Meet The Conclave: Doug Vollet

With the changes in the Conclave roster, it seemed a good time to let you, our readers, know a little bit more about the guys that you are reading, whether they are coming over from The Redbird Daily or have been a part of the Conclave for a while.  So I (Daniel Shoptaw, also known as Cardinal70) thought I’d ask a few questions of these writers.  Enjoy!

Blogger: Doug Vollet
Blog Name: Baseball Geek in Galveston
Twitter: drv421g

Daniel: For those that don’t know, who is Doug Vollet outside of his blogger life?

Doug: I’m pretty boring. The only thing of note, really, is that I’m an avid gamer. I play a wide variety of PS4 games and am addicted to the PC game Out Of The Park Baseball (OOTP) where you can be the GM of your own team. I’ve played in multiple online leagues and have a reputation of being a bit of a penny-pincher GM who prefers to build from within.

Daniel: How successful are you at your team-building strategies?

Doug: Depends on patience. I have made 3 playoff appearances but I have a bit of a bottom line financial strategy and often deal players before their big payday. The one time I didn’t do that I ended up financially handicapped and had an expensive 2B playing out his contract in AAA.

Daniel: What other sort of games are you playing on your PS4?

Doug: Currently 3 games mainly, all different genres. Moonlighter, an RPG where you play a shop owner who crawls dungeons at night killing monsters while looking for things to sell at his shop during the day so he can expand the shop, upgrade his equipment and help his town grow. Game two is MLB The Show 17. (Waiting on 18’s price to drop.) where I mainly play pitchers because there is more strategy there in my mind. Currently I am working on a junk baller without a true fastball (the closest he has is a splitter; his other two pitches are a knuckle curve and a screwball).  Game 3 is Fortnite. I’m not a big builder, though I do occasionally, but rather I like to start out on the edges and hide a lot. I try to catch people off guard.

Daniel: What made you get into blogging in the first place?

Doug: It was a way to get myself out there, to force myself to interact with people, as well as start a routine, like a journal.

Daniel: Do you find that you’ve enjoyed the process?

Doug: Yes and no. Discipline (which is required for writing regularly) is a constant struggle for me. I do enjoy seeing it out there once it’s done though.

Daniel: What have you found the reaction to your posts to be?

Doug: Mostly positive. They don’t generate many comments from users, but when I was a Twitter regular, I had guys who regularly tweeted good comments about my stuff.

Daniel: What do you think has been the highlight of your blogging career so far?

Doug: Going to the Bloggers get together a few years ago. It made me feel like an actual reporter instead of just a guy throwing things out there on the internet.

Daniel: Were you surprised at how well the Cardinals treated the bloggers when you went? What was the highlight of that experience for you?

Doug: Yeah, they treated us very well. The highlight was meeting other bloggers as well as hearing Mo speak.

Daniel: What do you like most about being a Cardinal fan? What do you like most about the online Cardinal community, which would include Twitter, blogs, podcasts, and the like?

Doug: Just supporting my team. I was born and raised on the Cards, and I live and die with them. I like that they grow from within mostly and aren’t a “throw money at every problem” kind of team (the Mike Leake fiasco notwithstanding). As for the online community, I enjoy the occasional podcast, but I’m mostly a march to the beat of my own drummer kind of guy so I never really took to Twitter. Twitter felt more like something I “had” to do, rather than something I “wanted” to do.

Daniel: Twitter certainly isn’t for everyone. Did you find the negativity too much to deal with or was it just not something you enjoyed in general?

Doug: It’s the lack of focus. I had people who followed me giving notifications about what beer they were drinking that day. I want notifications specially about the Cardinals, nothing else. Just too much unrelated noise.

Daniel: What do you like about writing at the Conclave?

Doug: It’s a good bunch of people. You in particular have been a friend and a good editor. You encourage people to write without putting pressure on them. I couldn’t ask for a better editor.

We’re glad to have Doug here contributing at the Conclave!  Keep an eye on Baseball Geek in Galveston to know when his next piece will drop!

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