Please Allow Me - A Trip Down Brewerfan Memory Lane

[Mass Haas]

I'm pulling this post from this season's final Link Report, I hope people see it for what it is, just a little self-indulgent trip down memory lane for me. And special kudos to Brian, Patrick, Toby, Hawing, Casey, and others I haven't listed but who are so appreciated from those early days on Brewerfan's "staff".

 

Jim---You are the man. Thank you for keeping up with this for what seems like 15+ years now.

 

Sweet 16 (!), but who's counting?

 

When I think of just the technological updates, how if I wanted to listen to a Brewer broadcast via Jim Powell (remember, I'm not local), I'd have to tie up my land line for hours via the dial-up.

 

Minor league baseball teams had their own sites (maybe) of obviously varying degrees of helpfulness (remember, I would even grade them in a feature article).

 

Before the MiLB hub (and even in the early days of MiLB's hub site), if you knew the browsing shortcuts you could find where transactions were filed before they even had a chance to announce it to the players (yes, a player or two learned via our site they had been released, to the Brewers' consternation).

 

Remember the absolutely awesome David Weiser and his starsboxscore.com site (now defunct) from Huntsville. David was the goods, my goodness what a great resource he was. Others too from over the years, but none like David.

 

My restaurant sit-down with an old-timey tape recorder for my very first player interview feature on A-ball LHP Justin Gordon. Here's what Justin is up to today.

 

The piece I'm still most proud of and had the most fun doing back in the 2001-02 offseason, with the Brewers' Northeast Scout Tommy Tanous, who is now the Amateur Scouting Director for the Mets.

 

We did a slew of "Behind the Microphone" feature articles like this one, chatting with the affiliate broadcasters.

 

Speaking of Jim Powell earlier, remember when he penned his own goodbye to Brewerfan?

 

Geez, there's so much backroom Brewerfan staff goodies and nuggets we could share from over 16 years (but we won't). If you only knew the ...

 

There is so much available now to Brewer fans in terms of incredible Twitter follows, dozens of in-season archived audio interview archives weekly on the major and minor league level, spectacular Brewer-based fan sites, it's such a great time to invest oneself in the rebuild, and so much of that comes through following the minor leagues, and if we're still filling a niche for everyone here, then great.

 

Who everyone should really thank is Mrs. Haas (29 years married this month). A non-sports fan, she's allowed me to pursue this passion, probably because it's an inexpensive hobby . Somehow I've managed to still be (I think) a pretty cool husband and dad, and to be honest, my time commitment isn't nearly what it was in the early days, even though it may seem like it.

 

Here's to the minor league offseason!

 

The first 2017 Link Report will be Thursday, April 6th.

[homer]

It used to be I'd have to wait until the next morning to see a minor league box score.

 

Remember the guy who self-compiled all the splits for minor leaguers? We were in awe. Then I think MiLB started doing it the following year. Amazing how much the technology has advanced in that regard.

[1992casey]

I recall when pictures of players were frequently unavailable. One time, a member suggested that the site might be considering race in its evaluation of players (yeah, that's nice ). The response was that we didn't have a clue what a lot of them looked like until they reached the Major Leagues.

 

Nowadays, in addition to minor leaguers, there are almost always photos of high school and college prospects available, not to mention videos on YouTube. In the process of doing our official draft pick threads, I think there's been a problem with finding a photo for about one draftee per year. And still, we've been able to track down a photo with a little added effort.

[foamboy1]

Thank you for all the excellent work you and others do in the minor league forum. It's been my "go to" spot every morning for more than a decade now.

 

Thank you.

[brwrsfan]

I'd also like to say thanks to everyone that's been involved in the link reports for the past 15-16 seasons.

 

When I was in college, I used to work in the campus computer lab on the early morning shift 7-10 every day during summer session. As you would imagine with college kids, there was almost nobody ever there that early, especially in the summer. This left me with a TON of time to sit at a computer with virtually nothing to do. It was at this time that I somehow or other stumbled upon a website called Brewerfan.com (this seems like a lifetime ago btw).

 

From that day forward, one of the very first things I did every day was come to the link report to see how Prince Fielder (he was in Beloit at the time) and others had done the day before. It became a daily routine...that's stayed with me ever since. It was fun to look at the box scores, read the articles, and now watch some highlights. Amazing to think how far it's come since those college days.

 

For those of you that have contributed or covered a team at any point in the past, I can only imagine the amount of time and energy it takes (especially in the early days), to find the boxes, post everything, talk to the announcers, etc. I'm sure there were many days when finding the time to do all of that was daunting. And I'm guessing in the early days, there was probably some doubt if anyone was actually even looking at all of the work you were doing. I apologize for not saying it then and for not saying it more often as the years have gone by, but all of you do an amazing job covering each and every team, the words "thank you" aren't nearly enough.

 

But a huge THANK YOU to everyone that's been part of the link report. Thank you for getting a college kid into minor league baseball all those years ago. Thank you for becoming an enjoyable part of my daily routine. Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication!!! Hopefully it won't take me 15 years to say it again, but just in case, thank you for all of the work everyone will do in the future as well!!

[Baldkin]

I

 

Geez, there's so much backroom Brewerfan staff goodies and nuggets we could share from over 16 years (but we won't). If you only knew the ...

 

I, for one, can't wait for the memoirs.

 

"WOAHH SOLLVD: The Secret Story of a Secret Agent"

[davego]

I love Brewer Fan!

[DHonks]

wow, fun to think back. I was a crazy college kid in California who loved the Brewers. I remember going to High Desert games in San Jose, getting sunburnt, and talking with the play-by-play guy (was it Mike Linskog?) in the booth.

 

I remember having to wait for boxscores to post to usatoday.com late each night in order to see how guys did. There were no live updates for the minor leagues.

 

I remember falling for the future rotation of JM Gold, Nick Neugebauer, Paul Stewart, Ryan Poe, Jose Mieses, and many more.

[MoreTrife]

Thanks for all the hard work. It is appreciated.