Back on Dec 18th I wasn't sure of the future of True Blue with Andrew gone we were drifting rudderless losing eyeballs right and left.  We had always been the poor stepchild of SB Nation but even they noticed that things needed to change.  My finger was in the dike but the water was up to my waist when they told me to take control of the site. They must have read my stuff because the first thing they said was to get another writer.

I had my eye on Eric's talent for writing for over a year but he had finally branched out and started his own blog. Would he want to continue to run solo or help turn around this franchise? Luckily for us, Eric responded to my request and on Dec 19th he posted his first column, and from that moment on True Blue was back on solid ground.

I'm writing this column to celebrate the growth of True Blue since Eric showed up. Today we doubled the hits we had last March with 7 more days to go. By the time the month is up we will have tripled our views and 100,000 views is not out of reach.

The combination of Eric joining True Blue and SB Nation hooking up with Yahoo! sports has fueled our growth. Since 2009 started, True Blue percentage wise has been one of the fastest growing blogs in the SB Nation family. Andrew used to joke that True Blue was the 4th most popular site in the NL West. Well things have changed, we will never catch McCovey Chronicles who has an outstanding base but we are now competitive within the division.

Eric noted a few days ago how much he liked writing here and I could echo the same sentiments. SB Nation gives incredible support to their blogging nation and every week they seem to come up with some surprise that just makes it easier and easier to blog here. I'm not sure how it works for other bloggers but in the beginning you just want to write, they you want someone to read what you write, then you want more people to read what you write, then you want to get  paid for what you write. Hey, three out of four ain't bad.

As pleased as I am with the growth in visits/page views I'd like to request more direct participation. Many of you have registered with SB Nation over the last few months. Don't be shy, we encourage comment on our columns or game threads even if you disagree with what we've said.  When the game is on hook onto our game threads and talk to us just like you'd be talking to your friend at the game. We are going to make a real effort to have at least one person here manning the game threads all year.