Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?

I don’t have much to say here, but it seemed nice to end the year on a run of five straight days of posting, something that I don’t think this blog has seen since….well, all the stuff in November (Exit Interviews, Top Cards on Twitter, Adventures of Luke Skyweaver), I guess, but before that you probably have to go to Playing Pepper back in February and March.  For the fact that I pride myself on regularly updating this blog, there wasn’t a lot of that in 2016.  I may be the oldest regular Cardinal blogger this side of Tom Knuppel.  If not, it surely feels like it at times.  Sometimes the energy, the motivation, just isn’t there like it used to be.  Thank goodness for Heroes and Goats to force me to at least look at every game.

So that’s my goal for 2017, to write a little more regularly, with fewer series recaps and more game recaps.  The weekend series are likely always to be summed in one post–I never have posted much on the weekends, especially since Sunday mornings are reserved for church–but I’ll try to do a little better about dragging myself out of bed to talk about whatever happened the night before.  (StlCardsCards is now groaning, realizing there will be more content.)  We’ll see how regularly that pans out–as everyone knows, resolutions made in January don’t always last that long and it’s going to be tough to find things to write about before the Winter Warmup, which means bad habits can start early–but that’s the plan.  I’d like to figure out more stand-alone posts, such as the one about Kolten Wong in August or the one this week about Yadier Molina’s extension, but that’s never been in my wheelhouse.  If they come, they come, but you are more likely to get another Star Wars parody than a real insightful post on a single subject.

I also hope to do a few more Conversations With C70 shows this coming year as well.  Don’t get me wrong, I love doing Meet Me At Musial and I’m sure John Nagel and I will keep that going strong in 2017.  The weekly schedule of MMM does make it difficult to work another show into the mix, but there are so many folks I want to sit down with and hear from that I’m going to try to make that extra effort.  I know there will be a number in January and February before we get MMM going full strength.  I have to do my annual sit-down with Cardinal bullpen catcher Jamie Pogue, for instance, and there are a few others I’ve reached out to as well.  Heck, John’s never been on Conversations!  That’s something that needs to be rectified.

(Speaking of my podcasting partner, tomorrow–as the ball drops in Times Square, from what I understand–his new site The Redbird Daily will go live.  You should bookmark that and follow the Twitter account, because that staff is going to have a lot of great Cardinal stories and thoughts over this coming year, I think.  I know I’m looking forward to another strong Cardinal blog being on the Internet and I’m excited to see what they come up with.)

As well as Musial, Tara Wellman and I plan to keep Gateway To Baseball Heaven running for another season, which is great if you are a fan of Tara and if you aren’t a fan of Tara, I think you should probably question your humanity.  There was still some question about how long the show would be on Blog Talk Radio, but I think even if that went away Tara and I would still find a way to do it.  Having that regular recap of a week is good and I don’t know how often our conversations on Sunday night have leaked into Monday morning’s post.

Assuming no major changes, which in this world you can never be completely sure of, in July–I believe on the 17th–it will mark 10 years since I started up C70 At The Bat.  That seems like a long, long time.  In the blogging world, it really is.  Pip over at Fungoes had been going longer, but even he had to give it up last year.  I think Tom’s been going long than I have.  Blogs and bloggers tend to have short life spans, especially with Twitter being available to allow opinions to be aired to more and more people.  Back when I started this, we didn’t have any Twitter, didn’t do much on Facebook, and we blogged in the snow uphill both ways!  (It’s possible I got a bit carried away there.)

I’m proud to have lasted this long.  (I need to get Jon Doble to design a 10th anniversary logo.)  And while I’d probably write this stuff even if nobody ever seemed to read it (hey, sometimes I do!), but it’s because of that interaction I get with folks, either here or on Twitter, that makes it that much more exciting, more rewarding.  So thank you for reading this year and I hope you’ll continue with me through the next.  The words blessed and honored get tossed around a lot, making them lose their meaning (or take on some sort of ironic twist), but I really do feel that way that folks read this stuff and enjoy it or think my opinions make some sort of sense.  I’ve had a lot of kind words come my way, mostly undeserved, and I really, really appreciate all those that are along for the ride.  Thank you for your support and your friendship.

2016 was a rough year for Cardinal fans, what with Those Guys winning the World Series and all while the Redbirds sat at home, but we got through it.  2017 will be better.  It has to be.  Right?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year, everyone.  I’ll see you in 2017.

  • Josh Jones December 31, 2016, 11:30 am

    November will mark my 10th year. Years before then I was doing the same thing on message boards.

    • Cardinal70 December 31, 2016, 2:14 pm

      That’s right, I didn’t think about you being around that long! You have been doing some great work for a long time!

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