I’m taking my talents to…The Sportsfan Journal

Sound familiar? Well, I’m not making any early promises or even leaving home, but yeah, business has picked up for the dude.

Well, it’s more like I’ve “taken” my talents to The Sports Fan Journal, because I’ve been there for about a month now, but that’s just schematics. Last week, however, it became official. After a few guest spots over the course of the spring, I accepted an offer to join the staff over at TSFJ.

For me, it was a no-brainer. Ever since I saw what Eddie Maisonet, maybe known more widely as Ed the Sportsfan, had stirring up last fall, it went to the top of my list of endeavors to get involved with. When Ed reached out to me about contributing when baseball season came around, I got ready immediately to make splash on touchdown. Things went well, and now I’m staffing with a twice weekly column there.

One of most foremost, constant goals is to be a voice in a far too empty room: a young, inspired voice for the greatness that is the sport of baseball…from a black man. This is an excellent opportunity to get a greater platform for that effort. Not to mention a fun one daily at as well.

In case you haven’t been to TSFJ (which should be a near impossibility if you run in similar Twitter circles as me), it is truly the voice of our era and culture in online sports. It’s a meeting point for writers and commentary of all sorts, from day to day commentary, editorial pieces and fan forums for on-field events, to a home base for podcasts, gear info and history lessons as well. It’s basically where anything can be found for every type of fan, from frequent follower to casual admirer.

Before I arrived, there was already a well thought out staff of writers in place. Between Ed, Kenny Masenda, Rev. Paul Revere, Reeta the NFL Chick, Justin Tinsley, Mark Trible, Bryan Crawford, Joe Simmons and Jason Clinkscales, there’s a ton of home based, high quality material finding its way in daily. Every season, niche and interest is covered year around, and it’s fueled by the best kind of competition from article to article you can find: quality peers. I mean these are folks that are writing for everything from Fox Sports and Slam Magazine and Nike. Articles being written from the front row and press boxes of games, not TVs. Everybody here is on the rise, and nobody is taking their time.

Combine this with the high quality of guest contributors that make their way into the mix as well

So what am I supposed to add here? As you know, my niche is the baseball diamond, and that is what I shall be representing on the site. Throughout the summer, my column will run definitely on Friday, with another earlier piece as well. It will be the same type of thing you’ve come to follow here, but expanded some stylistically and topic wise as well. Think of it as a national column, with some flair in-between the lines as well. One baseball season has passed some, I will venture into other topics as well on TSFJ, but I will never be too far away from my first true love of spikes and bats.

However, fret not; CSP will live on as well. It is still my link to the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, as well as my in-depth analysis site as well, for all sports. I will continue to provide original content here, as well as post links to anything else that I do elsewhere as well.  This new outlet will allow for me to write intertwine more of my overall ideas and direction for CSP as well, which I’ll be introducing and experimenting with here soon. But if you’re subscribing to me here, might as well do the same for the whole Fam over on TSFJ, and get it straight from the source as well.

This is an exciting move for me, as well as a promotion of sorts in the online sports writing world. As always, your readership, follows and questions on what I’m doing is always appreciated. I look forward to this new avenue on the road I’ve just started driving down here just over 24 months ago.

 

–          Matt

 

To get you acquainted with what I’ve been doing thus far, as well as what’s going on with The SportsFan Journal overall, here’s a few links to get you warmed up:

The Home Page: http://www.thesportsfanjournal.com/

TSFJ’s Cheap Seats: http://www.thesportsfanjournal.com/category/columns/the-cheap-seats/

Twitter Follows: @edthesportsfan, @soulonice6, @joesimtre, @Mtrible, @RevPaulRevere @asportsscribe, @JustinTinsley @theNFLchick, @_BryanCrawford

In the meantime, keep on following me on Twitter at @CheapSeatFan for more on whatever it is that’s piqued my interests at the second.