I love baseball.
It’s cliché and it’s corny and it’s overused as a phrase, but it’s absolutely true.
I got irreversibly hooked on the sport as a kid, falling in love with every aspect of the game, from the strategy, to the focus on statistics, to the trades and player movement to the on-field heroics and spectacles.
The statistics soon became arguably my favorite part of the game.
Memorizing stats and facts about things has been my proverbial jam since I was a small child, whether it was about dinosaurs or American presidents I was always hooked on learning and remembering as much as I could.
That made the ascent into being obsessed with baseball an easy one.
Baseball was my first love and it has continued to be a constant in my life.
It’s almost a way of life.
You have to be a certain kind of person to be into baseball. And like you, I’m one of those people.
After years of baseball fandom, I got into writing. It was my best subject at school. Something I enjoyed doing.
So, when the opportunity to merge it with my first love emerged as a career path, I jumped at it.
That was 2011, and since then I’ve been on a journey. A journey to create a career as a sports writer.
Said journey began with the decision to start my own baseball website, Know Hitter.
I was 15 and treated it like a professional job (fun fact/aside, I’ve been treating it as such ever since).
At a time when conventional sports journalism jobs and opportunities were shrinking, I chose not to do things like everyone else.
Conventional sports journalism, and the system that accompanies it, has been the norm for years and I’m unconventional.
I didn’t write for my school paper. I didn’t pursue a journalism degree, I didn’t go after internships with sports sections in newspapers.
I, to quote the overly-quoted Frank Sinatra classic, did it my way. I still do it my way.
And that way was and continues to be unconventional.
Being Unconventional
I’ve always been unconventional.
I started from scratch, launching my own website (Know Hitter.com) and building it from the ground up.
When I launched Know Hitter, the sports section in every newspaper in my state had started to shrink or had all but disappeared entirely.
Traditional sports journalism opportunities weren’t exactly abundant either.
Throughout my career I’ve eschewed the traditional sports institution of covering and analyzing the obvious, low-hanging fruit to write about deeper-level analysis and statistics.
That’s been a constant in my career and has continued especially in my baseball writing.
I’ve built Know Hitter up to what it is today, but in between I honed my craft writing for sites like Bleacher Report, FanSided, Motor City Bengals, World Soccer Talk and VAVEL.
I cut my sports writing teeth at those locales, writing about everything from American football to soccer. I tried on different hats in the sports writing world, but none of them fit quite as comfortably as the baseball hat.
Since settling on that hat, as it were, I’ve been dedicated to writing about topics and sharing stories and columns with readers that don’t rest on the surface level. I believe this is a more than worthy endeavor.
I’m also doing it all on my own refurbished and reoutfitted site, Know Hitter.
My experience at the likes of Bleacher Report, FanSided and others helped me shape the kind of content that not only I would read, but that I want to share with you (Yes, you at the computer or smartphone—depending on when you grew up) the reader.
I want to give my readers the best unique, opinion and analysis-driven baseball content possible.
I’m making good on that promise on Know Hitter as we speak, but what’s missing—and unfortunately this tends to be a prevalent theme in my field—is making a living from it.
This is what I’m committed to doing as a career. I’ve left multiple paying jobs in order to pursue this. My eggs are all in one basket. I’ve passed the point of no return. I’m all in.
Whatever allusion or metaphor you’d like to use, whatever lights your fire, that’s me in this situation.
But, I can’t do it alone.
Becoming a Patron on Patreon
That’s where my unconventional nature comes into play. With Patreon. It’s more prominent with podcasters, novelists, musicians and other kinds of artist than it is with sports (read baseball) writers.
Becoming a patron on Patreon helps me continue doing what I love for a living and gives you more in-depth MLB content.
You also get access to exclusive, awesome content, which you can never go wrong with.
Said exclusive, awesome content includes unlimited access to Know Hitter’s four annual trade guides, which provide in-depth comprehensive breakdowns of players from each team who could be traded.
The trade guides are released four times every year: the offseason, Spring Training, ahead of the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline and ahead of the trades that could happen in August.
Additionally, you have the opportunity to provide advice and feedback as well as help create the content you want to read about. Your feedback will carry significant weight as Know Hitter continues to grow.
If you like MLB content and columns, focusing on analyzing trades, teams, trends, players and player movement with a more analytical approach, then this is the place for you.
I’m committed to providing all of this to you, the readers and patrons.
I’m all in.
