Introducing BaseBlog 2.0

The final chapter of  the off-season transition.

You have 19 reasons to see why this season was great if you click on the archives on the right.

But for as nice as it was, it's time to move on. The end of the season makes an easy breaking point, so it's time to start making the changes I've been thinking about all season. This is pretty important to me; it's my first off-season and I want to prove I can make this even better.

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Blog Improvements

• Grammar- I'm well aware that some sentences and paragraphs were confusing and tough to read. I don't trust that I could catch every single mistake. I finally decided to do something about it when I was re-reading the 'Old Hoss' Radbourn entry, where I typed "a884" instead of "1884". If I have time, I'll go back and check every entry again for more mistakes I missed, as well as formatting issues. There's a bunch of unexplained spaces between paragraphs and font changes. It pissed me off, and delayed my posting more than once. It bugs me that much. If I have enough time this break, I'll go back and re-edit every single entry to try to find more mistakes. I give myself a little benefit of the doubt since I was still new to this. From here on, all of that will be fixed for future entries the first time I post it. If I want to be taken seriously with this and gain more followers, I need to make it look as professional as I can.

• Timeliness- At the beginning of the season, I wanted everything to be perfect. I waited two whole weeks before putting up my first game entry, just because I wanted to scan my ticket and put it as the first picture. Towards the middle of the year, I was working on something almost every night. But sometimes I was at RBF, or even falling MORE behind by going to another game. The delay got up to about a month, and I felt that was still okay. I thought I was still working as quickly and efficiently as I could.
  
  By the end of the season, the delay had doubled to TWO months. For this, I sincerely apologize. School work hit me like a ton of bricks; much harder to manage than I expected. I simply didn't have the luxury to spend a few hours every weekend typing and uploading pictures. Fortunately, I've gotten lots of practice and know almost exactly what I want to write and how to go about doing so. Now when I have loads of time in the summer, everything will go quicker. My goal for the summer is to have an entry posted at least once a week. 

• Other Entries- I have a list in front of me with a dozen topics that I'm DYING to write about. Because I was so late putting my games up, I didn't give myself many chances to sprinkle those topics in. The bottleneck started when school did, and I figured I would just hold off until Winter. After this entry, I'll have a few interesting factoids and more personal experiences I've had in years past. I will make sure to keep up a good mix of games and other entries once next season starts, too.

Game Improvements

• Night Games- I cannot stress this enough; EVERY game needs to be a night game next year. For those of you that don't know, it's rare for teams to take BP before day games. Nearly every day game has a night game preceding it, and these superstars need their beauty sleep.
  
  What I'm fortunate for is being placed in Chicago and going to Wrigley. The Cubs play more day games at home than any other team in the majors by far. By having two day games in a row, as they very often do at Wrigley, there wouldn't be as large of a determent to hitting before the second game. Since the Cubs players are used to this cycle, they hit almost every day game. More often than not, the other team got out there, too. For this, I count my blessings. It was borderline scary to have to peek at the field before the gates opened and see what was up. It was the most deflating feeling when I saw there would be no BP, bringing the chances for a ball to virtually zero.
  
  Therefore, I will do my best to make sure I don't attend any day games. I don't just want to be successful; I want to dominate. I know there will be a direct correlation to the late start times and the number of balls I catch.

• Don't put pressure on myself- I've touched on this a few times before, but until my near year long streak was broken at the beginning of July, I was fearful of what my reaction would be to not getting a ball. I found getting just one ball was fairly easy, and almost a given. The thought of ending my streak got me too worked up. When it happened, I was extremely frustrated and pretty angry. After thinking rationally and being mad for 15 minutes, the worst was over. I came to an abrupt realization. I was not an expert by any means.
  
  I've developed my own methods, and even built a section into my 'rules' on how to handle and react to the issue. (Basically, it depends on the situation. Some games are harder than others, or I could have plain sucked it up). This is MY hobby, so I should do it in my own personal way, and not directly compare myself and my stats to anyone else. I have not even scratched the surface when it comes to being the best of the best. Every game and new experience will be a lesson I can use to build on for the future. That's going to be the case for a pretty long time.

• Bleachers- Here's the first look at my plans for next season.
  
  I'm sick of just chilling on the foul lines waiting for my one and only chance of the day. Every time I'm at Wrigley next year, I'll be spending it in the Bleachers. That's something I've never done before. I'm not a Bleacher type of guy, but like I said, I plan to dominate. I'll only be there (at most) five times anyway, so it's not a huge commitment.  (Uh oh...did I accidentally drop an extra hint in there?)

(In addition to all this, BaseBlog is now a construction zone. I'll fool with layouts, photo presentation, headings, fonts, and other junk like that. It could look different every time you visit. Whatever I may change, it'll be set by Spring Training.)

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For the first entry of 2013, I want to tell the story of the one item that the sport can't do without, and some secrets that may make your jaw drop.