Welcome to The Conclave!

Welcome to The Cardinal Conclave. While the name was inspired by recent events, the project has been in the making for quite some time.

Nick, who most of you know heads up the quality Cardinal blog Pitchers Hit Eighth, and I have bounced around this idea of getting some of the best Cardinal bloggers underneath the same web umbrella for a couple of years now. We talked about it and then saw what happened with Twins Daily, where a number of the leading Minnesota Twins bloggers shuttered their sites and joined together for one megasite. There were a lot of appealing things to that model, but Nick and I both wanted to figure out a way to do it without losing the individuality that makes the Cardinal blogosphere as wonderful and diverse as it is.

It continued to be an off-and-on topic of discussion for us until a couple of months ago, when the site Padres Public went online. The Padres guys realized that they could keep their names and identities, basically keep their blogs, while still providing a stream of regular content on the main feed of an overall page.

We’ve taken that idea and modified it to our needs. For example, the Padres guys have a pretty set schedule of writing. Authors don’t have to worry about daily work, but can focus on one or two good posts a week. We’re going to have that as well, but we’ll also have the backbone of regular recaps and activity. If any of you are familiar with what I do at C70 At The Bat, you could probably guess that it’d be next to impossible for me to settle into a schedule that had me writing less. So we’ll have quality and quantity covered here!

Let’s talk about who you will be seeing. Of course, you’ve got myself and Nick. We’ve also brought along Josh Gilliam, who has been writing with Nick at PH8 for quite a long time. You’ll find Josh and Nick regularly contributing on Monday.

Mike Metzger is no stranger to the Cardinal blogosphere. He’s the former writer of Stan Musial’s Stance, which he shuttered after the Cards won the ’11 Series due to the fact that he lived in San Diego and had trouble keeping up with them. He went on to write Padres Trail, which is now one of the blogs under the Padres Public banner. When we reached out to Mike to get some details, he immediately said he wanted in if we started a similar site, as without the pressure of constantly needing fresh content, it was much easier to contribute to Cardinal thought. You’ll now see Mike at West Coast Redbird on Fridays, ready to kick off your weekend.

On the sabermetric beat, we have Steve Sommer. Steve’s been around the blogosphere for a while, writing at places such as Play A Hard 9 before starting up Gas House Graphs. If you like your Cardinal coverage liberally seasoned with acronyms and detailed metric work, you’ll definitely want to check out Steve on Thursday afternoons.

Rounding out the regular crew are Dustin McClure, Dathan Brooks and Mike Grabowski. Dustin’s been penning Welcome To Baseball Heaven for quite some time now and he’ll bring his viewpoints over here on Tuesdays. Dathan started with Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Goodnight before splitting off his Cards coverage to Cards Tied For First. He’ll be writing in the middle of the week, renaming his blog Go Crazy, Big Boy in the process. Mike’s a relative newcomer to the blogging scene but has made a splash with his St. Louis Perfectos. We’ll see Mike on Tuesdays as well, also with a new blog title, Red Birds, Yellow Bat.

As an added bonus, you are going to get nightly minor league recaps from John Nagel of CardinalsFarm. You’ll want to check out his site for analysis, but he’s been gracious enough to sum up the day’s minor league activity right here at The Cardinal Conclave.  Those recaps will go up under the title Prospect Preacher.

I’ve listed days up above that you’ll find our other writers, but the schedule is flexible. You might see people writing more than once a week or having to shift around days. The important thing is that there should always be something new and interesting here to read so you’ll want to either check back often or follow us on Twitter so you’ll know when a new post is up. Of course, you can also like us on Facebook as well.

Besides our regular contributors, we also have a blog we’re calling Cardinal Cameos. We’ve invited writers and bloggers that have an Internet presence elsewhere to drop in and contribute whenever they might feel like it. There’s no schedule, there’s no plan. You–and we–will never have any idea just who might be dropping by.

On top of our general analysis, you can find press releases from the Cardinals and related entities at the blog Meet Me At Musial. So if you want to know what’s coming up on the next homestand or the next promotion, we’ve got you covered.

We’d like you not to think of The Cardinal Conclave as one blog. Maybe a “megablog” works as a term, but we still have C70 At The Bat, Pitchers Hit Eighth, and others as individual entities. The only difference is now, our work can be combined in a location that makes it easier for you, our readers, to follow and comment. No need to hit three, four, six blog locations. Now you can find many of your favorite writers in one bookmark. You can also contact the writers at their email addresses but also at thecardsconclave@gmail.com. We’ll make sure it gets where it needs to go. That’s also a good place for sending some feedback as is posting comments right on this post.

You’ll see that many of our writers wrote introductory posts last week to prepare for this big day.  You’ll find them at their individual blogs as well as below this posts.  Get to know them if you don’t already, then sit back and read what they’ll be bringing to the table on a regular basis.

It’s a new day in the Cardinal blogosphere. We’re excited to get started.

–Daniel Shoptaw
C70 At The Bat
June 3, 2013

  • janrayewilliams June 3, 2013, 8:15 am

    I’ve been catching ya’ll on Twitter, but CC is going on my bookmarks bar today! CFCT – Cardinals Forever Continues Today!!!

    • Cardinal70 June 3, 2013, 11:46 am

      Thanks to you both! Hope you enjoy the ride!

  • Mark G. June 3, 2013, 8:44 am

    Looking forward to reading what you guys have to say about my beloved Cardinals!

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