When I started redesigning Sox Machine a few months ago, I expected its launch to usher in a more exciting era of White Sox baseball. Little did I know it'd be running stride-for-stride with the era of no baseball of any kind, at least domestically.
That said, it still marks a new era of Sox Machine, because this look reflects the start of making this site my full-time concern.
For the first 14 seasons writing about the White Sox, it had to take a back seat to my day job. I'm fortunate that I had tremendous bosses who understood and encouraged this because they had secondary pursuits of their own, but I had to make sure I paid the bills while avoiding burning the candle at both ends. (Shout out to everybody here and SSS that allowed me to take needed breathers.)
My move to Nashville -- and your support on Patreon -- afforded me the opportunity to give it a full-time shot. It's just taking a different shape for the time being. I envisioned seizing opportunities to write three different posts about a game that warranted it, rather than choosing the one that made the best use of my two hours that morning. I pictured logging lots of miles on I-65 to Birmingham, and I-40 into North Carolina.
Instead, I'll be practicing social distancing just like everybody else, except with more time to read some intriguing new releases and dig into topics I'd kept in my back pocket in case of a work stoppage.
So that's what this redesign means to me. What does this all mean for you?
More time to chat: Given that I use my real name, I didn't want to push my luck assigning timestamps to internet activity unrelated to my day job during work hours. That's no longer a concern, so we'll take a look at different methods of exploring this freedom.
Au revoir, old annoyances: If the lack of carriage returns in Firefox comments or the floating header on Android bothered you, I guarantee you that it bothered me more.
Enhanced designs for posts: There are some cool bells and whistles I'll be playing with as the material warrants.
Customizable category pages: If you go to the White Sox prospects page, you'll see my Prospect Week coverage at the top before the daily stuff. If and when the MLB draft gains steam, you'll see Josh's highlighted posts and resources for easy access.
Store infrastructure: You might've sensed it from the emphasis on merchandise in the Sox Machine survey, and if you didn't participate in that, you might've noticed the cart icon above. This version of Sox Machine is indeed wired up to support a storefront. In fact, I had tested it and had it ready to go.
As it stands, it's not particularly responsible to burden postal personnel with unnecessary trips and packages, so that aspect of the site can wait. I'd encourage you to support local businesses and organizations in the interim. You know, the ones with the physical spaces you hope will be around when we're allowed to go outside again.
In the meantime, the baseball downtime means we can direct our focus on strengthening the community here, so that's my plan for the months ahead. I'm also anticipating the need to make tweaks to resolve issues that the Sox Machine staff didn't encounter in testing, so let me know if something doesn't look right. Besides the general lack of baseball, that is.
