Baseball. Bloggers. Everywhere.
Updated 11:18 a.m. ET Friday
Welcome to Digging In The Dirt. Welcome to Three Rivers, Five Titles, One Blog. Welcome to Zajack’s Column. Welcome to No Steroids Here. Welcome to The Bronx Bomb. Welcome to GoldGloveLuie. Welcome to 26 and Counting. Welcome to Mike Acker. Welcome to bleacherbum. Welcome to Brewing a Winner. Welcome to Mr. Mets Daily. Welcome to Meksquesttogotoagame. Welcome to playing like a girl. Welcome to Cardsfan18. Welcome to Smoke Signals. Welcome to the official MLBlog of the Houston Astros’ front office, where you will find out whether the roof will be open or closed for each game. Welcome, free-world bloggers! If you have a new blog, don’t be bashful, throw it in the comments here with your URL! Everyone leave a welcome comment for them!
You’ll find a lot more Minor League blogs around here, too. Lisa
Winston, part of our MLB.com crew, just launched her new MLBlog at got milb. Our MLB.com colleague Jonathan Mayo has rechristened his excellent MLBlog in the spirit of the relaunch. It’s now B3: Big, Bold and Beautiful. And Kevin Czerwinski
started one as well. So there are a lot of familiar bylines/voices
around MLB.com and MiLB.com giving you important insights into player
development, Draft prospects and things important to all organizations.
The Rangers are inviting their fans to congratulate Eric Nadel, on the 30th year of his broadcasting the club’s games. That’s a lot of baseball from the catbird’s seat, and we salute him here at MLBlogs as well. Personally, I used to cover the Dallas Mavericks (1986-90) for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and had a weekly NBA radio show on KRLD, and there were nights when Nolan Ryan was throwing and I would follow the action with Eric. If a no-hitter was alive through six, I would drive one mile away and jump into the park with everyone else. Just in case you saw Nolan make some more history.
There are a lot of fine pitcher blogs out there, from Curt Schilling to Pat Neshek to Phil Hughes to Kevin Slowey. But no Major League pitcher, probably no other athlete, throws better bloggage than Rangers reliever CJ Wilson. It’s like he invented what blogging should be like for pro athletes. No one else involved. Create a blog, post, live it, read the comments and interact. Can you imagine if Babe Ruth had a blog while he was on the road? Posting at stops along the train ride to Philly or St. Louis or Chicago? What if Babe had blogged about his Called Shot? Filter out the storytellers completely, just say it on your blog to the people. That’s CJ’s world, unchained. Neshek gets a close second by making his a cottage industry.
Let’s talk about great starts here at MLBlogs. As you probably surmise from watching the Most Recent Activity on the MLBlogs.com homepage, new blogs are being created continuously around the clock now that this place is free. And a good example of all the fans bringing their blogs here now can be found at Those Crazy Ol’ Blue Jays. Stanton X writes:
I started this blog a couple of weeks ago on a different site. But obviously I wanted a bit more exposure so I have moved all of my older entries into here. From now on I will be updating regularly on MLBlogs.com so thanks for checking it out. Feedback whether it be positive or negative is always welcomed.
Be sure to drop him a welcome comment and leave your URL so people can find you.
Our friend and longtime astrosdehouston.com blogger Rafael Rojas Cremonesi reports from Venezuela that the new Movable Type software is a friendly step forward for Spanish-language MLBloggers. “I love the fact you can set up your MLBlogs platform to have instructions and commands in Spanish,” Rafael emailed. “The whole interface for blogging, posting and whatnot can be set to be read in Spanish. So instead of seeing ‘post’, ‘create” or ‘edit’, you can see ‘crear’, ‘editar’, etc. There are certain menus that would not change its language, so maybe that could be checked out.” Will do and thanks, Rafael.
Rafael is still one of the Hardest Working Bloggers out there. He’s the only one who posts to an English-speaking MLBlog and a Spanish-speaking MLBlog. We have an ever-increasing number of MLB PRO BLOGS (that template for any blogs created within the MLB family of employees) that are in Spanish like Siempre Gigante or Siguiendo a los Mets, as you can see on that drop-down list on the MLBlogs.com homepage, and this will grow exponentially. Hopefully in Japanese soon as well. There are also lots of bloggers here who post to multiple sites, showing a lot of determination to build audience. That’s what it’s all about! When I woke up this morning, another new Blue Jays blogger was being promoted with a link to his MLBlog from the MLB.com homepage. Feel free to keep leaving your suggested 15-to-25-word (MAX!) excerpt here for consideration, and as you probably can tell we’re going to spread the wealth rather than “regulars.”
Dan/Steve/Zack/Beth et al: Thanks for the help in the comments on these updates. Nice when fellow bloggers are helping each other through the trials and tribulations of learning an entirely new software environment all around Opening Day. Please continue to post your questions/comments/gripes/whatever here as we continue to work on any relaunch bug issues as well as scheduled upgrades for the next phase of updates coming soon. They customized MT for you all and it works best if all of your feedback is continually added here so it can be incorporated into the Google Doc citing next needs.
Thanks also for your patience with me last weekend as I was Bernie Carbo-loading and then pounding pavement Sunday at the St. Louis Marathon and recovering Monday. It was a perfect day that took you toward the Arch at sunrise then past Busch and down around the A-B brewery then back up past the Purina plant, through Forest Park (and the outdoor Muni), Wash U, Clayton, Delmar’s killer hill, U-City and then eventually back toward the finish near Union Station. I know that this crowd would have wanted me to go from the finish line straight over to the simultaneous first pitch of Nationals vs. Cardinals a few blocks away to watch and blog, but my legs wanted nothing to do with that. Now my left Achilles tendon gets a vacation as I surf the Sphere.
Our friend Chris does a great job of updating one of the best Giants blogs.
So far so good on the comment moderation question of what happens when you break down the pay wall. Just checked and one person the past week reported an offensive comment (removed). Those flags are prominent after every comment you see on MLBlog. If you see something, say something, as they say around NYC. You are your own MLBlog’s moderator, but we try to help keep it like a ballpark atmosphere.
Is it just us, or does every Phillies blog ever created have the “ph” consonant as a play on words in the title? Is the Phillie Phanatic naming all of these? Would you guys have started up phacebook instead? (No sooner did we write this than Philsfirst came to the rescue with the letter “F”.) And memo to our new friend Jenn at Phillies Phollowers who commented on this post, we would consider that one except it will be too dated so think in terms of lightning-fast baseball schedules as yesterday’s history and someone will be reading that excerpt tomorrow morning.
Happy blogging for phree! More updates on the infrastructure as they come along…
MLB.com Blogs Central 
the cubs are the best team in baseball.
i think the white sox suck they dont play defense and they can not hit the ball they stink the world series they won in 2005 is a joke.
Here’s the link to my blog you asked for
http://redsoxkid.mlblogs.com/
redsoxkid
I’m 15, but I’m not sure if you consider that a “kid.” Just send me a link to your blog and I’ll be sure to check it out.
http://dodgersblog.mlblogs.com
I’m 15, but I’m not sure if you consider that a “kid.” Just send me a link to your blog and I’ll be sure to check it out.
http://dodgersblog.mlblogs.com
I’ve been blogging on Blogspot for about 6 months & just moved my blog entries here. I’m 10 and wondering if there are any other kids blogging on here. I’d love it everyone could check out my blog & introduce yourself.
http://comment.mlblogs.com/comment
Thank You
redsoxkid
Hey yall!
I’ve been blogging here since first of April, haven’t really looked around until now and found this page for help and info, thank goodness.
I was hoping to get some info on how to get a tracker on the page, to see how many people check it out…it’s a self-serving tool that I must have for purposes of validation….
Also, this is my first blog so be gentle….
Everyone take care!
Check it out….
Ryan
http://bigleaguehair.mlblogs.com/
Hi Mark…thanks for the home page feature! :o) The Phanatic thanks you too…he loves face time…hee! Have a good one!
Jenn
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
Hey Mark, here’s a potential line for the MLB homepage:
“[Kansas City] could really use a stick like one Barry Bonds.”
(Don’t think it can’t happen.)
Thanks,
-Dan
http://fansonthefield.mlblogs.com
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the initial welcome and the “featured blog” props on the front page. This has been a great thing so far. I’ve been telling my friends about it and they’ve been very supportive and impressed as to the quality of the blog itself.
One thing I am hoping to see is a code available for excerpting. On Live Journal, that it is “lj-cut” and WordPress, it’s the “!–more–” code. That would help in bandwidth and presentation of the blog.
So, keep up the good work as I’ll do on mine.
http://heirloom.mlblogs.com
Jenn, shouldn’t that be “Phollowing the team…” 🙂
Mark
Me again :o) I hereby nominate myself for the front page. Let’s just go with the tag line… “Following the team with a unique perspective on all things Phillies, including original event and game photos.”
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
Hope that works for you :o) Thanks again…and thanks for the info on the photo uploads. Have a good one!
Jenn
Homerfood and metsgo: Thanks and glad you all are here at MLBlogs! Looking forward to your posts and keep commenting here.
Steve at soxblog, thanks for your time and attention, too. Not surprised anytime bloggers change as people can blog wherever they want. It’s different here and everyone can make his/her own choice — we’ve added a third as many new blogs since relaunch as first three years, so by far the mass of people are psyched. Thanks again for your patience through adjustments to the Movable Type software and subsequent upgrades, and I’ll keep updating here as I have more to share.
Jenn, the answer is no such limit apparently but I will inquire and thanks.
Mark
Mark,
There are things about the new look that I like very much and some that are disappointing:
1. Comments. Never mind that sometimes you need to log out and then back in to comment–I’m sure you will work out that bug. I was hoping, however, that you’d let anyone comment rather than making them sign up for an MLB account. Many of my comments come via e-mail, and I see now that the “e-mail me” link is gone. Why?
2. Layout. We used to be able to arrange our blog sidebars in the order we’d prefer. That’s gone now, too. Is that capability coming back?
3. Losing Bloggers. I’m disappointed to see some good, loyal bloggers jumping ship to more user-friendly services. If you’re going to add more features, I’d suggest you do it quickly, or at the very least make an announcement of what you’re working on.
Thanks for your time and attention.
Steve
http://soxblog.mlblogs.com
I just started blogging. I would like to get a lot of visitors. My blog is a mets blog called MetsGo. Go to metsgo.mlblogs.com
I just like to say that this MLB free blogging feature has got hooked on blogging. I now have a spot where I can get all my baseball thoughts and ideas off my chest. Im a Blue Jay fan, but I want to blog about the entire spectrum of baseball and the food circulating in my mind and belly.
Im keeping the format MLB. Great work MLBlogosphere.
http://homerfoodandhistory.mlblogs.com/
Hi there…just wondering if there is a size limit on uploads? Like, do we only get so much storage space for our “assets” and if so, what is that limit? I am using a lot of photos and figured I better ask before I run into a problem :o) Thanks!
Jenn
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
Sorry, that was me asking that filter question. I forgot to switch logins.
Anyway, the word I was trying to ask about is spelled:
“WH” “OPP” “ING”
Also, is there a way to turn the filter off for situations like that?
Thank!
Big Rygg
http://brewernation.mlblogs.com
Random question:
Why is the word “********” filtered out?
Any way to increase the number of tags displayed in the Tag Cloud? Right now it seems like there’s only a 25 tag max, and alphabetic order determines which tags are displayed. If you have more than 25 tags, some aren’t going to be seen by virtue of where they fall alphabetically — even if they happen to the most popular tags on your blog. For someone who uses the “Yankees” tag a lot, this causes a problem.
Mark,
.
If you need any help “replicating” problems, please keep me in mind, as my links have also been messed up six ways since March.
.
I’m also available, indeed eager, to work with the tech lead diligently working on these problems for us. Maybe you could provide us with his or her contact info so that we could work together to solve some of these problems directly? As a customer, being in the loop as to fix protocol and prioritization might engender more confidence in the process.
.
http://azdiamondhacks.mlblogs.com/
Russell, I’m communicating directly with a couple of bloggers on the matter, you’ll be updated whenever we’ve been able to replicate and solve that one. Thanks for the comment.
I too still cannot add links-in fact there seem to have been no updates since opening day.
http://arizonaviaslough.mlblogs.com/
Any updates on the links issues a lot of us are still having? I’m trying to be patient, really I am, but links are one of about two feaures we have with the new software, and I can’t add any.
http://gamefish.mlblogs.com
More about the excerpts we use for blogger promotion on the bottom of the MLB.com homepage — and thanks again for those who post them here for our consideration:
If you’re going to submit one as a comment, try to avoid being “dated”. In other words, the homepage producers change that once a day at any time of day, so it won’t look so great if you write about a player’s woe during one night’s game, and then we use your excerpt the next afternoon, then he hits five homers that evening, and that excerpt the following morning is still you talking about what a bum he was that night until it’s finally changed. Any remote chance of that happening means no consideration.
Memo to Jeff at Red State Blue State, good line re Hillary/Tigers except you didn’t follow the 15-to-25 word guideline I keep mentioning. Word counts might not matter in individuals’ blogs, but they will for those excerpts. – Mark
Hey there…here is a new excerpt for consideration (about tonights game)…Thanks!:
“The Phillies just can’t get rolling without their MVP J-Roll in the line-up. Add 4 errors to the mix and disaster ensues…”
Jenn
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
La Nacion Medias Rojas: We are glad you’re here! Keep up the great blogging!
To Jenn, and with all due respect to Dan and his Wally/Phanatic leanings, I like Phredbird best!!!
Jeff, forwarded to our Bullpen producers for homepage consideration and thank you!
All: They are still trying to pinpoint and fix the problem with popup pictures showing up blank after you insert pic. That happened to me on the Spanish-language image above the first time I posted it, so I deleted, re-saved it and this time did not select popup. My recommendation is to NOT choose popup until you see that the issue is resolved. Thanks for your patience with that. Let us know here of any other issues you are facing with the new MT platform.
Jenn, although my kids here in Boston love Wally the Green Monster, I have to admit that no mascot – ANYWHERE – can compare to the Philly Phanatic. I saw the Phillies at an ex game in Cooperstown a few years back, and The Phanatic was awesome. So funny. I wanted to hang out with him.
-Dan
http://fansonthefield.mlblogs.com
For your homepage consideration:
“…the 2008 Tigers are the baseball equivalent of the Clinton campaign — great resume, great talent, would probably do a decent job, but so far behind there is no possible way they can win it all. ”
–Jeff
http://redstatebluestate.mlblogs.com/
Oh yeah, I see what you are doing with these now…duh! I am such a blonde :o) Ok, I’ll work on that and get back to ya! Thanks for the help…you’re awesome!
Jenn
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
Really, the new blog is better for Spanish bloggers. Like Rafael Rojas, I have a blog in Spanish too. It is http://mediasrojas.mlblogs.com and I know that we are many latin fans visiting this mlb space.
Ok, now because you have gone and picked on the poor Phillies fans, I think it is only right that you use my exerpt. Then, I will forgive you :o) Hee! Seriously, here is my submission: “Even Houdini would have been proud. After an ugly, ugly performance, the Phillies managed to escape Cincinnati with a series split…” http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/
And as for the “Ph” reference, we all just LOVE our Phanatic! He is, after all, the BEST mascot in baseball! See ya!
Jenn
http://philliesphollowers.mlblogs.com/