Old and new
First off, my apologies for taking three weeks between posts after launching this new home for EIW. I've been extraordinarily busy the last month. I appreciate your indulgence. Second, this is just a quick post to get back into the swing of things. I'm hoping I'll be like a shooter in basketball who has missed a few shots to start the game and this post is like getting to the line for a couple of free throws -- make 'em, and the shooter sometimes gets on a roll.
A few weeks ago, baseball-reference.com released its 2006 update, adding the statistics of the regular season to one of the most useful sites on the web. I have sponsored a handful of pages on bb-ref, but I was down to just two:
Mark Buehrle and
Ed Farmer. I let sponsorships of Neal Cotts, Aaron Rowand and Juan Uribe lapse this summer and one of José Valentín in 2005. Over time, the pages become more expensive if you keep sponsoring them, much like real players do as they accrue service time, or they leave the Sox, like Valentín. So I was looking forward not only to the updated stats, but also to the pages of players who made their debuts during the 2006 season. In particular, I was interested in Sox rookie third baseman
Josh Fields. Now, I wasn't willing to pay the $200 price tag to sponsor the site for a year that was initially posted there. So I waited. I wrote Fields's name on a calendar so I would remember to check it Monday, knowing that it would be down to $10 -- the prices count down at $10 per day until someone pays to sponsor the page. Thankfully, no one beat me to his page.
I wanted to support bb-ref more than just $10. I wanted, too, to sponsor a page that makes a nod toward the early Sox teams that I cheered for. I started with the 1977 South Side Hit Men page, but I barely remember that team, truthfully. The 1978 White Sox were the first team that I was able to follow in any detail. I found a player on that team who was perfect for my purposes --
Thad Bosley. Bosley was the star of the first game that I attended, so of course, he was my favorite player for a while. Coincidentally, for a North Side Sox fan, Bosley made his way to the Cubs and probably had the best season or two of his career with them. I remember looking his page up a couple of years ago, and a Cubs fan sponsored his page. I'm glad to have the opportunity to sponsor it now.