Happy Birthday to Us

Bluebird Banter is 16 years old today. Sweet 16 and never been kissed.

It started just a couple of days after the Blue Jays traded for Lyle Overbay (for David Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson). The trade got a very favourable review.

The Jays are 1248-1242 since our birth (over .500!).

The first post is here, written by Marc Normandin. Marc has since written for many, many different sites. Now he has a place of his own. He didn’t stay at the site long. Mark W. and Slitheringslider soon took over. Hugo joined in 2007 and was running things when I found the site. Hugo was always interesting to read, and he used (mostly) obscure song lyrics for post titles. I found a lot of good music by searching out the song he used in a post. And it gave the blog a personality.

I started writing here in 2008 and kept the song lyric post titles going for a while, but SEO concerns (I would get emails from the PTB SB Nation saying ‘those song lyric titles are cool and all, STOP IT’). Add in that I would spend more time trying to find lyrics that somewhat fit than I would spend writing the post.

Over the years, we’ve had many excellent writers join us: JohnnyG, Jessef, masterkembo and Woodman665 (Jasper Bosman) joined in soon after I started. In 2011 Minor Leaguer joined. Scott C. joined us in Jan of 2013. We’ve also had posts from Nick Ashbourne, Jared Book, Michael Bradburn, Gerse, Damaso’s Burnt Shirt, TFSML, Jared Macdonald, Noah Sherman, Mike Hannah, Kevin Papetti, Sean Herman, eelliott29, Jake Sinclair, Mark Colley, Cole Shelton, dexfarkin, and Martin Barratt. I know I’m missing some. I apologize for any I have missed.

Matt W started doing posts for us in March of 2014, and now it is hard to imagine the place without him. Matt Gross came to us in the Troy Tulowitzki trade. Kate joined us in 2017. Erik.T has given us many great posts over the last few years. Expo45 and Siefert have also chipped in with several posts.

We can always use more voices. Email me if you would like to contribute.

Since that first one, we’ve had 16,961 posts (plus or minus a couple) on the site. And we’ve had 2714 FanPosts. Of course, we could always use more FanPosts.

It will be 14 years on the site for me next summer. On my first day, we got invaded by folks from Lookout Landing in the GameThread that day, which made it interesting. Back then, I didn’t know where the ban button was then. I’ve since found it (someone joined and put up an ad for financial services, that sort of thing will get you banned quick).

For most of my first year, I was often alone in the GameThreads, but that changed pretty quickly, thankfully.

The site has been one of the very lovely things that have happened in my life. It sure helped me get through the last couple of years. I am fortunate to have made some great friends here.

Later today, I’ll find a nice glass of scotch to celebrate.