Surprisingly enough, at least to me, this is my 1000th post. The count actually could be higher, SB doesn't count game threads as posts. It amazes me. How many things in life do you have proof that you've done it 1000 times. It would amaze you too if you had been around here when I started. Odds are you weren't.

When I started, I was just going to be filling in for Hugo for a month or so. Hugo, who had been running the place on his own for most of the 2008 season, was going to be away because of work for a month and posted that he needed someone to keep the site running while he was gone. I volunteered because I liked it here (mostly because of his writing) and I like to talk about baseball.

I think the first thing I did was a game thread July 1. After the game I got a note from the nice fellow that runs the baseball sites here saying that I should write a game recap. I didn't know about that. So I wrote a recap. The next game was great fun, we were visited by a bunch of Seattle Mariner fans, some of whom would have been banned had I known how. A day or two later I got another note saying that 'it would be a good idea to put up a post in the morning'. 'You mean I gotta find something to say about the Jays 3 times a day?' A few days later, 'if you can, an afternoon post is a good idea'. And suddenly it seemed like more work than I signed up for. 

That first month wasn't great. I wasn't very good (he says hoping that maybe he's improved). No one was reading anything I was writing. If I got a comment, it was generally to correct a spelling mistake. I'd put up polls and get 5 to 10 votes, at best. The fun was running out quickly. We had, by far, the fewest visits of any of the baseball sites on SB. No one knew we were out there.

Then after a month or so, SI.com mentioned something I wrote. I thought it was cool. Someone actually read something I wrote! And we got a wave of folks visiting the site. Then Hugo came back and we started to build some momentum. The Jays finished the year on a bit of a roll and our numbers were slowly getting better. We worked our way through an off season during which the Jays tried very hard not to give us anything to talk about. And our numbers kept getting better. When the season started we were doing pretty good. We were getting happy comments from SB, congratulating us for our improved numbers.

The other thing that's changed over time is that when I started I was using a screen name, which was ok at first, because no one was reading anything I wrote anyway. But as we were growing, I felt a little strange writing opinions everyday and not signing my name to them. I was feeling it was cowardly or maybe more accurately childish to be hiding behind a silly screen name. So we changed that. 

It has been great fun. thanks to Hugo (hope your work eases up soon, this is much more fun with you) and Jessef. And thanks to the folks at SB Eric and Tyler (who I'm sure had moments of wanting to find other people to run the site) for help and suggestions and all the other SB people that gave help, some knowingly and some whose ideas I 'researched' off their sites.

And thanks to everyone for reading and commenting. I learn stuff everyday. It has been great fun making friends here.