Now that he has posted content to the site, Dan Weigel dedicates a post to explaining to the readers, who, in fact, he is. In the picture, he is the one on the far right.
This isn’t an intro in the traditional sense of it being my first piece, as those who pay attention to authors of the content on the site have likely already stumbled across a piece or two with my name attached. This may have sparked questions like "Who is that?" or "What’s the deal with this new guy at the site?" If you are a person who considered such questions then this will be a worthwhile article for you. For those who have not, thanks for clicking on the link and you have fulfilled your obligation as a reader of this article.
I come from a baseball background and have been around the game for as long as I can remember. As a fan, I’ve been going to Baltimore Orioles games my whole life, but also frequented the local Harrisburg Senators and Reading Phillies (now the Reading Fightin Phils), which is where I began to develop my enjoyment of the Minor League game. As a player, I played T-Ball all the way through High School baseball in Lancaster, PA and then headed off to Bucknell University for a memorable four years as a member of the Bison pitching staff. I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to continue my career internationally (I’m actually writing this in a foreign airport on my way there), and have found that my firsthand experience as a player has been extremely useful in my roles as a writer and evaluator at the site.
As I have grown, my involvement within the game increased to include practical work experience over the summer video scouting with Baseball Info Solutions, writing with sites such as Minor League Ball, and evaluating Minor League players. It’s been a smooth transition from a kid who played and enjoyed baseball to a recent college graduate who interacts with the game in slightly different yet equally enjoyable ways.
Despite taking a new, more professional approach to the game, there are many ways that I still experience the game as a kid. As a pitcher in college, I was known for going all out while shagging (even before my starts) and along with our other Saturday starter, wearing excessive swag (arm sleeves, eye black, stirrups, batting gloves, shades, etc) on "Swag Sundays" when we were not scheduled to pitch. Even as a pitcher, I have great respect for the art of the pimped home run, and save celebrations (namely Jenrry Mejia’s) are also essential to my enjoyment of the game. Finally, like my father and brother, collecting baseball hats and shirseys is an essential and neverending part of my livelihood. Minor League hats are the latest pursuit, and though my collection is in its infantile stages I have managed to acquire gems such as the Hagerstown Suns, Albuquerque Isotopes, Trenton Thunder (who easily have one of the best logos in MiLB), the Norfolk Tides and the Wilmington Blue Rocks (light blue, of course). In summation, I am a student of the game, fan of the game, player of the game and contributor to the game, but most importantly I find enjoyment in the game. As I have grown, it has been less about rooting for the Orioles and against the Yankees and more about finding pleasure in our national pastime. There is so much to enjoy in the game and I am thrilled and thankful that I am able to enjoy it in so many ways.
As for content, with the Minor League season ending and me out of the country, I won’t be putting out any more Minor League scouting reports, but will continue the trend of blending scouting and statistics in my articles. The best examples of this are in my "Looking Past the Stat Line" series, where I examined the current profiles of four prominent pitching prospects from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, as a pitcher and a student of pitching, it would be fair to expect the majority of the subjects in my future articles to be pitchers.
That being said, I will be in Australia for the upcoming Australian Baseball League (ABL) season, and may write some pieces about the state of the game in a country with a sports landscape that is ruled by cricket and rugby. How much of this I actually do is really dependent on how much you guys enjoy it, so feel free to say what you like, don’t like, and what you want to know about the ABL or the sport in general in this country.
Finally, in the attempt to avoid having the entire comments section of this piece be paraphrases of Drake saying, "How much time is this author spending on the intro?" I’ll end the piece here. The last word goes out to everyone taking the time to read and engage with the site. I’ve enjoyed and appreciated the frequent insightful comments on my (and all) content at the site, and I hope that continues in the future. Here’s to the terrific Minor League Ball community that we (both I the writer and you the reader) are fortunate enough to be a part of.
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Dan Weigel is an author of Minor League Ball. For more on him, reread this article.