A Couple Announcements

I love running this blog. I've been doing it now for just over a year, and it honestly has become one of my favorite pastimes. I've especially enjoyed getting to know (at least in the blogging sense) a bunch of other Twins bloggers and fans. This is a really good and fun community to "work" in, and the best thing is that writing about the Twins never really feels like work. Yes, things weren't nearly as fun last season when, for example, Rene Tosoni was leading the charge late in 2011, or we had to learn how to pronounce the word Dumatrait, but there was always stuff to write about, and there was always quality stuff to read. The blog has also served as a good distraction from the mundane aspects of work and life.

The first announcement is that, this past weekend, Twins Fan From Afar surpassed 20,000 page views. Yes, I'm sure that is a laughable number to most of you that operate your own Twins blogs, but let me tell you, it took me a while to get there! First, I am basically a Luddite: I am not the most computer literate person out there (in full disclosure, I just added an RSS feed to this blog, because apparently you are supposed to do that, but I don't know what the hell an RSS feed does), so it took me a while to figure out the relatively easy world of blogging. Second, no one read the blog for the first few months. In February, 2011, my first month of blogging, Twins Fan From Afar had 148 total views. Mom and Dad back in Minnesota, on their home and work computers, probably accounted for 100 of those views; and I was responsible for the other 48, because I had not yet figured out that, as a blog author, you could make your individual page views invisible. Third, it probably didn't help this blog's initial popularity that the Twins were generally just awful last season. Baseball fans were probably searching for information about the teams that mattered, and frankly, the Twins didn't matter. But, over the course of the season, I began to truly enjoy the ritual of writing about baseball, and more people began to read what I wrote. Yes, some posts were better than others, but, much like the ritual of going to the gym, or reading before bed, it's become a nice part of my life. Now that I have this blog -- and regardless of whether more or less people view it in the coming months and years -- it's tough to imagine not doing it.

My second announcement is that, starting later this week, I am going to begin providing content for Through the Fence Baseball, a national baseball website that provides information on all MLB teams. I'll be writing just a couple times a week for them on Twins related topics, and I'm looking forward to reaching a new audience. Nothing will change at Twins Fan From Afar. If you enjoy what you read here, or at least are nice enough to read what I write, please continue to do so. I'll be writing here just as often, but will just be writing some other stuff for TTFB.

So, thanks for 20,000 page views, and I look forward to a full blogging season in 2012. And, hopefully, the Twins can scrape together a considerably better season this year.

Andrew
Twins Fan From Afar