FanPost

It's time we got some minor league blogs going.

I posted this on Notes From the Nat tonight, and it seems to me that the natural place to cross-post it is here:

It's time that A's fans started getting together some blog coverage for our minor league teams.

I've been running the Notes From The Nat blog for nearly three years now, covering the heck out of the Vancouver Canadians, Oakland's short-season rookie ball affiliate, and it's been a heckuva time. Press box access, interviewing players, they even had me on the radio call a few times in the last couple of seasons. And on top of the fun side of things, it makes money through advertising, which is a nice bonus, and has led me to freelance gigs writing for other media outlets, both locally and nationally.

But, to my surprise, nobody else is doing anything similar.

Oh sure, there are minor league blogs out there, but they cover ALL the leagues, not specific clubs.

Where are the Sacramento blogs? Does nobody who can write attend Stockton Ports games? Or Midland games? Or Kane County games? Maybe even the Arizona A's?

Of course, plenty of you guys hit minor league games each year, and you're all fine writers (for the most part), so what's stopping others from setting up a minor league blog?

I figure it's the hurdle of setting it up. So I've come up with an offer:

If you want to blog about it, I'll build it for you.

No matter what the team, no matter what your standard of prose. If you're prepared to write even just a capsule game review and a little roster news for one of the teams in the A's minor league system, I'll buy you a domain name, I'll host the blog, I'll install the blog software, I'll hook you up with advertising and security, and we'll all be the better for it.

Is there a catch, I hear you ask? Sure there is. If I do this, go to the expense and the effort to set your blog up and keep it running, it's technically going to be my blog. That means, if you disappear after three weeks, I'm taking it off your hands and will find someone else to run it.

All I ask is that you keep the thing alive, but if you don't... fair being fair and all, you lose it.

On the other hand, if you keep it going, post every few days, and maintain a resource that helps all A's fans track their minor league prospects, then you can run the site how you like, earn advertising revenue, get yourself a press pass, and do your part to help the little A's-to-be move through the system.

And before anyone bitches me out for doing this on an SB Nation blog, I've asked Blez if they'd take on minor league team blogs and he's told me that they have no plans to do anything of the sort for a loooong time.

So why wait? Let's build the network now!

Anyone?  Anyone?  Scutaro?