Archive for the ‘Site Announcements’ Category

July Stat Madness

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

We ran this in the month of June, and I’ll be announcing the winner soon. Here are the questions for the month of July. Scores are tallied for each question and the lowest score wins. Every amount you are off for each question (above or below) is totaled.

As always, there will be a prize for the winner so make sure you leave me a good e-mail address. Good luck. Entries will close at 5pm EDT tomorrow.

June Stat Madness

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

I got this idea from Baseball Reference and decided to copy it and make it Cub focused.

All entries must be received before the first pitch on June 1. Enter your guesses for each question. Every amount you’re off in your answers will net you a point. Lowest total score wins a prize at the end of the month from our fabulous bag of prizes.

Off-Season: What Do You Want?

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

This weekend, the 2009 season mercifully comes to a close for the Cubs. If you haven’t noticed, not many of us have had the desire to watch, let alone write about, this team down the stretch. I don’t think I’ve watched more than an inning or two at a time all month of September. Beginning Monday, our focus switches to the 2010 edition of this team and I want some feedback from you regarding where we need to head as a blog. I have few ideas that I want to run by you on topics I’d like to tackle as well as ask that you leave some ideas on what you want to read. Here’s what I have so far.

1. A month long series on the changes I’d like to see happen with the game of baseball.

This one will basically be a different change each day. My plan is to do the bulk of the writing on this, but also open it up to you guys as well as the other writers here as well. I think it will be a lot of fun and lead to some good discussion about what is right and wrong with the game today. (Planned Date: January or February)

2. Break down the team position by position

The plan for this is to take a look at what we have in the Majors and Minors and the positions as well as who might be available via free agency. (Planned Date: Mid to Late October)

3. Breakouts / Busts down on the farm

The game plan for this one is to take a look at various prospects that either had breakout years, severe declines, etc and perhaps make some commentary and, when possible, share scouting reports on them from before the season. (Planned Date: Sporadically Pre-Christmas)

4. Monthly Newsletter

This one has been on the back burner for the past 6 months, but it’s something I really want to get started with. The newsletter would be delivered via e-mail the beginning of each month. It would contain things like:

  • The monthly “Lizzie” awards
  • Feature articles from the site’s writers
  • Interviews
  • Links to popular posts from the month
  • Important site news & announcments
  • Monthly Trivia Question

I’d like to flesh this one out a little more and welcome more suggestions on content for this one. (Planned Date: January?)

5. 2010 Predictions for the team

I’ve been giving this one a lot of thought this past month as I read all the arguing over guys like Derrek Lee, Milton Bradley, and Jake Fox. The plan is to have a thread for various players and invite everyone to predict / comment on those players before the year starts. We’d also do this with trades and signings, etc. The goal is to have something to refer back to when we argue. =) It will give you a chance to be bold and let the site know where you stand on various players, topics, transactions, etc. (Planned Date: First off-season transaction)

That’s all I’ve got so far, but I’d love to get your feedback on this and other suggestions for this off-season. When I say that, I mean it. I want the comment section on this post to be full of good feedback. Let’s here it, even if you’re not a regular commenter.

Ask and you shall receive

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

There was a request for a collection of links to all the books reviewed on the site by Cubbiedude. I went ahead and post a section in the right sidebar called CubbieDude’s Bookshelf in which I linked to all the wonderful posts he’s written.

I think I’ve gotten them all, but I may have missed some. Feel free to let me know if you find anything and I’ll be sure to update the list. Enjoy!!!

May Giveaway: American Icon

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

As a way of saying thanks to the people who read this site and make it fun to do what I do, I’d like to give away a prize each month to a random reader / commenter. At the end of the month, I’ll choose a random person to receive the gift that month and get in contact with them.

This month, the giveaway is a book “American Icon: The fall of Roger Clemens and the rise of steroids in America’s pastime”. The book hasn’t been released yet, but it can be yours by simply participating.

What do I have to do? – To enter to win, all you have to do is comment on the site. The more comments you leave, the better your chance of winning, but please don’t just comment for the sake of commenting by saying “hi” or “i’m in”. The goal is for us to increase discussion on the site and really build community.

How is the winner determined? – At the end of the month, I will tally the total number of posts and randomly select one of those posts. From there, a random commenter on the post will be chosen as the winner. If the post chosen does not have a comment, a new post will be chosen. If the random comment selected is one of the writers on the site or myself, a new comment will be chosen.

Good Luck!!!My Sister’s Keeper movies Lost Voyage movie

Housekeeping

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Just a quick housekeeping note for you guys. I have been fiddling with ways to allow people to best use the comment section. I’ve settled on the quick tags plugin. For those who don’t know HTML, using this plugin should help. If you want to use the gray box (or any of the other tags)

1. Click the tag (i.e. b-quote for the grey box)
2. Paste or type your text
3. Click Close Tags
4. Resume mindless rant about why Ryan Theriot is good / bad

Finally, here is a you tube video for your enjoyment that goes with the housekeeping theme.

Wait Until Dark dvd September Dawn video Escape to Witch Mountain

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars release

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla on dvd Agent Cody Banks release

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest dvdrip

A Quick Review of Commenting

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Lately we’ve had some heated discussions of the merit of Jake Fox, the ability of Ryan Theriot and the reliability of rechargeable vs. non-rechargeable batteries (not actually, but that may be a good discussion).

As is the case when people have disagreement, words are said that shouldn’t be said. For example, instead of saying “Pablo, you’re an idiot saber nerd….Ryan Theriot is a god”, a better way to handle it is to simply continue to make your case without the ridicule against the commentor.

I really like the disagreements we’ve had over the players we’ve been talking about, particularly Jake Fox. Let’s just try to get along. As far as the language, I’m trying to be more lax with that. Just keep it somewhat PG. Don’t be dropping any f-bombs and things of that nature and we should be good. In the meantime, carry on.Herbie Rides Again release

The Christmas Wish hd

Rotisserie Baseball

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

I’d like to play a Rotisserie league this year with 10 teams and a live auction draft on ESPN.

If you’re interested in playing with me, let me know why you should be the guy for the league.

I’ll provide a prize for the winner of the league. Send all entry explainations to joe@viewfromthebleachers.com

Please include the following:

Name
Age
Experience Playing Rotisserie Style
AIM name if you have one
Reason why you are the right choice to play with

The Last Unicorn trailer

We Want You

Monday, May 5th, 2008

With the addition of diaries to the site, it’s apparent that reader interaction is our priority. Our readers are good thinkers and know this team. With that being said, I wanted to make the readers aware of a spot open for game recaps. I am looking for someone to write two recaps per week to ease the burden on me, which would allow me to focus on providing more editorial coverage, breaking news, and farm focus.

If you are interesting in pursuing this opportunity, send me an e-mail to joe@viewfromthebleachers.com

New Website Features

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

Check out all the new things we’ve added to the View From The Bleachers for the 2008 season.

(more…)

Fantasy Baseball Challenge

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Being the founder of two separate blogs (Rays of Light being the second), I’m constantly monitoring which site is doing better. That being said, I decided that it might be fun to see which site had the better fantasy baseball players and have come up with a contest to find out.

This year we will setup a league on MLB.com’s Fantasy Open. There are a few reasons why I chose this platform to host the league.

  1. As a user of Yahoo for all of my fantasy play, I have grown frustrated with the fact that a user has to pay to have the live scoring be part of the league experience. MLB.com offers that as part of the free game.
  2. I have always enjoyed Fantasy Football because the decisions for the week can be made on one day. Fantasy Baseball has always required daily lineup changes, which can become cumbersome. MLB.com’s league uses the weekly lineup setting.
  3. I can’t stand how people constantly add/drop starting pitchers each day to rack up K’s and Wins. This isn’t much of a strategy if you ask me. In this setup, a team does not draft individual pitchers, but rather a full team’s staff. For example, if you draft the Cubs pitching staff, you get the whole lot of them that week. It’s similar to the system used in fantasy football with defense.

The Fantasy Challenge this year will work as follows:

  • Rays of Light will be represented by Scott Caruso, the site’s editor. He will choose five of his readers to compete for the Rays of Light squad.
  • View From The Bleachers will be represented by myself. I will choose five of my readers to compete for the VFTB squad.
  • Each team member will manage their team with the goal of winning the league. Points will be given based on order of finish with 12 points going for first place and so on down to 1 point for last.
  • At the end of the season, the standings points earned by each team will be totaled up to determine which blog won. The winning blog will see it’s readers receive a book of their choice from the prize library.
  • The league will begin with a live draft on March 24th (my birthday) at 9pm EDT.

If you are interested in representing our team, send me an e-mail and we’ll discuss why you might be worthy. You can contact me at