A Twitter discussion happened a few days ago regarding the status of blogging, specifically blogging about the Hobby.
Is it still viable? Is it still popular? Are people still doing this?
Or as ALLTIMEGREATS.BLOG asked:
Somehow, thanks to Mario, the man who writes Wax Heav...I mean
The Baseball Card Blog (I hope you got Ben's blessing to use this name Mario), I wound up getting involved in the conversation:
Night Owl wrote about this last week (he's has taken the mantle as the most prolific and popular blogger, with tons of readers and commenters). You want to read his take?
Here you go!
Nachos Grande, another long-time card blog, followed Night Owl's lead and did his own research,
which you can read here.
(But before you read what they have to say, finish mine first...or go read their stuff and come back...PLEASE!!!)
So I did a bit of research. I always made it a habit of keeping tabs of the number of blogs I added and removed over the years. When I created the
Sports Card Blogroll on July 7, 2008, I started with 112 blogs. Many of these sites I found through the blogrolls of dayf the
Cardboard Junkie and Mario (again...thanks to his Sports Card Blog Directory).
I promised I would figure out when the most blogs were ever on the Sports Card Blogroll. That would have been in July of 2012, when there was a whopping 387 blogs listed before I did my monthly maintenance.
I haven't made any updates to the big Blogroll in a while, and I have to tell you, I'm really sad.
Presently, there are 215 sites listed on the active roll. The following sites will be removed from the Blogroll tonight:
That's 29 blogs that being removed (hold on...I will explain shortly). That brings the number of active blogs down to 186. That's more than 200 blogs down from six years ago (not the number of blogs that have ever been placed on the SCBR...you're looking at over 500 blogs that made it's way onto the active roster at one point in time).
The Infinite Baseball Card Set blog was created by artist Gary Joseph Cieradkowski. The site combined his passions for baseball history and art (he did create a card set...beautiful cards...don't own any, but I do remember reading reviews). He has a new site now,
Studio Gary C, which combines all of his artwork, and I am going to add his baseball card section, which continues his Infinite Baseball Card Set project, and will move his old site to the Retired, but Relevant section of the Blogroll. (I better be getting that book Gary...or if not, I'll have to find it somewhere).
The Sports Card Blogroll Hall of Fame adds one new member to its ranks: Orioles Card "O" The Day. For over 10 years, Kevin, the writer of the Orioles baseball card blog, highlighted a card from his vast Orioles card collection, giving the reader a glimpse of the player, and his contributions to Orioles lore. From 2008-2014, he would post more than 300 times per year, the first four years posting EVERY DAY!!! While there is no reason why he stopped (we can all speculate...it's the ORIOLES after all) maybe he'll get back to it. I hope he's okay. But his last post was in May, 2018, and the site has reached more than six months of inactivity. As one of the pioneers in the Hobby Blogging Community, and one of the first team-centric Hobby bloggers, his Orioles Card "O" The Day will now be enshrined into the SCBR HOF.
Yes, I will have to say that the popularity of blogging has been on the downside. But, as I stated in my contributions to the twitter discussion:
There are those who are still contributing on a daily basis:
Night Owl Cards (who I will have to check his blogroll for sites that I don't have),
Wrigley Wax, who writes about the cards in his Cubs collection,
The Chronicles of Fuji,
The Shlabotnik Report, and 182 others (including this humble, little blog). We're still around, and we're still posting about the Hobby. We may not be (okay, most of us might not be) making any money off blogging, but as I tweeted, we're really writing for ourselves. If people happen to read what we're saying, then it's a bonus.
It (blogging) has become a Hobby in of itself. We all had our reasons to get into this. Some got into it to trade with others. Others wanted to share their opinions on the state of the Hobby (good or otherwise). Some wanted to stir the pot and the notoriety (good or otherwise) got them the exposure they wanted. Others just wanted to show off their collections and what the cards mean to the writer.
As with many trends, blogging has hit its plateau. During the height of popularity, I had hoped that the SCBR would one day reach 500 blogs on the list at one time. It never made it there, but the Blogroll still stands as a way for people who want to read different viewpoints about the Hobby of Sports Card Collecting.
On a final note, I do want to thank Sports Card News for bringing up the topic. And for indirectly giving me a nudge to get my site up-to-date.
As always, if you or someone you know has a blog that is about the great Hobby of Sports Card Collecting, and you want it added to the Sports Card Blogroll, please send me an email at
bdj610@hotmail.com, send me a tweet (you can find me
@bdj610), or leave a comment on the blog.
You know, I meant to change the design of the site just to make it a bit more modern. I guess I better get to work.
Sincerely,
JayBee Anama
