A few links to get our morning started, as well as answer a question we've been getting for months, answering, then getting again...
And I understand why. TheFightins.com left this blog scene, like so many young sites, before its time, and for many of us, it was a daily source of enjoyment. So, what happened to TheFightins? The short answer is nothing in particular. It's just incredibly hard to run a successful site the way someone as good as Meech would want it to be run on a limited time budget, so he closed up shop this past November [pictured: Meech and his boys walking off into the sunset]. This recent interview with the esteemed FanGraphs should shed some more light on the subject. Personally, I still hold out hope we get 'er back someday soon. [Mike Meech interview with FanGraphs]
If you bought your Phils tickets through TheFightins on TiqIQ, Meech has handed over the reigns to ZooWithRoy, and you can now get those here. I don't know about you, but I like the idea of my stubs still cold from the polar pool at the Philly Zoo. [ZooWithRoy]
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Dash Treyhorn, who covered recaps and provided commentary at TheFightins, has taken his wares to Phillies Nation, a good landing site for his coverage and a nice addition for their readers.
Another prominent Fightin has taken the shuttering of the site and created a new path for the spring and summer that I recommend bookmarking and/or following on twitter. You may have noticed that a lot of fans are blogging these days, with an increasing trend toward aping traditional media (ie, "covering" team news, etc.), while traditional media sites add blog features, bringing each closer to the middle of a spectrum that didn't exist 10 years ago. In some ways that can be enjoyable, but there was something great about how early blogs really focused on the visceral experience of being a fan first. Many still continue to do that of course, or mix it in with news bits in a kind of bloguillabaisse. As his name would suggest, Tug has a throwback spirit (and that is his given name), blogging as a fan, with very experiential posts. This spring and summer, he'll spend 6 months on the road in America, seeing minor league baseball games in more than 100 stadiums. Hate u, Tug. So check out Casual-Fan.com to follow that adventure, and if you're a publisher reading this, now's the time to ink this book deal. [Casual-Fan]