Happy Birthday to Us

Dec 7, 2022 - 3:07 PM

Bluebird Banter is 17 years old today.

It started just a few days after the Blue Jays traded for Lyle Overbay (for David Bush, Gabe Gross and Zach Jackson). The trade got a very favourable review.

The Jays are 1340-1312 since our birth.

The first post is here, written by Marc Normandin. Marc has since written for many, many different sites. Unfortunately, he didn’t stay at the site long. Mark W. and Slitheringslider soon took over. Hugo joined in 2007 and was running things when I found the place. Hugo was always interesting to read, and he used (mostly) obscure song lyrics for post titles. I found a lot of good music by searching out the song he used in a post. And it gave the blog a personality.

I started writing here in 2008 and kept the song lyric post titles going for a while, but SEO concerns (I would get emails from the PTB SB Nation saying, ‘those song lyric titles are cool and all, STOP IT’) ended that. This is just as well. I would spend longer trying to find the right lyrics than writing the post.

Over the years, we’ve had many excellent writers join us: JohnnyG, Jessef, masterkembo and Woodman665 (Jasper Bosman) joined in soon after I started. In 2011 Minor Leaguer joined. Scott C. joined us in Jan of 2013. We’ve also had posts from Nick Ashbourne, Jared Book, Michael Bradburn, Gerse, Damaso’s Burnt Shirt, TFSML, Jared Macdonald, Noah Sherman, Mike Hannah, Kevin Papetti, Sean Herman, eelliott29, Jake Sinclair, Mark Colley, Cole Shelton, dexfarkin, Siefert and Martin Barratt. I know I’m missing some. I apologize for any I have missed.

Matt W started doing posts for us in March of 2014, and now it is hard to imagine the place without him. Matt Gross came to us in the Troy Tulowitzki trade. Kate joined us in 2017. Erik.T has given us many great posts over the last few years. Tom__M joined in over the past couple of years.

We can always use more voices. Email me if you would like to contribute.

Since that first one, we’ve had 17,979 posts (plus or minus a couple) on the site. And we’ve had 2728 FanPosts. But, of course, we could always use more FanPosts.

It will be 15 years on the site for me next summer. For most of my first year, I was often alone in the GameThreads, but that changed quickly, thankfully.

I’m very lucky to have found this place.

Later today, I’ll find a nice glass of scotch to celebrate.