Just when I thought I was out...

Keeping with the theme of this week, I'm going back to something I always enjoyed doing: Writing about the Detroit Tigers.

My friend Mike McClary has generously cleared some space on the desk for me to contribute at The Daily Fungo, and I plan to write there a few times a week. I wrote my first post over there today.

Whenever a character is rebooted in comic books or movies, the new creators often say they’re taking him “back to his roots.” Let’s remember that Superman is ultimately a farm boy from Kansas or that Peter Parker is always trying to make up for not using his powers to stop a crime when he could have.

OK, that’s a bit loftier than whatever it is I’m doing.

You know me. I always have to work in a comic book reference when I can. 

But I'm excited to be writing about my favorite baseball team regularly again. It's going to be fun, which is the whole point of the whole thing. I hope you'll click over to the Fungo frequently to see what we're up to. Thank you. 

The restatement of purpose

Since the beginning of the year, I've been meaning to ramp up some new content on this blog.

That's a sentence and sentiment that I've expressed too many times before without following through — or following through on briefly before conceding to other commitments, time and probably a good share of laziness.

But the past year has made it clear what's important to me. And though it may seem trivial to some, this blog is important to me — and I should treat it that way.

Writing something for myself is something I need to do, even if it's a response to a movie trailer, an article I've read or some goofy meme that's developed online. It's what keeps this feeling like a hobby, something I truly enjoy, instead of feeling entirely like work. 

Finding your passion and being able to make a living from it is the dream for most of us. But when a hobby becomes work, that becomes a tricky situation. It makes you think about how much you truly love that endeavor, and how much of your life it should occupy. 

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Maybe some are ready to say "Oh, boo-hoo!" as they read this. (Thank you for reading, by the way.) I realize plenty of people don't like their jobs. And there are many others who are yearning for full-time work, never mind whether or not it's in something they enjoy. 

Yet people tough out their jobs because they need to provide for themselves and their family. But there's something to be said for a job just being a job, getting to leave it at the office and having a life outside of your work. Very few people are defined by their work. 

Over the past year, however, I felt like something was getting away from me. I was becoming so consumed with the job at hand that it overcame everything else in my life. There was no healthy balance, perhaps most typified by how little sleep I'd been getting. (That became something of an obsession for me.) There was no joy. 

So this is part of me trying to get that back, to find what I feel like I lost over the past year. I just hope I'm not coming off as a whiner as I write about this stuff. 

But maybe there's a reason you lose certain things from your life as you get older. Maybe you outgrow certain interests. Of course, taking on new responsibilities leaves less time for other pursuits too. 

However, I can't shake the feeling that... geez, I used to be a lot more interesting. Or at least I used to find myself more interesting. I used to read a hell of a lot more. I used to be far more informed. I could hold a conversation or write a blog post on just about anything relating to current events, pop culture, TV, movies or sports. 

Then I remember that I'm not in school anymore. 

I'm not riding the bus to and from campus, giving me a solid half-hour to an hour during which I could read a bunch of articles printed up from the New York Times, Washington Post, Salon and Slate. I had a university library system — including LexisNexis — available to give me anything and everything I wanted and needed to read. There was no such thing as an obscure article or work of literature. 

I had the time and ambition to write anything I wanted to. I was writing short stories and nonfiction essays. I had time between classes — along with late nights and early mornings fueled by a younger me — to post stuff on my blog.

Perhaps most importantly, I could crank it out too. Sometimes, the words just flowed from my fingertips to the keyboard. 

But it recently occurred to me that this was also nearly 10 years ago. Who's the same as he or she was 10 years ago? (Other than, like, Jay Leno.) 

So maybe what I'm really looking for is a time machine. Unfortunately, I don't know the guy from Safety Not Guaranteed, so that's probably not an option. 

Apparently, I want to be who I was 10 years ago. Or at the very least, I want my life to be as simple as it was 10 years ago. That's surely not realistic. Does coming to that realization mean I've grown up? Who the hell knows? I certainly can't say. 

This is all a long way — 750 words, approximately — way of saying that I'd really like to write some stuff for myself and get a damn good blog going again. (The "damn good" part is subjective to opinion, of course.) 

But does blogging as we once knew it exist anymore?

You know, with the blogroll in the sidebar and the link culture that fostered? Is there a community among like-minded bloggers — whether the subject is sports, music, movies or just local culture — anymore or is everyone just out there fending for him or herself, hoping to latch on with a larger outlet (one that hopefully pays relatively well)? 

Blogging certainly isn't dead, despite the hobbyists who once did it now sharing their opinions and life moments on Facebook and Twitter. Many of those who still do it well are linked in my blogroll. The form has changed, but it's probably grown up as well. (Well... unless your blog is stocked full of GIFs and memes, maybe.) 

So here it is. I intend to write regularly here and not veer off track as I have in the past. There's been something of a "soft opening" over the past couple of months as I joined the rest of the world and started a Tumblr site, repurposing some of that content here. But this is going to be a "real" blog, man. 

(Naturally, if a great full-time writing job comes along, I reserve the right to walk back from that statement. But I don't think that's happening anytime soon.)

I certainly hope that the friends I always meant to entertain and inform with my blog are still checking in, along with other friends and fans I picked up along the way. Thank you for reading and I'll try my best to give you a reason to keep coming back. 

The industry of cool?

I don't know if it's just a coincidence or happenstance, but I've gotten a few requests for advice and mentoring from prospective sports writers and bloggers over the past year.

This is something that I have some trouble comprehending, as I have hardly figured anything out for myself. But I'm always happy to talk about blogging with anyone, especially as I know how difficult it can be to establish any sort of foothold, let alone gainful employment.

Later this week, I'll be meeting up with someone who wants to be a sports blogger. He e-mailed and asked if we could meet over coffee so he could “pick my brain.” 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I actually have a lot to share on the subject based on my experiences of the last 12 months. The question is whether or not this guy will want to hear about it. 

I imagine the conversation over coffee will go much like this scene from Almost Famous, when Lester Bangs meets young William Miller.

I can guarantee, however, that I won't be offering our aspiring blogger $35 for 1,000 words on the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

But I might just recommend that he read this essay on writing for free from Jason Fry. 

No one is forcing you to use Twitter, grumpy old men

It's easy to point at curmudgeons in old (print) media who willingly fossilize themselves and refuse to adapt as their industry changes. 

You can see the cliffside falling behind these people, yet they refuse to acknowledge what's happening and take a step forward to safety.

They're going to fall off the edge when it crumbles away. And land in a little "poof" hundreds of feet down, like Wile E. Coyote.

So the grumpy old man being ridiculed by media observers on the internet today is Steve Henson, managing editor of the Pueblo Chieftain. 

Henson was apparently dragged kicking and screaming into starting a Twitter account, mostly so he could "get with it" and communicate with young people. Never mind that saying "get with it" probably ages you at least 20 years in the eyes of these upstarts who venture in the murky waters of social media. 

So does writing 750-word columns attempting to explain Twitter to an audience that's already way ahead of him. 

Jim Romenesko already ripped Henson for making newspaper editors look bad by being so out of touch. Yet underneath all the bellyaching about Twitter, Henson seems like he gets how Twitter can be a useful tool to promote his newspaper. But then he goes on a long, tortured rant regarding what personal Tweets describing his day would look like.

And there is where Henson completely misses the point. When readers and followers ask for Tweets asking him to write about his day, they're presumably showing an honest curiosity in how his job works, how the news is put together for consumption. How about indulging that interest and engaging his audience, rather than mocking them with jokes about Tweeting his bathroom routine? 

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Grousing about Twitter being a forum for people saying what they had for lunch is such an old, tired complaint now, right up there with saying bloggers write in their pajamas, out of their mother's basement. I guess Henson hasn't looked out of his office much recently and noticed all other forms of media enthusiastically embracing Twitter. (It's so pervasive that it has the appearance of reporters and networks trying to seem cool.) 

Apparently, he's overlooked the fact that Twitter is increasingly being used as a news source, where people can get real-time updates on news, breaking or otherwise, instead of waiting for websites, TV and newspapers to tell them what's happening. Sure, others (including myself) use it to pass along the minutia of their day, such as how their workouts went, what beer they're drinking and, yes, what they're eating. But that stuff can easily be ignored in favor of substantial information. 

What's so irritating about hackery like this is that no one is forcing curmudgeons to use Twitter. If you don't like it, if the concept offends you, don't use it. How simple is that? But if you're using it to "get with it" and trying to help your publication by utilizing social media to attract readers, embrace that and quit whining about something you admittedly don't understand. 

Quit trying to have it both ways. Adapt or die. 

Tip of the cap to a friend and fellow blogger

Sports blogging isn't an easy occupation to pursue.

So while I'm disappointed that my friend Mike McClary has decided to close shop on his Detroit Tigers blog, The Daily Fungo, I completely understand the feeling. 

Six years is a long time to grind out regular content. The beast continued to get hungrier as the Tigers have become a playoff contender during that period.

But as much fun as following a good team's postseason run can be, it can also really wear you down. I think I can speak for Mike and most other Tigers bloggers when I say this past October became pretty grueling. It almost gets to the point where you want to see your team lose because it means you'll get a break.

(Personally, I'm not sure I've taken as much of a break as I should have, once baseball season ended. Even if you're not writing, you often think about what you could or should write. It's a hard adjustment, though one that your body will tell you needs to be made.)

Most of us got into blogging (sports or otherwise) as a hobby, because we wanted to write what we weren't reading from mainstream media. And also, because we liked to write. 

Some of us actually dared hope that our work would get noticed by the right people and we could turn this hobby into a profession. Unfortunately, the industry hasn't really worked out that way except for a very select few. 

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(Do I put myself in that category? Yes and no. I've been extremely lucky and am very grateful for the opportunties I've had as a sports blogger. But I'm not in a position to buy a house, raise a family or anything like that. And to be honest, I'm often worried that my current jobs won't always be available.) 

Though it's exciting and gratifying to get attention for your work, this endeavor eventually reaches a point where you have to get something out of it for all the time and work you put in. Getting a huge spike in traffic because you were linked on Deadspin, ESPN.com or Yahoo! Sports doesn't usually translate into material gain. And if you're devoting even 20 hours a week to this, you need something to show for it. Preferably straight cash, homey.

It doesn't all just come down to money, of course. You need the time to write. Or you have to make the time. If the desire isn't there, the time becomes harder to find. And if you try to write when your heart isn't in it, it's not fair to your readers and it doesn't meet the standard you set for yourself as a writer.

It's even more difficult when you have two kids while running your own business or working a full-time job. I don't know how Mike did it. 

Mike's a good friend of mine, so I'm obviously biased. But I'm standing up and giving him a slow clap. It was more fun to be a Tigers fan because of The Daily Fungo. I enjoyed writing there when I had the chance, and had I not taken on Bless You Boys, I might have written much more with Mike.

Though I'll still talk Tigers with Mike frequently, the blog will be missed. Hell, this blogging thing is how we struck up our friendship in the first place. I'll be eager to hear how he enjoys baseball next year strictly as a fan. 

Here are two previous posts I've written about bloggers shutting it down. Hopefully, I didn't repeat myself too much.

• A nod of sympathy to a fellow Tigers blogger
• Giving up blogs is the new black

Last time the Tigers were here, I missed out on the fun

I meant to write this on Friday, but got washed out by the tidal wave that has been the 2011 Major League Baseball playoffs thus far.

As I write this, the Detroit Tigers lead their American League Divisional Series two games to one over the New York Yankees. These first-round series are best-of-five, so if the Tigers win Tuesday night, they'll eliminate the Yankees and move on to the AL Championship Series.

The general sentiment among Yankees fans and media is that the Yanks are going to have a hard time winning with A.J. Burnett pitching for them. Burnett was 11-11 with a 5.15 ERA, which was good enough for Yankees manager Joe Girardi to initially keep him out of the starting rotation for this series. Friday night's rainout changed those plans, and here the Yankees are, having to pitch the guy they didn't want to pitch in a game they have to win.

I'm naturally a pessimist, so I'm worried that Burnett is somehow going to pitch a great game tonight. Even though I should know better, having written this post back in September about how awful Burnett has been.

Though I've been confident — probably too confident — in the Tigers' chances of success this postseason, I'm pretty nervous about tonight. Maybe that's just the normal sports fan impulse. But I'm typically dubious when everything looks like it's falling into place for "my" team. How often does it end up unfolding that way?

But if the Tigers do win on Tuesday, I intend to soak up every moment of it that I can.

It won't be quite the same, since I no longer live in metro Detroit. I won't get to watch the local TV coverage afterwards, I won't see the newspapers the next morning. (Yes, I can read them online, but holding an actual newspaper with the celebratory headlines always makes it more real.) I won't get caught up with casual fans at a bar, coffee shop, grocery store, or someplace else where we're sharing the community experience of a local sports team winning. That might be the best thing about being a sports fan.

But the last time the Tigers were in this position and came through, I didn't get to see it. And I've always felt some regret for that.

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When the Tigers beat the Yankees in the 2006 ALDS, I was in Hawaii, on vacation with my family. The trip had been planned months in advance, long before we had any idea that the Tigers would be in the playoffs. (Well, I may have had an inkling or hope, but what do you say to that? "Can we postpone that trip — the one you had to ask time off for at the very beginning of the year — so that I can watch some baseball?")

I didn't get to see many games, largely because of the six-hour time difference in Hawaii. The games were being played during prime daytime sightseeing and beach-lounging hours. But I was able to listen to radio broadcasts on my cell phone. (But it was a pretty cool cell phone, one that Sprint had asked some sports bloggers to test market.)

So while metro Detroit was celebrating a playoff victory over the vaunted Yankees, while fans at Comerica Park were getting sprayed by champagne as the players took their locker room celebration onto the field in what was one of the most special moments in Detroit sports in at least the past decade, I was waiting for a bus that would take us on a sightseeing tour of Oahu.

Yeah, I know — Boo fuckin' hoo, you were in Hawaii. Sounds miserable. No, of course it wasn't. It was one of the best vacations I've ever had and the last family trip we took before my sister got married.

But whenever I see pictures or footage of Joel Zumaya spraying champagne on fans and embracing them in massive group hugs, I wish I'd have experienced some of that. (I also came very close to missing Magglio Ordonez's ALCS-winning home run against the Oakland A's, as that's the day we returned. We're talking a matter of seconds. But I might save that story for another post.)

I'm just tremendously grateful that the Tigers might give me another chance to celebrate a win over the Yankees.

It'll be just like starting over

Trying to start a website on the Friday before a holiday weekend doesn't seem like a smart move, does it?

Yet here I am. And here it is.

I actually meant to kick this thing off at the beginning of the week, but the sudden, stunning death of MLive.com's Detroit Lions beat writer Tom Kowalski wouldn't let me continue the day without writing something about him.

Then Wednesday seemed like a good day, but that's the day I write a Tigers column for MLive. Plus, the Tigers had a day game, which meant a live blog to help out with. And did I mention that the contributing writers at Yahoo's Big League Stew are helping to fill in while Kevin Kaduk is on vacation?

Thursday was September 1. Perfect! Except not, for many of the same reasons listed above.

So that left Friday. And really, maybe it's appropriate that this first post on the "new," rebooted blog kept getting pushed back because of other commitments. Because it's kind of been the story of my blogging life over the past few years.

I've been blogging pretty regularly since 2004. Originally, it was a way to keep up with friends back home (and elsewhere) while I was studying at Iowa. Then it became an outlet for conversations I couldn't have and writing the type of stuff I wanted to read. Eventually, it became apparent that my sportswriting was attracting a different audience and getting the right kind of attention.

That led to new endeavors, which brought me more notoriety and actual employment as a writer, but consumed any time that could be devoted to the personal blogging I enjoyed so much.

Along the way, I moved my blog from Blogger to Squarespace. The idea was to have a new platform to play with, but also to eventually create an archive of all the stuff I was writing.

But even though I had something in mind, I didn't know how to make it happen. Or maybe I just didn't want to put the work in. So I moved the blog yet again, this time to Posterous, where it would be just a blog. No website, no archive. And no sidebar blogrolls and gimmicky widgets, either. Just a stripped down blog.

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Unfortunately, it was the content that was often stripped down. After writing at Big League Stew, MLive, or SB Nation Detroit, there just wasn't much time left in the day for pounding out a movie review, a sports post that didn't fit anywhere else, a comment on pop culture, or a personal story. And if it wasn't a question of time, it was a question of interest and motivation.

I eventually titled the Posterous blog "Work In Progress," because that's what it always was to me. Rather than a blog or journal, the site became a place where I collected ideas and partially written drafts. If I followed through on even half of the unfinished posts, I'd have had a decent blog running. Alas, the dashboard looked more like a dead tree, taunting me with its bare limbs.

Meanwhile, I was still paying money for this Squarespace site, still nursing that original concept for a one-stop shop where readers, friends, colleagues and, yes, prospective employers, could get a wider view of what I was writing. Rather than keep wasting money, I decided it was finally time to make the best use of the resources I had available.

So it's certainly nothing against Posterous. I recommend it to anyone for a blogging platform. They're adding improvements and feature all the time. I especially love its audio capability, where you can embed MP3s. That's probably a reason I'll keep that site up, in case I want to include a song or podcast clip — or even an entire podcast, if I end up doing one again. Then I'll just transfer the post over here.

But my blog is going to be here from now on. All the Twitter and Facebook links will point here. And if you follow along via RSS, the feed will come from here, as well.

For those of you who have kept up with me all along, even when it seemed like I wasn't going to be posting new material anymore, I truly appreciate your readership. I know Twitter and Facebook lessen the need for a personal blog these days. As with many former bloggers, much of the stuff that I would've posted on a blog in the past ends up going there. But like I once wrote, social media is ethereal. I want something a bit more permanent.

With this site set up now, and my continuing to pay Squarespace to host it, I'm hoping that will provide enough motivation to post new content regularly. I don't want this website to collect cobwebs. Please have a look around the place. I've provided links to keep up with my contributions at Big League Stew, MLive and SB Nation Detroit, in addition to my beloved Twitter account.

Maybe this will be a misguided attempt to try and capture something — or someone — I used to be. (That will be the subject of a future post, as it's been on my mind a lot lately.) Maybe the reason I hadn't been updating a personal blog is because I'm just not that person anymore. Or perhaps it outlived its usefulness somewhere along the line. But I'm certainly going to try again.

Thank you for clicking over to iancasselberry.com. Am I accomplished enough of a writer to warrant this kind of archive? Probably not. But I hope you'll consider it worthy, and I'll do all I can to compel you to keep coming back.

Moving the Blog Again

After moving from Blogger to Squarespace, I didn't anticipate moving my personal blog to another platform for quite some time. But sometimes, you get seduced when you don't expect it.

During the holiday break, I started playing with Posterous, and quickly became enamored. I love that I can post via e-mail, and can include audio and video clips rather easily. (The audio is especially appealing, since finding a satisfactory audio player has been difficult.)

So for the second time in less than six months, I'm moving my blog. You can now find me at The Casselbloggy (or at http://casselberry.posterous.com). I've actually been posting stuff over there for the last week or so, but realized I never made an announcement here. So if you've been clicking back here (as my friend A. has), hoping for some fresh content, I apologize. (And if you're someone who reads via RSS, here's my new feed.)

I probably never gave Squarespace a fair chance, but when you get that feeling, you just have to go with it. One thing I don't like about Posterous is that I can't install much sidebar content, and that's something I spent quite a bit of time working on in here. But I don't know how many people check out blogrolls anymore. And as much as I love Flash and Javascript widgets (especially my beloved Twitter widget), they tend to make a site load slower.

(I intend to keep iancasselberry.com alive. But it'll be more of what I originally intended: an archive of my work, an online resume, sort of a one-stop shop. In other words, a website, not just a blog. Now I just have to put some actual work into that.)

Once again, thank you for sticking with me as I keep moving around. Now that I'm not blogging at Bless You Boys full-time anymore, I plan to do a lot more writing. I'd like the new blog to be a bit more "stream of thought," with posts on all sorts of subjects - articles I've read, movie reviews, podcast clips, etc. - rather than "this is what I've decided to write about today." That approach always kept me going at BYB, and I don't see why it can't work here. 

So please follow me over to The Casselbloggy (or the new RSS feed). And I should probably mention that you can also find me on Twitter and Facebook. I'll try my best to keep you entertained and informed enough to check back regularly.