Well before the coronavirus seized the baseball season and so much else of our everyday lives, I was planning on rolling out some changes to Sox Machine in time for Opening Day.
Well, I'm still planning on rolling out design changes over the coming weeks. The other stuff could take longer, depending on the extent and the duration of the disruption. But assuming the world isn't going to end, further enhancements and experiments will be on the way at some point.
If you told me in December that baseball would be postponed indefinitely in March due to a pandemic, I'd probably feel devastated. As it stands, I'm more on the sanguine side. On the personal level, I'm in the process of packing for a big move, so, hey, more time for that. The suspension of KBO and NPB seasons provided a heads-up, and when you see what's happening in places like Italy and Iran, the drastic measures stateside are far easier to comprehend.
I started Sox Machine back in late 2005 as a reason to write daily after taking a non-writing job in journalism. It just so happens that baseball is a terrific vehicle for daily material, especially with a team coming off their first World Series in 88 years. Over the course of 14 seasons, I've developed a rhythm and inertia that makes it rather easy to write about only baseball most days of a 12-month cycle that always replenishes the supply.
Now there's no baseball to write about, and unlike the offseason, the lack of baseball isn't even restorative. There aren't going to be any moves to discuss, and we've already examined and anticipated everything else they've done. Anticipating further runs the risk of being counterproductive, especially when there's no indication of the sport's return. Scott Reifert and other people speaking for clubs are acting for now as though a 162-game season will still be played in some shape, but I can't see it, and it's not worth imagining.
So what do we do? I don't exactly know, but having known generally how my writing map was going to unfold over the last dozen years or so, it's kinda interesting not knowing. Terribly timed? Sure. Harmful for a business? Oh, definitely. But it's interesting.
On the plus side, I own Sox Machine. Josh runs the podcast. We're fortunate to not be at the mercy of a greater company whose bottom line has been disrupted and potentially devastated. While we're all here for a particular team of a particular sport, we're all three-dimensional people with other interests, forging into a world none of us has experienced, and we're in the position where we can try new things and explore new areas. What's important to us is building and strengthening a readership, a listenership, a community. We can do that while biding our time.
I have a few ideas for topics over the next several days, and then I'll be (hopefully) moving, and then ... I don't know. I'm sure I'll be writing. If you're wondering what it'll be about, I'm just as curious as you.
If you have ideas, drop 'em below. And while you have the time, I'd appreciate you filling out this survey to take the metaphorical temperature of the community on a couple specific aspects of the site. If you're struggling with the embed below, here's the direct link.
