Welcome To Barstool Baseball
I hate a lot of things, but maybe nothing more than all the announcements flying around these days. Everywhere you look people are announcing shit. Congressional campaigns and pregnancies and regulatory investigations. If you're not issuing quarterly announcements at this point in life then we should be friends. I could use the balance.
Personal preference aside, the above announcement video means a lot to me. This project is basically the last 15 years of my life (yes, fifteen years) coming together in one fucked up recipe of largely acquired taste. Just a tremendous opportunity but now we're getting into the danger zone of announcements. They can turn so selfish.
The broader point is that our baseball coverage is both the best and the worst part of our sports content. Best in specific knowledge and personal attachment. But the worst in creating actual tangible value for you, The Audience.
We have so many good brains for the sport. So much passion and personal love. The kinda guys that have no problem staying up with the 10 day west coast road trip so they can blog/tweet/stream/work on the team they love most. There's so many that I actually filled out a 26-man roster when I started down this path. And believe it or not there's still enough leftovers for a decent farm system.
The goal is simple. The execution, maybe not so much. But we're rolling out a new brand called Barstool Baseball for all the baseball guys to work on together. Like an actual team of guys who are good at different things telling the story together. And while that's vague right now, I know it's gonna be significantly more effective than a biweekly national podcast that ignores the broader talent here. So who am I to hoard and hold an utterly gigantic baseball platform that somebody else spent years building?
Was that too awkward?
The fact is we're here right now and I want to make the best of it. I'm surrounded by people who love the game of baseball. We have every tool/resource/support system available to make good content. There's literally no fuckin excuse we don't have a wagon running through the baseball season every single year. Obviously other than the fact that we haven't come together before but that's pretty much the only excuse. And whatever. That excuse blows.
Personally I've done some crazy shit to get to this point. And I mean crazy. I gave up the podcast I started in December 2016. I gave up another podcast and parted with one of my favorite players who turned into one of my closest friends. I have no shows right now at a company made of shows. I moved to Scottsdale to go through my own "content spring training" and used up just about every dollar in my personal savings account to be here. Drove nonstop from Chicago and we're actually still going strong. So much that I'm probably going to blow my rotator cuff or have Tommy John surgery next fall because of the last 3 weeks. Again. Whatever.
Point is I'm here for making baseball content good and valuable and insightful and funny and interesting and whatever else has been missing in large consistent chunks. That should take on a bunch of different forms that we can talk about as it comes up. For now please know I'm working on it with the primary purpose of doing a good job for the two things that have changed my life most: Barstool Sports & baseball.
I'm emotional as I write this.
There's a 22 year-old version of me that instantly fell in love with Barstool. Dave and Kevin inspired me so much that I'm actually writing this blog. And while on topic, I would quite literally murder for Dan. The space in my heart for these guys and this company and the impact it's all had on my life is categorically immeasurable.
I turn 36 next month.
When my time comes, no matter where my life goes, I'll largely be measured and remembered for my association with Barstool Sports. I could run for Congress, knock up my campaign manager and get indicted on federal racketeering charges, and you guys would still open with a Cody Parkey reference in the comment section of my obituary.
But that's how this works. That's the whole point of this.
I've got a lot more to say but now we're REALLY getting selfish. The point of this blog is to introduce Barstool Baseball and catch you guys up on what I'm doing.
As a sign of good faith that this is a real project, I'm releasing the first part of a sit down with Tim Anderson tonight on the Barstool Baseball YouTube page. It's a remarkable conversation with baseball's most notoriously reclusive star and we get into some really heavy shit.
A couple more video series will be dropping this week and next. Some other stuff too, but now we're just announcing stuff to announce it.
I've already said enough.
Thanks to everyone who gives a shit.
Trust me it matters.
