Blast from the Past

Blogger provides a decent stats section in the Administrative interface.  I'm not getting many hits after a decade long absence from blogging, but it's still interesting to see where the few I am getting are coming from.

I was somewhat surprised to see the single hit that came in from a link on metsfanbook.com.  The Mets Fan book site was the web site for the late, great Dana Brand's first book.  Dana, who tragically passed away in 2011, was a truly great guy. Smart, friendly, generous, truly one of the good guys.  Getting to know him as a fellow blogger friend was one of the great perks of all that time I spent in the heyday of my blog.

Dana's blog site isn't up any more, but it awesome to see that the site for both of his books is still up there.  Both books are still for sale in some form last time I checked and are well worth your read even today.

When Mets Fan was released Dana generously invited some bloggers, including myself, to a book party at Mo Pitkin's in New York.  The picture on the right was from that event back in September 2007.  (Can't believe that was almost 13 years ago!) From left to right in the back row is me, the great Steve Keane from The Eddie Kranepool Society - one of the pioneers of Mets blogging, and Dana. In front were an awesome quartet of women Mets Bloggers: Coop from My Summer Family, SNK from You can't script baseball, Caryn from Mets Grrl, and Zoë from Pick Me Up Some Mets.  Mike Silva who still podcasts weekly on Talkin Mets was there with his dad. They were both good guys - not sure why they weren't in the picture.

Becoming blogging friends with folks like these, along with Greg Prince from Faith and Fear in Flushing, Joe Janish from Mets Today, Matt Cerrone from Mets Blog,  Anthony DeRosa from Hotfoot, and many others was a treat.  Indeed, it was one of the best parts of blogging.  I'm sure as I go forward I will write some more about these experiences.  I had a really good interview of Joe Janish on my old blog that I need to resurrect and post here.

Thanks for stopping by and putting up with my reminiscing.  I'll be back tomorrow.  And while I don't normally do this, if you haven't checked out yesterday's post And My Rose Goes To... I've been working hard to shake off the rust of a decade not writing, and that one feels as close to my best work as I've managed so far.

I'm not sure if anyone who read the old blog will find their way here after all these many years, but if you do please drop me an email or comment if you'd prefer. I'd honestly love to hear from you. Also, I will be posting here regularly if you're inclined to come back.

 Follow me on Twitter @MikeSteffanos