The Futility Infielder

When it comes to the end of the baseball season, nothing hits home for finality, as far as I'm concerned, than when ESPN.com moves its MLB link off of the top of its navbar. As soon as the World Series becomes old news, the behemoth brushes Hot Stove diehards to the margins while football and basketball take get their cracks at dominating the nation's sports consciousness. The baseball sections of many a paper's website become bare cupboards rife with 404 errors and devoid of even the crumbs which can fuel a rumor worth getting excited about.

It's three months until Pitchers and Catchers, and piles of snow will fall before then, turning into guttersludge that's as gray as our collective mood unless we're wearing red socks or residing in red states. What would you give to be waiting out a pitching change right now?

This seemingly barren landscape is one which bloggers such as myself have turned into fertile ground over the past few years. Those of us who spend the entire year thinking about baseball often use this time to plot a course for our favorite teams, assess trades and free-agent signings, and ruminate about aspects of the game which may slip between the cracks during the hustle and bustle of the 162-game slate and the mad dash of October. Ask bloggers about the offseason and you'll find a surprising number of folks admitting that they enjoy writing more during this less hectic time, whether it's to resume their relationships with the rest of the world (particularly those neglected wives and girlfriends), to dig into longer projects, or simply to recharge their batteries.

But this offseason has seen a couple of high-profile bloggers go even further than that. The leading bloggers of the two World Series teams have retired their respective sites within a couple of weeks of the big dance. The day after the Red Sox long-awaited victory, Edward Cossette announced the close of Bambino's Curse, one of the few blogs to predate this one, proclaiming "Mission Accomplished (For Real)!" Cossette told his readers:

My work here is done.

This will be the final, regular post to the Bambino's Curse weblog. The site, however, and all the archives will remain online forever, as a small testament and recollection of what it was like to be a fan before the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918. (Like anyone wants to relive that!)

And I will resurface somewhere, somehow, and in some form in the future (like Dr. Who after a regeneration). Indeed, I just this morning bought a couple of domains that I may use for the new endeavor.

With somewhat less theater, Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation hung up his cleats last week as well, telling readers, "As you can guess, keeping Redbird Nation fresh and lively is a huge time and energy commitment, and the sacrifices I'd have to make to come back for a third year are too great."

Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts has written a thoughtful feature-length piece on this changing of the guard and the turnover rate among bloggers. One of Gunn's responses to a Wesiman question succinctly captures many of the perks and pitfalls of being a blogger:

"One of the virtues of blogs is that they’re essentially limitless - you can write as much or as little as you want, any time of the day or night. But this can also be a trap. Because you have no deadlines, you feel like you’re always on the clock. Because you have no editor or space limitations, you feel like you can always be writing more. The form practically begs you to be more expansive. Throw in the fact that bloggers tend to have compulsive personalities (actually that’s not a fact at all - more of a casual observation), and you end up with a lot of folks who have problems establishing boundaries with their blogging. Or at least that’s true in my case."

I can certainly identify with that "on the clock" feeling. Here I am, just returned from a long weekend 3,000 miles away, having wrenched my back dragging my luggage through Sea-Tac airport immediately before sitting on a plane for five hours. And the first productive thing I can do beyond feeding myself, sorting my mail, and gobbling anti-inflammatories is to write a blog entry.

Ironically, the contrasting statement which follows Gunn's is one from yours truly; my post-travel actions to the contrary, I simply don't see myself as quite as compulsive as some:

"I’m not manic about posting every day," Jaffe said. "My general feeling is that unless I can put together at least four or five interesting paragraphs on a topic, I’ll leave it for somebody else to cover until I can weigh in. If that means posting two or three times a week as opposed to five or six, so be it."

Okay, enough with the meta-whatever of me quoting myself. Weisman's questions did provoke a bit of soul searching as to why I continue this endeavor after three and a half years and what keeps me going. I guess the best answer I can give beyond what you'll find in that piece -- stuff about connecting with my readers and with other bloggers and wanting to eventually make some money from my writing -- is something that missed the cut. Namely, that from the start I conceptualized the Futility Infielder as something beyond a blog and that I see it as an unfolding narrative which goes both forwards and backwards in time, sure to yield enough material to mine in both directions. Hence the Wall of Fame, the Game Reports, and lengthier features.

Thanks to a great deal from GoDaddy.com I currently own the FI domain through 2012 -- beyond the length of Alex Rodriguez's 10-year deal, albeit for considerably less cash -- and while I'm not sure of the twists and turns the road between here and there will take, this site is as permanent as anything I can conceptualize. So while I'll tip my cap to Cossette and Gunn on jobs well done and wish them well in their future endeavors, I guess I'm here to say that you won't get rid of me that easily.