It’s finally here. Korked Bats’ 100th korked bat. Wow.
I’m speechless. I don’t even know what to say… err, write. Or even what to do with it.
Give me a moment to soak all this in.
Ok, how about this?
Let’s go back in time and see how we got to where we are? You know, a brief history of Korked Bats.
Think of this as a “Best Of” post.
• • •
It was last August.
I was so young and naive. I had my whole life in front of me. I was 21 at the time and felt very ambitious. I needed another website to take hours at a time out of my daily schedule. And I needed to express my feelings and ideas! I did the whole Facebook scene. But Zuckerberg kept changing the format on me, and I found it hard to express myself in 150 characters or less on my status. I then dappled around with MySpace. I found it easy to express myself through song, but was never able to find a word that rhymed with can opener. So I stopped writing. And Twitter wasn’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye yet…
So I started getting into this whole blogging thing. I remembered back to my days of Xanga and how fun that was, so I decided to pick back up on this weblog phenomenon. I had my own personal blog but wanted another. I wanted a blog to rant and rave about sports and make jokes about them. So I called up the best guy I could think of who was both funny and knowledgeable about sports to help me out with this concept.
After he said no, I settled with asking Zach.
Zach and I then started Corked Bats (Yup, it used to be spelled right with a C). We wrote a post about once a week (at most) about hot topics of
Brett Favre and his soap opera,
Mike Vick and Hooch, White Sox v. Royals bench clearing brawls,
The Olympics, and yes, College Football.
College football was the only thing that kept us going last fall. Zach and I had a Corked Bats top 10 every week and we would give our upset picks of the week. We struggled to get anything else going other than that.
Fast forward to this February. After a slow January (only two posts), I decided we needed a spark.
Enter Jared Launius.
I knew Jared through his girlfriend, Leann. Leann and I are on an improv comedy team and after our weekly shows, the team would grab a bite to eat and talk about the show. Jared would come with Leann and I found myself always striking up conversations about sports with him. I was surprised to find out how knowledgeable he was about sports and especially the NBA.
When I finally decided that we needed a third writer, the decision was easy for me. I asked Jared to hop on board and have yet to regret it (We have an agreement: He doesn’t put down my Indiana Pacers and he keeps his job). Corked Bats was now the lighter side of sports from A to Z, and J. After we signed Jared to the team, I felt why stop there? Let’s add another!
So we added the letter K.
Yup, Corked Bats became Korked Bats. We changed from corked-bats.blogspot.com to korkedbats.blogspot.com. Lucky for us, both of our readers were able to make the switch easily also.
We took pride in being the best sports blog that nobody read.
The next day I got a phone call. It was a producer from The Dan Patrick Radio show. They had stumbled upon our site and wanted to reference one of our posts in their show today. I was awestruck. Are you kidding me? Dan Patrick wants to talk about my newly misspelled blog on his national syndicated radio show?!
No, I’m kidding.
It was actually Davis calling me. He wanted to know if he could write for KB. He wanted to be our NFL writer. He gave me a pitch on what he would work on, even in the slow offseason. I had him write up a
mock korked bat and e-mail it to me and the guys. After reading it, Zach, Jared and I decided that the 3 Musketeers would soon turn into the Fantastic 4. (Ok, we’re nerds)
Davis joined the blog by poppin’ out a post just about everyday. He started a Mock Draft by picking a different team each day and who they would or should pick in this year’s draft. He has yet to finish, but definitely bought him some early credibility which he has yet to lose.
Time went on and each month was getting better than the last for KB.
The ides of March came rolling around and I felt that Korked Bats could still use one more writer. I asked Bill Simmons, but he was busy with his job and politely declined. I then thought of
McCauley Caulkin, but I think he might be dead. Plus, I didn’t want him stealing a toothbrush from me. (Sorry, I really wanted to make both a Caulkin and Home Alone reference in this post)
Then I asked Kyle.
I remembered reading some of his posts on his other blog,
The Dudes of Lee Street, and I really enjoyed his writing. I knew that he also was knowledgeable about sports, so I asked him to write with us. He was game and a few days later he ripped out his first post.
We now had 5 writers. The Fantastic Four turned into…
The Power Rangers (Before the aquired the white or green ranger).
And now here we are. An entertaining sports blog by 5 dudes who love sports.
• • •
Here it comes, the overly dramatic and sappy ending.
(Strike up the orchestra string section)
A lot of things have changed in the past 100 korked bats (Duh…).
And a lot of things will be changing in the next 100 korked bats.
We are constantly working to make our blog better and to give our readers entertaining posts about sports. If there is ever anything you can think of to help us out (things you like or enjoyed, things you don’t like, the answer to if Steve Sabol
sleeps in the NFL Films archives room, etc.), please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us and let us know.
We have purchased the rights to KorkedBats.com and are currently working on making the switch over to it. With the switch will come a new layout and some new features to our site that we hope you all will enjoy.
We have expanded to the realms of Facebook and Twitter. Become a fan of ours on Facebook and if you are into the whole Twats thing, check us out on Twitter.
We are hoping to continue to take this blog to the next level. Unfortunately for us, we don’t have Game Genie so we can’t do it on our own.
So we need your help.
Whenever you read one of our korked bats (whether we know you or not), leave us a comment. Tell us if you like it, if you don’t like it, or where you went to elementary school. We don’t care, just leave us a comment so we look legit… Too legit…
Too legit to quit. (HEY, HEY!)
We want to thank you for reading and we hope you will continue to stay with us on this wild ride as we write 100 more korked bats. And then 100 more. And then 38 more. And then 100 more. And then until we decide we want to make YouTube videos instead of blogging.
Never let go, readers, never let go.
whoo 100th post! it was good – i thought you created this blog a lot longer ago than you did.
switch to wordpress!
p.s. – i went to Westridge elementary! go wildcats!
Congrats on your 100th post! keep it up guys, I love your writing!
Write a post about why Kobe is a better offensive player than Michael Jordan. OR why basketball was better off with the Jason Sutherland type players…
Excited to learn about your blog recently through a friend. I also make it out routinely to CWars. I really enjoy the way you guys throw your blog posts together and not a single reference seems to be lost on me. Well done overall. Waiting on the Youtube vids but until then, good luck.
congratulations on the Century mark guys!!! keep it up!!! You should branch out to other sports like espn the ocho. might help reach a broader audience
100 posts! That’s exciting. I’m glad to see you’ve made it through the slow times and name changes. Keep up the good work. Let me know if you want to expand to bigger markets such as Missouri high school soccer or Mizzou rec sports. I have some inside connections. But for real, congrats on 100 and I can’t wait for the next 100.
Fire Osborne!
Then,
Fire Pinkel!
I just read the comments…
Kobe a better offensive player than MJ? Let’s not get carried away people. Kobe only averaged over 30 points three times, and never 37! MJ averaged over 30 eight times. MJ was also the best defensive player in the league when he played. Let’s also factor in that MJ played baseball for a year in the middle of that. That is a ridiculous comment. Kobe doesn’t come close to the greatness of MJ.