Seven years later, I'm still here

Today is my 7th anniversary of writing on the site. 7 years. It doesn't seem that long, except after losses. Those times I sit there and try to figure another way to say 'that was awful'.

Since I started on the site the Blue Jays are 549-579 (maybe I'm the problem). In the years I've been writing, we've finished 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 5th and 3rd and are sitting 4th right now.

Things were so much different back when I started, in 2008. John Gibbons was the manager, but he was on the hot seat, the team was expected to win and they weren't. At the time, I was all for Gibby being fired. I was irritated with his lack of patience, but then he knew he had to win or get fired. He wasn't exactly in a spot where he could take the long view. The final straw for me, was when the Jays called up Adam Lind, gave him 18 at bats, and then sent him back to the minors, replacing him with Brad Wilkerson and Kevin Mench, two players that were past their primes (not that they were very good in their prime).

Gibbons didn't last lost, a few weeks later he was gone. Cito took over, insisted on bringing up Lind and the team when on a bit of a run, before fading at the end. The team finished 86-76, fourth in the AL East. We were hoping there were better things ahead. We are still hoping.

Cito got replaced by John Farrell (that went so well) and back to Gibbons. I'm only on my second GM. J.P. Ricciardi was the incredibly unpopular GM when I started. Now we have Alex, who isn't as unpopular but that last approval poll ran 23% approve, 23% neutral and 53% do not approve.

7 years....I was only supposed to be filling in for Hugo for a couple of months. Back then the site was mostly just GameThreads and I figured I could put up Gamethreads for a couple of months. After the first game, I got a note from the nice fellow who managed the baseball sites, saying that after the game we write a recap. I said I haven't seen recaps on the site. He said 'write a recap'. So I did.

A couple of days later he said 'you should up up a morning post'. I said 'I haven't seen morning posts on the site before'. He said 'write a morning post'.

About a week later he said 'you know, an afternoon post is a good idea'. So in the space of two weeks, I went from never writing anything, to 4 posts a day.

I didn't think I would last long. But we are 7 year in, and I'm sitting somewhere around 6250 posts (not counting GameThreads).

Things have changed. Thankfully, we have several writers on the site now (we can always use more). We get comments on the posts, reading other opinions is the best part of the site. I'm not the only person in the GameThreads. We have a Facebook page. We have a Twitter account (because just running the site doesn't take up enough time). And people actually come to the site, which still amazes me.

It has been a great ride. It's still my favorite sandbox. I'm lucky to get to do this. I'm very thankful for all the friends I've made because of this.

But, I'll admit, one day, I'd like to write about a winner.