You know what I realized too late to pitch to Mentor? I realized that last season was Petco Park's 6th anniversary. I only realized that after I realized that this year was Gaslamp Ball's 6th anniversary and we're one behind Petco Park.
What would've made it awesome to remember is that the traditional gifts for the 6th anniversary are iron and candy. Iron and candy. Get it? Western Metal and Showley Bros. That would've been prime for doing something fun, right?
Instead, I remember too late and an opportunity goes by the wayside.
For those of you who've been here since the beginning, it's been a whole six years. The iPhone hadn't been invented when you first joined us. YouTube hadn't been invented. Deadspin? 3 months after us.
There were 12 blogs in SBNation and we were 13th (or 11th... I forget). Now there are like 517 and Rob Neyer runs the baseball blog. We were a month or three in when jbox and I first were able to see that we had more than 5 concurrent visitors on the site at any given time. The number 5 was significant for us because it verified that there was at least one person on the site who was not me, jbox, kev or jonny dub. Don't even get me started on what happened when we first got to 5 concurrent visitors on the site. Oh how the jizz flew.
For most of you who just know Gaslamp Ball as "just some other Padres blog that wasn't cool enough to be featured at Fan Fest", let me tell you... we take a ton of credit for the current state of the Padres blogosphere. Sure Ducksnorts was here before us, but it was Gaslamp Ball that caused most these other guys to perk up and say, "If those two assholes and their fairweather buddies can have a reasonably successful Padres blog, then I, sure as a f_ck in a fenway fanny, can."
And you know something? They were pretty much right.
Still, as much as I'm scared of you guys and prone to running away at the sight of more than 6 of you gathered together at once... Still... I consider our readers the best of the bunch. Don't go off creaming yourselves just yet. You've got a few excellent outliers that make up for the bulk of the riff raff.
If you've been with us this long and have never felt the need to participate, I don't really blame you, but you should still feel free to email and say hello. I know you think that GLB is cliquish, but that's a byproduct of us being so good looking. If you're not friends with the good looking chicks, then, on observing from the outside, they look like a clique. And trust me when I say that I'll defend a newbie who's feeling picked on any day of the week and twice on Tuesdays. I'm always looking for a reason to ban Drama or Wonko for a day or to raise the Green comment limits, etc.
For people in between, here's hoping we see more of you this season. And if this is the very first post you've ever read on Gaslamp Ball...
Welcome! Go Padres!