17 Years Later

by The Editor

Prior to this year, the most recent volume of Baseball Diary was published in 1994. In the intervening years, I had wanted to bring out another volume, but for various reasons, this was not possible. Toward the end of the century, I began thinking about doing it online instead of on paper, but time, technical know-how, and other factors conspired against me. Then, earlier this year, Spencer Kimball and I started a blog called Half Forgotten. In May, I asked Spence, who is the smarter and tech-ier of the two of us, if we could somehow connect that blog with a new Baseball Diary. And there you have it, our triumvirate: Half Forgotten, Baseball Diary and the BD Archive.

With this post, Baseball Diary Volume 11 "officially" comes to a close. However, I will still be continuing the Archive posts, though on a more limited basis. And BD posts will continue if the baseball muse strikes me, OR if it strikes you - BD is always looking for posts of a personal, penetrating nature, and now, we can basically have them anytime, even off-season. So if the muse strikes, send along your efforts. Officially, we'll be closing up shop for the winter, with Volume 12 starting sometime around Spring Training 2012.

And of course this current season would not have been possible without the incredible contributions of this year's BD contributors. A HUGE THANK YOU to Richard Rosen, Danny DiPierro, John Hilton, Spencer Kimball, Everett Evers, Peggy Kincaid, Bob Stanley, Meredith Linden, and Tom Gibson. I love you guys! Hope to see more contributions soon!

Have a great winter! And here's some closing thoughts from yet another contributor, some thoughts that pretty much sum it up:

From The Diamond Sonnets
By Bill “Shaky” Spear

No. 73 (1981)

This time of year thou mayest in me behold
When pennant flags, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those poles which shake against the cold
O’er bare ruin’d diamonds, where late the players sprang

In me thou see’st depression of such day
As after Base-Ball fadeth in the fall
Which by and by naught else can turn away
Death’s second self, from here to Montreal.

In me thou see’st the yearning for such thwack
As bat upon the ball doth make, and I
With trembling fingers daily do ransack
The sporting news and wish it were July:

But all 'tis hoops and goals — how sickening! —
And ne’er an RBI ‘til gentle Spring.