Excerpt: "A Sad Day"

"Saying you want a drug-free game is an abstraction, buying in to an image of sports, of baseball, that has simply never reflected reality. In the same way that there was no such thing as loyalty before free agency, there's no such thing as clean before testing. If you could turn the Bud Squad loose in 1965 or 1982 or 1993, you'd find what reasonable people know to be true: many hypercompetitive athletes will do anything to be the best, ethics and laws be damned. With testing, with witch hunts, with 800-word screeds, we're trying to hold the present to the standards of the past -- standards that never, ever existed except in our sepia-toned fondest wishes."

Excerpt: "Third Third Preview, Part II"

"Kansas City Royals (17): I never get to talk about the Royals…. They've won 12 of 13 and 14 of 17 since the All-Star break, which makes Dayton Moore -- who said they could win 15 of 20 at any time -- prescient. Credit where due. It's not just the schedule; they went 5-2 on a homestand against the Tigers and Orioles, and going 9-1 even against a weak slate since then exceeds expectations. The decision to release Jeff Francoeur is mitigated by their burial of Johnny Giavotella -- their only real second-base option -- and continued use of Wade Davis as a starter. Their best hitter is a catcher batting .174 and they still don't do anything well on offense but steal bases. Going 14-3 gets them to -- or close to -- what will be a high point this season, but they're not going to catch the Tigers and even at this high point, they're the eighth-best team in a 15-team league.

"Call me in 12 days. Once the Twins leave town, the Red Sox come in, followed by the Marlins. Then the Royals go to Detroit for five games in four days. If the Royals have closed ground on the Tigers when they leave Detroit, if they're not still chasing three teams better than them in the wild-card race, then we can take all of this seriously.

"I suppose, after it all falls apart, the goalposts will be moved again, and staying sort of relevant in August and early September, finishing above .500, will be deemed a success. We'll hear about the challenges of a small market and the unfairness of it all, probably on a radio show while the Rays are preparing for a Division Series game, probably while Wil Myers takes batting practice, probably while votes are counted for Rookie of the Year."

Excerpt

From the latest edition of the Joe Sheehan Newsletter:

"Kansas City Royals (17): I never get to talk about the Royals…. They've won 12 of 13 and 14 of 17 since the All-Star break, which makes Dayton Moore -- who said they could win 15 of 20 at any time -- prescient. Credit where due. It's not just the schedule; they went 5-2 on a homestand against the Tigers and Orioles, and going 9-1 even against a weak slate since then exceeds expectations. The decision to release Jeff Francoeur is mitigated by their burial of Johnny Giavotella -- their only real second-base option -- and continued use of Wade Davis as a starter. Their best hitter is a catcher batting .174 and they still don't do anything well on offense but steal bases. Going 14-3 gets them to -- or close to -- what will be a high point this season, but they're not going to catch the Tigers and even at this high point, they're the eighth-best team in a 15-team league.

"Call me in 12 days. Once the Twins leave town, the Red Sox come in, followed by the Marlins. Then the Royals go to Detroit for five games in four days. If the Royals have closed ground on the Tigers when they leave Detroit, if they're not still chasing three teams better than them in the wild-card race, then we can take all of this seriously.

"I suppose, after it all falls apart, the goalposts will be moved again, and staying sort of relevant in August and early September, finishing above .500, will be deemed a success. We'll hear about the challenges of a small market and the unfairness of it all, probably on a radio show while the Rays are preparing for a Division Series game, probably while Wil Myers takes batting practice, probably while votes are counted for Rookie of the Year."

Excerpt, v2.0

From the latest edition of the Sheehan Newsletter:

"Saying you want a drug-free game is an abstraction, buying in to an image of sports, of baseball, that has simply never reflected reality. In the same way that there was no such thing as loyalty before free agency, there's no such thing as clean before testing. If you could turn the Bud Squad loose in 1965 or 1982 or 1993, you'd find what reasonable people know to be true: many hypercompetitive athletes will do anything to be the best, ethics and laws be damned. With testing, with witch hunts, with 800-word screeds, we're trying to hold the present to the standards of the past -- standards that never, ever existed except in our sepia-toned fondest wishes."

The Next Big Step

There's a story I like to tell about the way my career developed. When I got involved with Gary Huckabay, Clay Davenport and the rest of the founding five at Prospectus, I wasn't looking for a writing career. I had a fiancée, student-loan debt, a journalism degree, a new job and a burning desire to work in baseball. I read Rob Neyer; I didn't want to compete with him. The job that developed, first through the BP annuals and then the Web site and writing for ESPN.com, just kind of happened. I looked up one day and realized that I wasn't on a path to something better, but that I actually had a great job.

I recognize now that I've gone through a similar path with the newsletter. I launched it -- well, relaunched it, after the first run in 2002-03 -- in May of 2010 because I wanted an outlet for the work I'd been doing while at BP. I saw it as a means of generating some money for work I enjoyed doing, while waiting to figure out what I would be doing next. It's more than three years later, and I look up, and the newsletter isn't a side project. It's what I do. I write more frequently and in greater depth for it than I do for any other outlet, and I put more non-writing time into it each year. The newsletter may not yet be my largest project by some measures, but it is the one I am most passionate about.

To date, I have always left a window cracked. Each year, I've set a fixed end date for the newsletter, usually the end of January, so as to maintain maximum flexibility to jump for other opportunities, or to bail out if the newsletter was no longer viable. If the Yankees call me and offer me a chance to play third base -- I have as many functioning quads as the starting left side of the Yankees' infield and I'm not that much older than those guys are -- I can't have an obligation to write hanging over my head. I also wanted to be careful about the date my commitment to the newsletter ends becoming a burden if subscriptions didn't keep up with expectations, where I'm writing at a huge loss for a dwindling audience.

I look up, though, and once again, I realize that I'm not on my way to something. I'm already here. The newsletter is successful and growing and fun and rewarding. It's what I do. I write for Sports Illustrated -- with tremendous pride, I should add -- and SI.com and I talk to great radio hosts around the country and, good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, soon enough someone will put my Charlie Brown head on TV again.

But the newsletter is where I live. It's been good to me, and it's time I start treating it as well as it's treated me. Effective today, newsletter subscriptions will be sold in rolling intervals. Instead of a fixed end date, new subscribers and renewals will be able to purchase subscriptions that will end not on January 31 of the following year, but 12 months to the day they subscribe. (Six-month subscriptions will also be available, and I may expand the options over time.) The annual subscription rate will be $29.95; I am going back to that price point for a few reasons, none all that significant in isolation but when combined, they push me back to the higher figure.

If you are a current subscriber as of July 22, having purchased a subscription for $24.95 or $19.95 or being given a Friends and Family subscription -- basically, if you're getting this in your inbox -- your subscription will end on February 14, 2014. That tacks two weeks on to every active subscription. Through August 30 -- operators are standing by! -- you can renew for a full year for $24.95! No matter when you renew, a renewed subscription will run through February 14, 2015.

I've doubled the subscriber base over three years despite having some life-sized monkey wrenches tossed into 2012. My renewal rate is nearly 80% despite not having an auto-renewal program (I still won't). As of this afternoon there are 1,418 paid subscribers. There are those of you who see an upside here I don't necessarily see, but I may be too close to it. Maybe I can get to 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 subscribers. Maybe there are that many people who will, to get back to first principles, recognize and support quality if given that option. We live in a media environment where something as high-quality as "Outside the Lines" is being buried by ESPN, and where the new Fox Sports One is building its brand around ex-athletes cracking jokes. Surely there's room for an alternative. Surely there's an audience for an alternative.

And if the Yankees give up on Luis Cruz and call me, well, we'll all figure something out.

Thanks!

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