FAQ

General:

• Where are we located?

www.knuckleballsblog.com  oh, you mean in RL, not the internet?  Well, that is a good question.  But the best answer really is ‘the internet’ because KL & CapitalBabs live in Minnesota, ERolfPleiss is in Wisconsin and Jim Crikket lives in Iowa.  But our readers literally come from all over the country – even the world. Or main goal is to provide a central place for fans to gather no matter where in the country they are.  However, to prevent any confusion, if we post a time for a certain activity, it will always be listed in Central Time due to our authors living in Central time and reducing any confusion – we get confused easily.  So for those of you participating in game chats who live in say, the Pacific time zone? Yeah, you’ll need to think about it as two hours earlier than what is listed… funny how that works.

• Are we a Baseball site?

First off, this is a blog for baseball fans but baseball fans are people, too.  We never know what we’re going to be talking about on a given day and we refuse to leave anything out of our realm of consideration.  So upon occasion, we may cover a different topic than baseball, or even sports, that we believe is important to say as part of the human experience.  That being said, yeah, we started a baseball blog because we think about baseball a LOT.

• Are we a Twins site?

Yes, that is something else KL, ERP, JC & CB have in common – we’re Twins fans. But as with the above question, we refuse to limit ourselves. So we might talk about The Saints or any of our Minor League teams or, once in awhile, some other baseball team that seems appropriate to discuss.  But we’ll readily admit we’re biased – we are all devoted Twins fans first.

• How can you contact us?

There are lots of ways to get hold of us if you need to but I would suggest that you go to the Contact Us tab first.  Then you can pick which of the four you want to contact and the various recommended ways to do so.

OR

If what you want to discuss is related to a particular post, you can just add a comment there and one of us (or more) will answer you in short order.

OR

If all you want is simply a way to keep up with what gets posted here on Knuckleballs, here is a list of recommended ways to follow:

1. You can follow us on Twitter at @Knuckleballs
2. You can Subscribe to the RSS feed for the blog directly.  If you are the type who knows how to do that, you can find the RSS link in the top banner of the home page.
3. You can follow Knuckleballs on Facebook through Networked Blogs. Either sign up for that through the Networked Blogs widget near the bottom of the right hand column here on the site or you can search the Networked Blogs application on Facebook directly. If you have trouble locating that, just hit one of us up and we’ll help you out.

Posts:

• Who are the post authors?

You can always click the “About Knuckleballs” tab to get a little basic information about who we are and why we’re here but in brief, there are now four of us: KL, Jim Crikket, ERolfPleiss and CapitalBabs.  We have no rules about who posts when, how often, what we’re going to write about, or who does what job. So… yeah, in other words, we just try to do our part between the partnership to keep discussion flowing and regular activity.

We also occasionally seek out guest authors to contribute their thoughts on a given activity that we here at Knuckleballs can’t witness first-hand.  If you are someone with a unique opportunity in the baseball world and you would like to share it with your friends here at Knuckleballs, hit us up! We’d love to have someone do our job for us and give us a day or two off once in awhile!

• What do you post about?

1. GameChats:  One of the ideas that bound us together as a group and really birthed this blog was having the opportunity to get together with other baseball fans and chat during Twins games – about the game primarily but if you have joined your buddies at the bar to watch a game, you know that conversation frequently drifts.  This is the same that we do here.  During every regular season Twins game (and some others as we choose), we’ll have a live chat window available on the site for fans to get together and chat baseball or whatever.  We are all following the game in whichever way works for us and fans are from all over the country in the chat room but we consider it our virtual sports bar – just BYOB.  Every game post will be listed as a GameChat in the title.  You can check these posts for game information before and after every game even if you can’t be there DURING the game and get the highlights of what happened.
2. Photos:  At least three of us are shutterbugs when given the opportunity so there are a lot of pictures in our posts.  Unless otherwise noted, all the pictures we post were taken by us and are the personal property of one of us here at Knuckleballs.  Sometimes we post pictures submitted to us by one of our readers and all such photos will be credited as such.  On a VERY, VERY rare occasion, we must depend on what we can find online published by someone else because we simply haven’t had the opportunity to add a photo of that person/event to our gallery.  If that happens, it will also be properly credited to the source and we hope they are flattered that we are sharing their work and don’t get mad at us.
3. Reviews: From time to time, we’ll share our opinions on various baseball-related media be it books, movies, or random activity like crafting or something. It’s been fun to present these opinions and we hope that the authors/creators/participants that we highlight here gain the benefit of our opinions and that our readers gain the benefit of the shared experience!  Please, feel free to pick up any item we review for yourself and then come back and share your opinion in the comments – no matter how old the post.  We definitely would appreciate hearing how your opinion may differ and we REALLY like it if you actually agree with us.  Isn’t that why people have blogs – to find other people who agree with them??
4. Rants: Speaking of agreement, another common post topic is a rant on one topic or another. That really is the biggest privilege of starting a blog.  If something bugs you, you have a forum to gripe.  So, occasionally, we do.  Baseball is a sport of many passions and we encourage those passions!
5. General Interest:  Well, at least we hope the things we put here are of general interest. We will post whatever we think other baseball/Twins fans might find interesting.  That could range from baseball-related news, history of the game, or even just pointers to other sites with interesting baseball information.  Again, since we refuse to make rules limiting ourselves, we might throw something in there that just relates to whatever we were feeling that day or somehow is related to the time and space we wrote it.

• Are there any rules about commenting?

We encourage it highly?  We love feedback, whether you agree or disagree with a particular opinion, reader comments are definitely encouraged.  And we’re all adults (mostly) (at least officially) here so we allow a lot of leeway in the expression of that opinion.  However, we do reserve the right to delete comments we find objectionable without warning or explanation.  Do we have a definition for “objectionable”? We subscribe the Supreme Court’s definition of pornography: We know it when we see it. Oh yeah, we also don’t allow pornography.

Anyway, we’ve actually never deleted a comment that wasn’t spam or a duplicate that I know of so that statement is basically rhetorical.  We’re good people here and generally respectful of each others’ theoretical space.  If you need a general guideline: if you would get punched or arrested, or both, for saying it in a bar, think about keeping it to yourself.  All of this applies to live GameChats as well.

Links:

• Why is red text in that post?

If you see any text in red in a post, it is HIGHLY likely that it’s a link to some important information we are trying to share with you in addition to our own opinion.  We encourage you to click on those links and peruse that information for yourself.  Just occasionally we forget and use red text just to highlight something we thought was especially interesting – we’ll really try to use other colors for that but if you try to click something that looks like a link and it doesn’t work, I guess it was highlighted! Let us know and we’ll fix it.  That being said, we do a LOT of linking to important information so that you will get the whole picture.  We definitely encourage people to be educated so we’ll provide as much information as we can.

• What about red text in GameChat posts?

It’s a handy little thing we do in GameChats.  We will post the starting lineups for each game we’ll be watching in a handy little spreadsheet that includes both teams.  Interestingly enough, you’ll find that they are posted in red text. Why?  Because they are LINKS!  Each player is linked to their MLB page with all the stats of that particular player which can be very handy for checking opposing teams’ players or checking on something during the game discussion for whatever debate you happen to be having.  We hope you’ll make use of that resource and become a little more educated with each game.

At the completion of each game, we’ll add a post-game wrap up in the GameChat post.  So if you aren’t able to join us DURING the game but still want to know what happened, you can check our site and get the basic rundown.  You’ll notice that boxscore will ALSO be in red text.  Why?  Because, yes, again, it’s linked.  In this case, it’s linked to the MLB game record.  Click anywhere in the boxscore and it will take you to the page that tells you the basic stats for pitchers, players, umpires and other information you might want to know from the game.

• What about all that red text in the right hand column?

Yes, we try to be consistent.  All that red text on the side is also links to various things.  We hope that we have titled each segment well enough that you know what you’re going to find when you click there.  All those boxes are there to be a resource for you and we hope you’ll take advantage of them.  We link a lot of other blogs and baseball resources there and hope you will take the opportunity to expand your readership to these other people we find to be important resources.

Specifically, I want to highlight the section called “Official Baseball Resources” because that is exactly what those are.  They aren’t blogs.  They are the MLB pages for information you might find valuable.  There are two you might not recognize.  They are the game stat information links for both the AAA clubs and Major League games.  This is the information inputted for the Gameday application so the information is updated relatively quickly and accurately and is a great resource once you know how to navigate the menu.  If you click the link, it will take you through a list of menu suggestions to narrow down the date you are looking for, the specific team matchup you are looking for and then whether you want a boxscore, or a play by play or how you want that info presented to you.  We encourage everyone to spend a little time getting familiar with those resources because it provides a lot of great information – especially when you miss some game action and want to find out what happened.

This is the basic information we have covered in one manner or another during our time as a blog – I’m sure that as more questions are asked of us, we’ll add to this resource.  Thanks for asking!

History:

Back in 2010, KL, JC & CB officially launched this little endeavor to the public.  We’d been talking about it for nearly a year (Seth, I still blame you) and the conversations about how much we missed Batgirl and the opportunity to chat with other fans during games culminated in searching out things we knew very little about… webhosts, graphic themes, chat programs, add-ons (what the heck is a widget anyway?) and a host of other questions that we didn’t know how to answer.

We figured between the three of us, we could pull it together.  Surprisingly, we did! A little trial and error, a little experimentation, and a lot of encouragement from some very kind fellow bloggers and here we are.  In 2012, we added ERP as a co-author which is GREAT! He even provides a bit of the statistical analysis side that most of the rest avoid (like the plague). I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say that it NEVER occurred to us that we would pass 100,000 visitors EVER or that we would have posts containing what we hope is readable Japanese because people all the way on the other side of the planet are regularly visiting our little website!

THANK YOU!

None of this would have happened without the patience, good wishes, and constant advice we receive from our regular readers and visitors.  We consider you as much our partners in this venture as the three of us with our names on the contact list.  Keep the ideas and comments coming because they are what keep us thinking and motivated!

SHAKING IT UP!

Since we have developed a readership base (however unexpected or unplanned), we also intend to start a new habit with some contest give-aways and charitable auctions.  We’ll be announcing those things periodically throughout the season.  If you want to participate in the planning of these events – either by suggesting worthy causes, providing items, or helping with event planning – please contact any of us with your ideas!

It all comes down to this:

It’s been a GREAT experience so far and we’re glad you’ve been along for the ride and we are definitely looking forward to what new things will happen for all of us.