This blog has moved

(Sorry for the blunt title!)

Just over a month ago I “celebrated” the one year anniversary of this blog. Since the turn of the year there has been a noticeable increase in visitors, which has been both the result and the cause of my more frequent postings. I always enjoy writing, but knowing that people are reading what you publish certainly provides a confidence boost and fuels the enthusiasm.

With this in mind, I have decided to take this blog to the next level and move it away from the free WordPress set up. I’m still using the WordPress software, so I’ve been able to export all of the posts and comments from this blog and move them to the new one. I intend to keep this version of the blog here for a month or so before it will be deleted.

My new site, BaseballGB, will essentially give me a lot more freedom for development. And there’s an extra level of commitment to the cause from myself. The WordPress system came highly recommended (rightfully so) and one of the things that appealed to me when I started was that it was hassle and cost free. Once a few webforms and e-mails had been completed and received, everything was in place to get writing at no financial expense. If it didn’t work out, well I hadn’t lost anything.

A year on, I’m convinced that this is something I want to carry on doing and to develop further. So it is time to take this next step. Thanks to everyone who has visited this blog, even just for a quick cursory glance, and please join me at the new one (I hope you like it!). As noted in my first “new” post, things haven’t gone completely to plan and there are a few minor displaying glitches when using the Explorer browser, but it shouldn’t detract much from the site and in time it will either be fixed or I will simply move to a different theme.

Thanks for reading

Matt.

King Felix steals the show

Waking up this morning, I expected to see reams of stories about Dice-K and Ichiro battling it out last night in the Seattle-Boston clash.

I didn’t realise Felix Hernandez was starting for the Mariners.

He has long been known as King Felix and anyone who wasn’t convinced that this youngster deserved the title will now be bowing at their master’s feet begging for forgiveness.   In a game watched by millions around the world, Hernandez decided that he wasn’t interested in being the support act.  The spotlight was shining on Fenway last night.  The newly slim-lined Felix waltzed on to the stage and made it his own.

I know what I’ll be watching when I get home from work this evening.  The joys of archived games on MLB.com!

Free MLB.TV

As noted in the comments last week, MLB.com are currently offering a free five-day trial of MLB.TV for those of you considering whether or not to sign-up. It’s a great way for newcomers to give the system a proper test-run to see how it will work on your set-up and what the picture quality is like.

“Weekly” hit ground ball – week one

This is the start of what will hopefully be a weekly feature (hence the name). My week will run from Saturday to Saturday, purely on the basis that I should always have time on a Sunday to write it as opposed to cobbling something together after getting home from work on a Monday evening. These are just my observations from the things I have seen and read over the week, so feel free to add your own in the comments.

Don’t mention the Devil Rays

Most British baseball fans develop a daily ritual whereby one of their first tasks in the morning is to log on to MLB.com and check the results from the previous day’s play. You scour the scoreboard to see who won (and by how many runs) and then check the basic facts such as who was credited for the win, loss and save and who hit a homerun. You can then dive into the box scores to see how your fantasy players performed (counting the points as you go) before checking out the reports from the results that catch your eye.

Baseball commericals

Lots of fun stuff on the Daily Rewind today (the episode for April 5), from the Padres’s Kevin Kouzmanoff and Khalil Greene tripping over each other to penguins in New York. But perhaps the funniest bit was the news that the authorities in Canada have ordered two of the Blue Jays’s promotional adverts to be re-filmed.

Dice-K debuts today

It cannot have escaped your attention that Daisuke Matsuzaka makes his Major League debut today for the Red Sox.  Boston set it up for him yesterday, beating the Royals to tie the series 1-1 and allowing Matsuzaka to try to win the rubber match.  First pitch is scheduled for 19.10 (BST) and it promises to be a great way to start the Easter weekend.  Hopefully MLB.TV will be up to it, because I’m sure there will be plenty of traffic.

Those looking for a Dice-K primer should head over to the Special K page on Boston’s official site.  In particular have a read of the “Variety of pitches up his sleeve” article and watch the main multimedia clip by Will Carrol from Baseball Prospectus, dissecting Dice-K’s pitching mechanics.  Seeing how similar his delivery is to Roger Clemens’s is an eye-opener, not least because physically they are quite different in terms of body shape.  Whether he can produce the same results is what we are all waiting to see.  It should be fascinating to watch.

Daily Rewind

Great to see that the Daily Rewind is back on MLB.com this season.  It’s an invaluable way to keep up with all the action every day.  My favourite clip today was from the Red’s game.  There have been some hilariously bad ceremonial first pitches thrown over the years, but Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory’s was probably the worst I’ve seen.  He only missed the plate by about ten foot!  It was also good to hear that several ballparks broke their attendance records for opening day matches.  Baseball really is on the up and up and it’s great to see.

Not so sure about the advert breaks that they’ve introduced this season during the Daily Rewind though.  And as for Vintage Base Ball, I think I’ll give it a miss!

Off and running

Baseball is back, with so many games going on at once it’s hard to keep up!

Games galore

I’m aware that some of you may not be able to watch MLB.TV this year for a variety of reasons out of your control, so apologies for rubbing it in but boy does baseball come back with a bang! Aces are out in force on Opening Day (well, opening days and nights) and the majority of the games are played in daylight, making them perfect for some British evening entertainment.