Dex and I, a couple old high school buddies, started blogging about the Padres on this day, February 14th 2005 at a Blogger site called Padres Fans Since 76. As the oft told story goes, Dex messaged me asking if I wanted to start a blog. His first suggestion was to blog about the Padres since our love of the team was something we had in common. I reminded him that we didn't know anything about the Padres and he assured me that we wouldn't need to, it was just a blog after all. We enlisted our buddy Kev to join us, but our other friend who you may know as Jonny Dub wanted no part of it, saying the blog would never last.
Meanwhile a few weeks later a budding start up called SportsBlogs Inc. created its 9th blog, this one about the Padres, called Gaslamp Ball. On February 24th, Brewer09 made his first post on Gaslamp Ball. He didn't end up sticking around long, probably because he was not-so-secretly a Brewers fan. On March 21st, Dex, Kev and I were officially called up to the show after all their other options were exhausted. We posted for the first time on Gaslamp Ball the same day.
At that time there were only 14 blogs in what would eventually become SB Nation. The funny thing is I initially resisted, I didn't want to leave our old site but Dex knew best. Now we're thankfully part of the best and fasted growing media brand and the largest network of fan-centric sports communities. SB Nation is home to 309 sports blogs and part of Vox Media and we're just riding their coattails.
From the beginning, SB Nation has focused on developing the highest quality grassroots sports sites on the web — recruiting only the most respected web-native journalists to build their communities.
No matter what their About screen tells you, we're proof that their high standards weren't always quite as high as they like to think. They were also more than willing to slum it and recruit a few guys that no one respected. We'd never make the cut today.
I look back at those early posts, they still make me crack a smile. I know that we've done a pretty good job entertaining ourselves over the years, I hope that we've been able to entertain you as well.
I'm going to work on my personal Top 10 memories of the 10 years of Gaslamp Ball. If you feel so inclined and would like to celebrate with us, create a FanPost of your own Top 10. Let's blog everybody!
Go Padres!