often when you read an anniversary post/article it will contain a list of great achievements: vast hit counts and countless examples of their writings being lauded by the great and good.

Not so here!!!

Like every other man and his dog (and the most popular Norfolk blogger is a dog, that’s kind of how our fine county is!), I thought it would be fun to carve out my own space on the Internet. A humble, modest little place where I could write about baseball. Nothing more, nothing less. I certainly didn’t start this venture with grand ideas of large hit counts or propelling myself to “baseball guru” status.

A single hit means one person, somewhere in the world, has taken the time to read what I have written (unless they’ve stumbled here by accident and immediately left – which isn’t unlikely, to be fair). That’s more than enough of a reward for me.

The writing alone is very enjoyable. I’ve always been the writing sort and I had been itching to write about baseball for a while. The sheer devotion of baseball fans to the sport and the outstanding level of baseball writing was both stimulating and a bit intimidating. I was well aware that baseball is a vast ocean and it was only back in 1998 that I first started getting my feet wet, but last winter I felt that it was time to throw away the rubber ring!

I’m not an authority on the sport and I don’t claim to be, but heading into my tenth season I feel confident to state an opinion on most matters and not feel out of my depth (that’s not a cue to test me, please note!). There’s still plenty to learn, yet the beauty of baseball is that even an eighty year veteran could probably say the same thing. And my Britishness has been declared loud and clear, so any clangers can merrily be put down to naivety rather than stupidity. Please feel free to correct me if and when needed!

The Grand Idea

The concept behind this blog, as suggested by the name, is simply to write about baseball from a British perspective.

Being a baseball fan in Blighty can be a bit of a solitary existence, but there is a decent community of like-minded souls thanks in great part to Five’s peerless baseball coverage. This is complimented by a British baseball internet presence for us converts to the sport, lead by the Baseballfan.co.uk website and forum, and the Fantasy Baseball UK website among others. I would like to think this blog could form an additional part of it.

Most British baseball fans have to put up with a fair amount of grief for their love of the sport and I’m sure many have tried to convince friends and family to give it a look before judging it; knowing that if they do they will probably become hooked as well. As mentioned above, baseball can be a bit intimidating to the newcomer so another motivation behind this blog is to make baseball more accessible to British sports fans by discussing it in terms they are familiar with and by explaining things through comparing/relating them to British sporting equivalents.

As an offshoot, the blog (or, more realistically, the occasional post) may provide an entertaining alternative viewpoint for Americans and other baseball fans around the world.

That’s the general idea anyway!

Thanks to every one who has taken a look at this blog during its first year. There’s been a noticeable increase in visitors over the last couple of months (partly due to my increased posting rate I guess!) and I’m delighted to see a few people posting comments as well.

Here’s to year two and beyond.

The absence of posts during the last month has not been a product of sheer laziness, more a sad reflection on how my interest has dipped during the period. The World Cup has played a part, particularly refuelling my appetite for football which was somewhat lost due to a disappointing and demoralising season for my team, Norwich City.

Still, even in a non- football tournament summer, a mid-season Baseball lull is not unusual for me. I think it’s because I’m so used to the format in football where games generally come along once or twice a week, and each individual match-up is unique and important. 162 games is a long hard slog and after a while it can all merge into one. As the season springs to life, the best part of six months of frustration are released and I throw myself into watching as many games as possible. Then I hit a brick wall.

In International Cricket they have brought in a power play rule designed to make the middle overs of a one-day game more exciting. Often the first fifteen overs coast along and the final ten are gripping. In between there is a bit of a plateau where nothing much of note happens. The batting team rolls along picking up runs at a steady if unspectacular pace; the fielding team takes a few wickets which slows the run rate down. That opening period is important because you need to get off to a good start. The last section is crucial as the pressure is intense. The middle section is just a bridge between the two.

In a sense, the baseball season is like a one-day innings in cricket. I’ve enjoyed the opening overs but have lost concentration and I’m waiting for the excitement to pick up again. Of course, this is my fault alone rather than anything being wrong with baseball. The tough regular season schedule is a big part of what baseball such a gruelling sport.

My sabbatical has filled me with a renewed enthusiasm as I look ahead to the post-All Star half of the season. No doubt there will be many twists and turns and I can’t wait to watch them.

Apologies to those of you who have visited over the last few days only to find nothing (or very little!) here.  WordPress have experienced a few major problems over the past few days which has affected all of the many blogs on the system.  Logging into your site and finding all your posts have gone isn't a nice experience, but thankfully WordPress are constantly backing-up all of the blogs so they have been able to completely restore everyone's content.  The WordPress guys have been working hard to fix the problems, and to hopefully stop them happening again.  So everything should be back to normal from now on.  Thanks for your patience, and sorry again.