Home Site Info 2008: the year ahead

2008: the year ahead

by Matt Smith

The start of a new year motivates many of us to look back on the successes and failures of the previous year and to think ahead to what we hope the coming twelve months will bring.

2007 marked the first year of BaseballGB proper, after a year of blogging about baseball on the WordPress network. We moved to this domain in April ’07 and continued to develop the new site over the course of the year.

From a general standpoint, the content was largely focused on the main MLB news. I’m always aware that you visit this site alongside many others related to baseball, so simply rehashing the latest news seems a waste of effort. There are plenty of MLB news feeds out there, so you don’t need me to duplicate that here. So far, I’ve worked on the basis that I will write about topics only when I have something to add to the story and I’m going to continue in that vein.

On top of the standard posts, there were two main regular features during 2007. My ‘Weekly’ hit ground ball column was published every Sunday and all of the posts have been collated into one downloadable document for you to enjoy. In truth, a considerable amount of work went into researching and writing the column every Sunday (amounting to 31,000+ words in total). With other commitments in mind (some relating to this site!), I don’t think I’m going to have the time to continue the column in the same way this year. Perhaps a slimmed-down version, or simply a less-frequent version, will be a good alternative?

The other regular feature was published every Monday evening and consisted of a guide to the baseball games that British fans could catch over the week ahead. I’m a MLB.TV subscriber and during 2006 I missed many great games that I could have watched/listened to during the evening had I known they were on in advance. Going through the schedule every Monday and picking out the matches that would take place during the daytime in the U.S., and therefore in the evening here, was invaluable to me last year and I hope it was useful for you as well. This feature will definitely continue in 2008 and again will also cover the games screened on Five and NASN.

With baseball news coming thick and fast during the regular season, I held back a few ideas for the off-season. As posted previously, my plan is to add several “resources” to the site to compliment the blog posts. The first of these has already been launched: my book reviews. They will be a regular feature during the off-season and I will continue adding them once the season has started as well. The other main new resource will be a series of ‘baseball primers’. I want BaseballGB to appeal to newcomers to the sport as well as established fans. Now, the Internet contains a staggering amount of information about baseball and if you search long enough you will generally find what you are looking for. But I thought it would be useful to write some fact sheets aimed specifically at Brits, focusing on the topics that can be confusing for us when we first come to the game and explaining them in ways that Brits will easily understand. I hope to start adding these in February.

Finally, one of the unexpected treats of 2007 was the European Baseball Championships. I became aware of the event completely by accident, by chance seeing it in the Eurosport TV listings, and being able to watch and report on the British team’s progress was hugely enjoyable (not least because they performed so well). As the World Baseball Classic had done in 2006, this experience really opened my eyes to the world of baseball outside of MLB. While the Major Leagues will continue to be the main focus of this site (rightfully so, I think), I aim to supplement this by writing about the British and International baseball scene as well.

So, there’s lots to look forward to. If you would like to get involved, I would be delighted to here from you. Please send me an e-mail by putting Matt next to @baseballgb.co.uk in your e-mail address bar.

Thanks for your continued to support.

Matt.

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