I can't stand heat, I've little use for sunshine, and I absolutely loathe every single second I'm in the state of Florida.
That said ... I'm really looking to flying there tomorrow!
Part of that's because, for the first time in my life, the Pirates are applying an intelligent approach to roster-building in a sport that stacks the odds against them. I'm eager to see how Ben Cherington's work plays out and, in the short term, eager to see some of these young prospects with my own eyes. That'll begin Monday with the first full-squad workout, also the first time camp will be open to media.
The other part is that, believe it or not, baseball's always been good to our business.
This might have to do with my background on the beat, which gave birth to the original PBC (Pittsburgh Baseball Club) Blog at the Post-Gazette, which gave birth to the whole community concept that'd eventually carry into this place. At least I'd like to think that's it.
More likely, there's just less out there for fans of the Pirates. Only two Pittsburgh outlets travel to all of the Pirates' games -- us and the PG -- and there's also less available via the blogosphere and so forth. Options are limited. And within that, I hope, we're considered a good option for those who'd like to read fair, honest coverage. (Including when the in-house columnist rails to 'Fire everyone' at the start of every column for two months straight, as a certain someone did to close out the 2019 season. Because hey, what wound up happening?)
I'm not prepared to announce anything yet, but we're going to offer baseball coverage unlike anything we've had here in 2021.
Why now, when the unanimous consensus is that the major-league team could be brutalized on the field?
Because it's a starting point. A building point. Both for the franchise and for our coverage of it.
Our aim will be to get to know the prospects, not just the Ke'Bryan Hayes and Mitch Keller types already in Pittsburgh, not just those knocking on the door in Indianapolis (which Tom Reed will track), not just those with the higher ceilings in Altoona (which Jarrod Prugar will track), but all the way down to the Dominican Summer League and even within the draft. That's why Tom traveled to Georgia a couple months ago to deliver this beauty on Kumar Rocker, the Pirates' presumptive No. 1 overall pick.
Alex Stumpf will do the bulk of the big-league work. I'll be intensely involved, as ever. And again, there'll be more. More breaking news. More analysis. More podcasts and other multimedia, too.
And it'll get consumed. It always has. Sure, the Penguins and Steelers alternate as our top attractions here, as the data shows: If you go back over the past full five years, via Google Analytics, the Penguins accounted for 16.4% of our page views, the Steelers 13.8% and the Pirates a fairly competitive 8.8%. And get this: The Pirates are our No. 1 search term on Apple's App Store for downloads.
Now take into account that the Penguins won two Stanley Cups in that span, the Steelers were at least competitive, and the Pirates ... yeah.
We're doing what Cherington's doing: We're laying a foundation for when those percentages might flip.
LEAVE A REVIEW!
We obviously don't charge for the podcasts, but you can still leave a little something in the mythical tip jar: On your chosen platform, find where you can leave a review.
On Apple Podcasts, our most popular platform by a billion miles, find our network -- or just tap this: DK Pittsburgh Sports -- scroll down a little, and you'll find the reviews section. Leave us five stars, say something super-nice about, oh, Dale Lolley's extraordinary work on the Steelers, and that's it. Takes maybe 10 seconds. But it moves us way up in the search rankings, having more stars, and that helps more potential listeners find us.
OFFER JUST FOR YOU
We've got a business partner making an offer directly to you, our members, and I thought it'd be worth sharing here.
The streaming service fuboTV, aimed primarily at sports fans, carries all the channels you get on cable -- including all the sports ones, plus, as of the past month, AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh -- at a fraction of the cost of your cable bill. Cable tends to run $200 a month, and fuboTV is $65 a month.
If you sign up through us at fuboTV.com/DK, you get a free trial and, if you like it, 15% off your first month.
WEEKLY APP TIP
Sharing ways to make your app experience even better:
• The top right corner has three thick horizontal lines. That's known in the app business as a 'hamburger menu' because it looks kind of like a bun around a patty. It's the way to open our main menu, where you'll find a wholly separate gateway to all our content and one that, if I'm reading the data right, not all readers use. That's too bad, because there's lots of good stuff there, not least of which are direct links to local small colleges, minor leagues and much more.
Our previous two app tips:
• We now have RSS feeds. Insert this as the URL for your RSS reader -- https://www.dkpittsburghsports.com/feed -- and you'll have headlines sent your way.
• Use the blue horizontal bar that straddles across the home page with the buttons HOME, TODAY, VIDEOS and PODCASTS. We designed this as a way for you to have easy access from the home page to three additional key areas: TODAY is where we house a full schedule of that day's activities, including our coverage plan and multimedia appearances, as well as the What's Brewing feature. VIDEOS is where we house Morning Java, WPXI-TV shows and more. And PODCASTS is where ... oh, you know. Our numbers indicate this isn't getting much use, and that's disappointing. It's really smooth and efficient.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 381,482, and our most-read original sports piece was Dale's coverage of Kevin Colbert's media session Wednesday at 8,997, while my piece on my mom was at 11,544, and thank you for that. Broken down by team, the Penguins brought 23.2% of our traffic, the Steelers 19.3% and the Pirates 12.0%.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 67,600, down 22% from the previous week.
• We're at 39,537 (+71) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,056 (-3) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,461 (-14) followers on Instagram, and we're at 975 (+3) followers on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Oh, and we had 1 active user of our app in Kazakhstan, and I'll presume it was this guy:
AMAZON STUDIOS
Borat Sagdiyev, our subsequent subscriber?