Stop celebrating, Gorman. We've gotta do this all over again!
Wow. [Deep breaths]…
Back in late September of 2010 when PastKast.com was launched, I had a vision. I saw with a little time, help and effort, how great it could be.
This past year, 2011, was the first time that we covered an entire historic season from start to finish in real time. And we covered two.
I’ve gotta be honest. Even though we had already covered the 1982 Brewers during the second half of 2010, I didn’t realize how much work it was going to be. And once we found the old newspapers…
Those newspapers brought everything together. Without them, we wouldn’t have had the rumors and quotes and minor transactions and back stories that you won’t find in a box score. But because of those newspapers, the bar was raised. With it, the hours.
So first off, many thanks to Jon Davies who took a major chunk of the research for us. Jon didn’t get much (or any) of the glory. He left that to Rob and me. But it was because of Jon’s hard work that Rob and I were able to step back, relax and focus on writing good content.
And a big thanks to Rob Peterson. Rob reached out to me early on when @TweetsFrom1982 was getting off the ground. He saw the great potential. He helped keep me motivated in those early days when it was easy to get frustrated. And he did a magnificent job managing the content for the 1987 Brewers on Brewers1987.com.
And finally, thanks to you. This wouldn’t exist if you didn’t read it. This project has cost us all countless hours of work. There is so much you don’t see. But we do it because you love it. And dammit… It’s just so much fun.
Where will it go next? That’s really in your hands. In all honesty, we had planned to also cover the 1957 Braves during 2011. Luckily, we got wise early and realized we didn’t have the bandwidth. And oh man… that was the right decision. We were stretched as thin as we could possibly be stretched, but had just enough room to make the product as great as it could be.
The 1982 and 1987 Brewers seasons will again be replayed on these websites (Brewers1982.com and Brewers1987.com), Twitter (@TweetsFrom1982 and @TweetsFrom1987) and Facebook (Brewers Updates From 1982 and Brewers Updates From 1987). The thing is, there is still some research we missed. Some gaps remain. We can still make it greater. And I see this developing into a book.
Will we cover other teams? Will this transform into something bigger and better? Will this take over the world? I know it can. But it can’t without actually becoming a business.
If this is as far as we go, that’s not a failure. I have loved every minute of it. And I will love every minute of restarting these two seasons on January 1.
But if it becomes something even greater, and if it reaches those heights that I envision, it’s all because of you.
Regardless, thank you. Thank you for being along for the ride. Thank you for keeping us motivated. And thanks for playing along.
Happy New Year!
- Jon
{ 0 comments }
