In July of 2007 Andrew invited me to write for True Blue and while I accepted with great trepidation it has been a gas for me. The last English class I took was a do over 30 years ago when I failed freshman English. I had been a prolific reader and was much more interested in content then in learning what it took to be a writer. That is probably not a surprise to some of you who have read my prose with a keen eye. When I first started posting over at Dodger Thoughts I would see some of the commentators hammer those who couldn't articulate their thoughts with the proper English usage. In the beginning it kept me from posting on a regular basis but I pushed forward and over time I became enough of a regular commentator that Andrew asked me to post over here. In retrospect the grammar police were never as hard as I remembered but I'm sure I've made Andrew and Bob with two N's cringe on more then one occasion. As I started to write I wanted to write more and before long Andrew must have wondered what kind of a monster he had created.
Now that Andrew is writing again, I've accepted an offer from SportsHubLA to write the occasional article on the Dodgers for them. Today I posted my 4th article with them and one I'm quite proud of. I've now learned what an editor does and what a difference maker they are. If they can make me look good I wonder why they can't do the same for Bill Plaschke. Either Brian or Andrew Kamenetzky take my story and add a few words, some pictures, change some sentence structure, and lo and behold a readable story is born. My wife edited one of my 1st stories here on True Blue but I didn't ask her to do it again as she spent hours on something that took me 20 minutes to write. Instead I studied the changes she made, and vowed to write a more decipherable story so as not to embarrass Andrew and this site he has created. I hope I've been successful.
I'm older then most of you and while I try not to be out of step, my memories of the boys in blue runs very deep and the goal was to build a bridge between my memories and your love of the Dodgers. We don't get a lot of comments so sometimes I'm at a loss over which stories are appreciated and which ones you could have done without. If I'm writing something and it makes me laugh I post it, if it makes me cry I post it. I basically have thrown everything at the wall to see what will stick. Without the feedback I've kind of taken the attitude that I'm writing for myself and if anyone wants to listen in they are welcome. I enjoy writing my Duck Talk interviews but I'm fairly certain no one else does. Sometimes the feedback shocks me and I'm pleased I struck a chord with you. My first attempt at humor produced this and while I thought it was funny it was awesome to find out that some of you felt the same way. My writing at True Blue will continue to be a smorgasbord of what you've read up to this point but the frequency should drop. I was only brought in here to fill in space while Andrew dealt with time issues. As Xeifrank said I was going to be the yin to Andrew's yang or visa versa but along the way I've bought into Andrew's analysis and can now proudly spout the linear weight formula. You're sophisticated Dodger fans who know as much about the team as the writers. At Sports Hub LA, my stories will be more for the casual fan as I try to get them to think just a little outside of the box but not overwhelm them with numbers they have no idea what they mean. A great writer would be able to incorporate complex ideas and great stories but I'm not that writer.
I guess you could say this is self-promotion but as Joe Posnanski said, if you don't promote yourself who will. So if you have an extra moment pop over to the SportsHubLA blog and check it out.