Blog Administration | The Baseball Zealot

TBZ gets a slight makeover

In case you hadn’t noticed, The Baseball Zealot went through a small makeover last week. It got a new banner and a new color scheme. I hope you like it.

As much as I liked the old orange and blue styled banner (above), it wasn’t as reflective of our current emphasis now that I’ve spun off almost all of our University of Illinois baseball coverage to Illinois Baseball Report which I brought up earlier this year (Illini baseball fans check it out!). Much thanks, by the way, to former Illini shortstop (and current Tiger minor leaguer) Shawn Roof who graciously allowed me to put his photo on the banner.

In case you’re wondering, the photo in the new banner is the of the infield of Huntington Park in Columbus, Ohio. Huntington Park is the brand new home (it was weeks old when I took the photo) of the Columbus Clippers and was named 2009 Ballpark of the Year by Ballparks.com. I had the chance to enjoy the park when I was there for the 2009 Big Ten Tournament.

Also, I’ve added Feedburner to better facilitate RSS feeds. There are links on the upper right to help you subscribe to your favorite feed reader or just click on “Subscribe”.

Comments are welcome on the new theme.

Four years and still Zealotin’

Four years ago today, I wrote the first post for The Baseball Zealot.

Four years goes pretty fast but we got a lot done. We managed to put out a audio podcast for over a year (they’re still there if you want to listen to them). I have a pretty impressive photo gallery if I may say so myself.

I’ve spun off two websites because I thought the attention they were getting on the Zealot deserved it. The APBA Blog focuses on the tabletop game APBA and the many leagues that play it.

Also, I began Illinois Baseball Report after covering the University of Illinois baseball team for a couple years on the Zealot. I finally realized that the topic deserved their own site. While the topic interest may not be as broad, I think it’s a website that well put together and I’m having a lot of fun doing it.

By the way, not only is it The Baseball Zealot’s birthday but it’s also my good friend and co-blogger Teddy Ballgame’s birthday. That’s how I remember his birthday. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

I couldn’t do the Zealot without Teddy and those aren’t just nice words. I really couldn’t. Especially during the college baseball season when I’m off to every home game covering the Illini, Teddy’s there writing about the MLB. thanks, Tedd.

Happy Birthday to you and us!

-TBZ

Teddy Ballgame’s got his own blog

For those of you who enjoy reading what Teddy Ballgame puts up on The Baseball Zealot, you might be interested to know that he’s got his own blog now.

Whatteddsedd.com will contain the daily spewings of Teddy. Near as I can tell, it will be an eclectic sort of blog which is a nice way of saying he talks about just about everything.

Seriously, check it out.

Zealot break

Posts will be light for about week or so, at least from me. I’ll be in the hospital starting Monday for some med tests. Long story but it’s nothing serious.

Fortunately, they’ll have wireless in the room so I’ll have Internet access (so maybe you’ll hear from me anyway) and a TV so I can catch the World Series.

Happy Fourth of July!

For everyone in the USA out there, I hope you’re having a happy 4th of July!

Remember the old adage about freedom….

Rights, use ’em or lose ’em.

Anyway, have a good one!

Web Redesign

I redesigned the site a bit (if you haven’t noticed). The grey motif was getting to me and I thought we needed a banner image.

Comments welcome and please let me know if you notice anything broken.

Odds and Ends

Gravatars

I’ve enabled Gravatars, a form of avatars, on the site. They’ll show up next to any of your comments. If you don’t have one already, you can upload one at Gravatars website for free. Until you do, I’ve provided a picture of a baseball that looks a whole lot better than the default ones they provide you.

We’ll give it a try for a while… if there’s no interest. We’ll scrap it. Meanwhile, you get to see my ugly mug next to each of my comments.

Simyard

Teddy Ballgame has been talking up Erick Robertson’s online fantasy baseball game, Simyard for a while so I got my butt over there and signed up. The basic deal is free and more advanced stuff costs a bit more. I haven’t played any but I was able to look around and it does look interesting. Maybe if Teddy and CLuke sign up we can a Zealot league going.

College Baseball Blog Interview

With the college baseball postseason in full swing, Brian Foley from The College Baseball Blog is making the rounds with interviews. He was interviewed by The World Ford Sports Show recently.

New commenting feature

I’ve enabled nested commenting on the blog now. That will allow you to reply to individual comments on posts giving it more of a “discussion” feel.

It should be pretty user-friendly. If you want to reply to a particular comment, click on “Reply” next to comment you want to respond to. Otherwise, post your comment a normal.

Any problems, let me know.

Back to Gametracker, Illinois is winning 6-1!

The Baseball Zealot enters 4th year

Happy Birthday to The Baseball Zealot! Three years ago, I posted the first article for this blog. Coincidentally, it is also the birthday of TBZ co-author Teddy Ballgame.

I gave Teddy a call today over the lunch hour to wish him a happy birthday. I got the latest on the White Sox news. Teddy was hoping to go to the Sox game tonight but as everything with the Midwest lately, it was dependent on the weather. He didn’t neglect to tell me that Joe Crede was leading the AL in rbis. Good thing I kept him on my APBA team.

I updated him on my fantasy auction draft from yesterday. I got Brandon Phillips late in the draft for a song ($7) and my opening bid for Tim Lincecum for $5 went uncontested.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the blog. Here’s to another year!

-tbz

RSS feed for Illini posts

We’re now upon college baseball season and I plan to do a lot of coverage of the Illini. As I found out at the Big Ten Tournament last year, there are one or two who read those posts.

For those who wish to use RSS and are only interested in University of Illinois baseball related articles, you can use The Baseball Zealot Illini feed and plug into your favorite news aggregator like Google Reader.

There’s a handy RSS link on the right sidebar along with a link that will take you to all Illini baseball stuff (the ol’ fashioned way).

(What is RSS?)