This blog was actually born more than a decade ago as an adjunct to the one sponsored by my former newspaper, The Sun Chronicle, because I was sick and tired of having to compete for attention with some plumber that thought he was a wordsmith.
When we created blogs, they were hosted by an outside source and simply managed by us, and the sports-related blog was not limited to members of our staff. The misguided individual that managed the blogs thought it would be a simply wonderful thing to throw it open to the general public.
That immediately defeated the purpose of having a blog representing the sports department. I and my colleagues (at least those that cared to use it) saw it as a means of providing instant updates from the games we were covering, whether high school, college or pro. The format of the blog also limited the shelf life of posts, so each successive new post would push the previous one off the display area on our web page.
During a game, one would blog furiously and frequently -- a task that has since been relegated to corporate and personal Twitter accounts. During a Patriots game, in fact, I would post more than 20-30 times depending upon the action that required reporting. I also used the blog to link to some of my earliest attempts at video, which included "The Blog Show" (20 minutes or so of video that was sort of a local-sports column), "The Hoop Report" (10-minute recaps of the previous night's MIAA basketball tournament action), and "Mark Farinella's Audio Blog" (daily reports from training camp that melded together still photos with recorded audio, because I could not shoot video during practice).
This would infuriate one particular would-be blogging essayist, who would post frequent 2,000-word ramblings about topics of which he barely had pedestrian knowledge. As the posts were not edited, they were often an embarrassment to the site because of his lack of writing skill, and on a few occasions, they bordered upon being libelous because he simply did not know that there are some things you just don't say in print unless you can back them up with fact.
Fortunately, the frequency of my posts would push his diatribes out of the public eye very quickly. And when that would happen, he'd put up posts calling me a "blog hog" and other denigrating comments. He would also go back to previous posts and throw in a few new words to push them back up onto the web page. But I'd just keep on blogging at a prodigious rate because that was part of my job, and clearly fit the model of the day for other metropolitan and regional newspapers that embraced blogging.
I would complain and complain and complain to the powers-that-be, imploring them to separate public posts from the sports department's posts -- to give those not on our staff their own forum so they would not be competing with us for space and exposure, but also to subject those posts to greater editorial oversight to prevent the possibility of the newspaper being sued for libel. It took at least a year for that line of thought to gain any traction, but when we redesigned the website in 2010, the "Southeastern Mass. Online Community" became a thing of the past and "Blogging Fearlessly" was born on The Sun Chronicle's web page.
Prior to that transition, however, I created this blog as a means of protesting the delay in implementing the changes. My initial intention was to stop posting altogether on the "Southeastern Mass. Online Community" after duplicating my posts to the cleaner and easier-to-read personal blog for a while. I also started promoting the new hosting site repeatedly -- and usually just after the plumber would have his grandiose say about something, pushing his post off the old website and pissing him off royally. It was great fun.
But with the dawn of a new year came the realization that I was finally going to get what I wanted and what the newspaper deserved -- a personal blog with prominent display on the web page. So on Jan. 13, 2010, I announced here that my personal blog would be suspended and that bigger and better things would be coming for the readers on The Sun Chronicle's web page.
Meanwhile, I thought this blog had just disappeared into the ether. But on Feb. 5 of this year, a random cleaning of my browser's bookmarks turned up a link to this -- and I immediately realized it would be a great way to indulge my urge to resume writing and to promote my new podcasting ventures -- the audio "The Owner's Box," and later, the video "The Owner's Box After Dark."
With a few tweaks to the formatting and features, and the commitment to a hosting site all its own (theownersbox2020.com), "Blogging Fearlessly" has been given new life -- and judging from the comments I receive on a regular basis, folks that used to enjoy my writing in print are happy to see it once again on the internet. And the numbers for both podcasts are very encouraging.
My thanks to all of you for showing an interest. And now, as Bill Belichick might say, "We're on to 16,000."
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