Can we talk? Jan. 27 edition

It's hard to believe this will be my 14th baseball season of managing PalmettoStateBaseball.com.

I started it in December 2008 as an outlet to allow me to write. I bounced between several roles in the sports department at The Greenville News during four decades and at that time I was on the copy desk (editing stories and designing pages) and didn't get many writing assignments. I enjoyed writing, and wanted an outlet for that, especially about college baseball, my favorite level of my favorite sport.

I've been fortunate to write about three College World Series titles and a pair of National Christian College Athletic Association titles for teams from our state. Many state teams have made the postseason on the NCAA Division II, NAIA and NJCAA levels, too.

USC Beaufort had its first season of baseball in Palmetto State Baseball's first year. Bob Jones and Columbia International have since added teams. Sadly, Furman dropped baseball and there appears to be no movement on that front for the program to be restored.

I've tried to improve the site every year.

One of the things that's helped me improve has been the cooperation of coaches. When I first started there were probably five or six teams whose scores were hard to get in a timely matter. Now, it's down to two schools. I won't name them, but they're not hard to guess. I can appreciate that smaller schools, particularly, have little to no support staff. I don't ask for much: a final score the day the game is played. Anything beyond that is gravy. I make continued requests for schedules and scores from those schools, usually falling on deaf ears.

Conversely, junior college coaches, in particular, have seemed to buy in to what I'm trying to do, and I sincerely appreciate that. 

The last five or six years I've considered cutting back on what I've done in an effort to let me enjoy the season more as it occurs. The problem with that is I can't offer what I hope are credible weekly team rankings if I don't keep up with every team, every day.

That's also made it challenging to attend as many games in person as I would like and still provide updates. Even at the larger schools press box facilities are limited and occasional attendees can get in the way of the regulars. Plus, the amount of traffic on this site doesn't move the meter much for influence purposes.

For a couple of seasons I was sitting at a computer from noon to 10 p.m. many a Saturday trying to make sure I didn't miss any scores. I'm trying to wean myself from doing that. That means I've reduced the number of in-game updates on Twitter (@palmettobase).

Doing this has never been about income from this site. I signed up with Google to allow advertising on the site based on clicks. The more clicks, the more income. However, that cumulative income hasn't hit $300 in almost of decade using it.

If you have ideas on how I can improve this site, please let me know. You can e-mail me at RudyJones@palmettostatebaseball.com or leave a comment on this post. If you happen to see me at a game, come up and say Hi.

I am grateful for the proliferation of streaming coverage. Most state schools at the NCAA level stream all home games. Some of the NAIA and NJCAA teams, do, too.  That means just about every day there's a game being played in the state, there's a chance of a game being streamed on the Internet.

Most of the NCAA Division I schools are beginning practice this weekend, with their first games Feb. 18. In the meantime, we get to enjoy DII, NAIA and NJCAA.

I'm ready.

PLAY BALL!!

Rudy Jones

Me on Lombard Street
in San Francisco, August 2021.