The baseball side of the FanSided.com Sports Network has continued to grow and develop since starting to take root early on in 2009. The launch of Call to the Pen in March of 2010 gave our network a presence in the world of general baseball writing, but with such a vast amount of topical terrain to cover we decided that we needed something more.
What we needed was a site capable of taking the pressure of minor league and prospect coverage off the shoulders of CttP. We also needed a place where we could assemble a team of writers who would be focused on covering the minor leagues, prospects and the draft.
Today, with the launch of Seedlings to Stars, we take our first step toward filling those sizable voids in our network’s coverage and presence.
In many ways the launch of this site still seems like a dream as it has been bumping around in the back of my mind for a while now. Five months before Call to the Pen came into existence I pitched launching a minor league site to our network’s leadership. However the timing wasn’t right. Back then we were still working on launching and staffing each of our team sites. We were also in the process of implementing a leadership structure that could more effectively address the needs and expectations of our growing staff. It also didn’t make sense to launch a site dedicated to the minors before a site dedicated to the majors.
With all those hurdles now in our rear view mirror, bringing S2S into existence was a logical next step.
To get things off the ground, I am joined by 3 other very talented writers who are on staff with some of our team sites. They are – in no particular order – James Chipman (Motor City Bengals), Jonathan Collander (Nolan Writin’) and Jeff Herr (Kings of Kauffman). Right now we are a team of four, but there will be some additional voices that will be joining our ranks in the relatively near future. Of course, we will also occasionally tap into the thoughts and expertise of our team-based writers which is now over 100 members strong.
As for me, I’m the MLB Director of Content for our network and have served as the Lead Writer for Kings of Kauffman, Call to the Pen and Puckett’s Pond at various points in my tenure with the network (I apparently have nomadic tendencies when it comes to my writing). These days, in addition to what I publish here on S2S, I will be contributing Royals and Twins based articles on those respective sites on a weekly basis as I continue on in my attempt to balance my writing career with my “day job” and my family life.
You’ll get to know all of us better in the coming days and weeks through our writing and through our bios which will be added to a staff page (that I should get added to the site this week).
James, Jonathan, Jeff and myself are all very excited about being a part of this project and we hope you enjoy the content you will find here going forward. Further we hope you will become a regular reader and member of the Seedlings to Stars community.