A little about me. I live in Urbana, Illinois and am a husband and father of two children (5 and 8). I work as a network administrator at the University of Illinois.
I have followed baseball for as long as I can remember. One of my first baseball memories was seeing Ernie Banks hit a grand slam at Wrigley Field when I was about 5 years old. I’ve been a Cub fan since.
My baseball interests?
Aside from following current baseball, I enjoy baseball history a great deal. (By the way, read The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract if you get a chance. You don’t have to agree with him to enjoy his stuff). I’ve been to the Baseball Hall of Fame four times. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ernie Banks, Bench, Yaz, Mathews inducted in the Hall. If you are a baseball fan and have never been to Cooperstown, make plans now. It’s well worth the trip.
I am a stat freak to a point. I enjoy crunching baseball numbers but am still getting used to some the new stat categories being thrown about by SABR-types and quite frankly find some of them useless and confusing.
I am an avid player of APBA baseball, a baseball simulation game. I am a manager of the Twin Cities Thunderchickens in the Illowa APBA League, a continuous ownership league which has been around for 30 years.
So am I an expert in all things baseball? I wouldn’t say that. I have many friends who are probably more solid in their analysis. I do have a good knack for finding information (and hopefully passing it on).
The purpose of the Zealot is not necessarily to report on every single baseball news item out there. The major news outlets do a good job of that already (well, usually). The Zealot is here just draw attention to baseball goings-on that I might interesting, thought-provoking, maddening, or just strange. I also like to throw-in a few obscure, off-the-wall stuff to make the site that much more interesting. Finally, if there is a baseball resource out there on the web that not everyone may be aware of, I like to bring up front. Keep in mind, the target audience of the The Baseball Zealot is not just the seasoned veteran of baseball blogs but also those baseball fans out there finding their way around the Internet.
Enjoy the site,
Tom