Welcome to Beltway Baseball

Many years ago in a faraway place called Minnesota, I published an e-mail newsletter dedicated to the baseball's independent minor leagues, which at the time were exploding all over the landscape. The Rebel Baseball Review lasted about five years before divorce forced me to became a single parent; at that point I couldn't spare the time to work on it any more. Since then, the kids have grown up, I've moved to the Washington area, and I think it's time for me to start writing about baseball again.This might seem more than a little quixotic - after all, there are already hundreds, possibly thousands of blogs written by professional baseball writers and fans all across the fruited plains, many of which already have sizable audiences, decent cash flow, and established reputations. Still, the Rebel Baseball Review had all of these things, and brought me some opportunities to write for other websites and publications, and I'm pretty sure my writing chops are every bit as good as they used to be. We'll find out.

Most of the Washington-area baseball blogs focus on the Nationals, for obvious reasons: they're the big news in town, as major league teams usually are, and spend a fair amount of time and money to remain that way. I'll also comment on the Nats from time to time, but for the most part I'll content myself with posting links to other blogs who specialize in Nationals news so you can drop by here in the morning, take a look at what's up, and get your morning fix of quality Nationals blogging. I expect to devote more time to the local minor league clubs, especially the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs of the independent Atlantic League, but also the farm teams in Bowie, Frederick, Hagerstown and Woodbridge. Those teams are going to be looked at more in terms of the game-day experience than anything else - I'm not going to repeat Bill James' classic rant on the shortcomings of the organization now (pretentiously) named Minor League Baseball here, but I can't get too excited about the roster moves and day-by-day play of an organization that is 99% player development and 1% honest competition. Also, two of the four local farm teams belong to the Orioles, and due to my old (and bitter) opinion of the Birds dating back to the days when Ted Williams managed the Senators, I have less than no interest in those kids.

There are going to be a lot of words, not so many numbers, and even fewer pictures. You'll thank me later. ;)
Thanks for stopping by.