This is What I Get for Not Updating the Sports Card Blogroll!!!

Warning: Lots of rambling below. Bare with me. My thoughts are a bit scrambled as I post this while I'm downtown.

It's been months since I last did this, and I'm really sad.

You see, I started worrying about the popularity of Hobby Blogs as soon as I started realizing that I was neglecting my own. Correction. I started worrying about it when many of the bloggers that inspired me to begin my own journey started drifting away. Stale Gum can be found within the twitterverse, and Dinged Corners shows up too infrequently that it becomes big-time news when Patricia posts. Do many people who follow the blogs even remember Mario, Wax Heaven, and the drama that ensued?

Sure, guys like Greg (Night Owl), Gellman (SCU), and even dayf (the Cardboard Junkie) are still around, and guys and the grandfather of the Hobby blogs (The Baseball Card Blog) returned after a one-year hiatus when Ben Henry started posting again, this time with two other writers supplementing the blog.

But it seems that with all things, even the world of Sports Card blogging has evolved. It seems thata number of the Hobby bloggers have seemed to move on to other forms of social media and have either put their blogs on hiatus, or have just stopped blogging entirely. Heck, some have gone on to better (and actual) paying gigs (and if Sooz still reads this blog, congrats on the gig at Topps).

Have I lost interest in blogging? No. Have I had the time and energy that I once did when I started? Not really. Will I ever get back to devoting more time to this humble, little blog? One day, just not now.

So here I am, looking at the old Sports Card Blogroll, which also is now six years old. A lot of great blogs have seen time on the big blogroll. While some blogs have been around since the SCBR started (and then when it became the blogroll of choice for those curious about the Hobby), many have come and gone. A lot of blogs and blog writers had potential for great things, but then vanished. I would put blogs on the roll, and then within six months, they'd be gone.

But it's been a number of months since I did a through cleaning of the inactive blogs that it should not be considered an update, but an overhaul. Before the purge, there were 336 blogs on the active rolls. Here are the blogs being removed after six or more months of inactivity:

• Nomo's Sushi Platter
• Card Show Weekend
• The Player to be Named Later
• Project '62
• PunkRockPaint (more about this one later)
• Cardboard Gods
• The Baseball Card Snob
• Gem Mint - tales of cards & players
• Cards by Sooz
• Goose Joak
• Joe Average Card Collector
• Jeffs Collections
• Trader Crack's Card Blog
• Top of the Topps
• Blog of Trade Bait
• The 90's Collector
• Tru School Sports
• Confessions of a Sports Junkie
• I am Joe Collector
• Uncharted Hobby
• Returned to Sender
• Baseball 1977 (more on this one later)
• 1983 Topps Blog
• A Hair Off Square
• Ryan's Memorabilia Blog
• Golden Rainbow Cards
• Artmaus Collectibles Baseball Cards & Comics
• Topps bunt (chattified)

That's 28 card blogs that will be taken off the active rosters. But I did say "more on this one later" for two blogs. Let me explain.

Baseball 1977 was a blog about the cards from 1977 Topps (along with some other oddball sets from that year). As the blog was able to include posts about all 660 cards from the 1977 set, I am moving this from the active rolls to the "Retired but Relevant" section of the blogroll. 

PunkRockPaint was a blog that came out shortly after I started, but Travis' blog wasn't one of those "here is a card, let's discuss it" kind of blogs. He would take card designs from Topps' library and make his own cards. Many of them could have passed for real Topps cards. He knew which fonts to use for the lettering, he knew how to add items into existing pictures. Heck, he's even made his own card set, inspired by esteemed twitter fiend Old Hoss Radbourn and it sold. Travis is one of the other collaborators for Ben Henry's The Baseball Card Blog, which probably explains why he hasn't written anything on PRP since November. But because he was one of the best graphic card bloggers, I am adding a sixth inductee to the SCBR Hall of Fame. So congratulations Travis, as your blog will be a permanent resident of the SCBR HOF.

So the active roll is now down to 308 active blogs. I had hoped that the roster would reach 400, but I think I'd be happy if the SCBR stays at above 300. Less than that, then I'll probably start to panic a bit more.

As always, if there are any blogs out there that are focused on the Hobby of sports card collecting, please feel free to email me at bdj610@hotmail.com, or send me a tweet (@bdj610). If you have a blog that hasn't been active in a while and you feel like diving back into the Hobby Blogging pool again, let me know. The number of voices may be down, but the community is still strong. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama