Adam and Matt

In the meantime, though (meaning this week, not necessarily Monday), here’s what’s probably coming up:

• A recap of that Steelers loss to the Broncos that we all should have seen coming and a look forward to Sunday’s game against the Bungles.
• A look at the Penguins as the hectic part of their schedule begins
• Nightly looks at the World Series as we try to root the Rockies to victory over the Red Sox (and, honestly, did anyone expect them to lose tonight?).
• Our selection of an NBA team to pick as “ours” since the ‘Burgh doesn’t have one (we’ve narrowed our choices to the Cavs, the Jail Blazers, the Super Sonics, the Golden State Warriors, the Bulls, or the Wizards).
• Further Pirate manager watch, which Joel Skinner will have first shot at now that his team was eliminated before John Farrell’s was.

As many of you seem to have noticed, we are posting much less. This is what happens when you have two high school students who suddenly lack eight hours to kill a day, unfortunately. More importantly, however, the site will see some change in content in the coming days.

Due to the thankful demise of the Pirates’ season (six game losing streak, anyone?) and the lack of interesting story lines around the players right now, we are going to stop covering day to day business and instead focus on the GM search and personnel changes when we do write about the Buccos. Instead, we will focus on baseball as a whole and the pennant races, football (for the most part . . . probably equally split between college and pro), hockey, and maybe even some soccer.

These changes have sort of already taken place and we are simply making them official.  Also, we are going to start doing some bigger stuff (bringing back that Snapshots of Futility series, maybe?) instead of the typical small blurbs.

Thanks for your patience,

Adam and Matt

With that said, here are some random facts about the site that you may not know (of course, after the jump):

• Jesse Ferko (listed as a “contributer” in the About page) does, in fact, exist. He has been working on the top 10 prospects for 2007 long enough that most of them are in the majors by now including (but not limited to) Matt Garza, Justin Upton, and Billy Butler. I suspect that we will see more of these guys hit the bigs in September, by which time Jesse will still not have finished his post and will still be calling me once a week yelling, “I HAVE to finish that post! Just give me an extra week, man!” at which point I will think, like I do every week, about simply writing the post myself.
• Bill Simmons essentially stole one of our columns. We don’t actually believe that, but it’s still a fun idea to throw around. Matt actually wrote a column about this, but decided not to post it after realizing that Simmons and Hohlfelder actually took decidedly different viewpoints.  After reading Simmons’ column, I realized why my dad, an alum, refuses to let me attend Holy Cross.
• Both Matt and I are guilty of, essentially, becoming sick of writing a certain series.  This happened to me with Littlefield’s Looneys, which was happening around the trade deadline when potential rumors were more interesting to write about than the past, and to Matt with Snapshots of Futility, which we are definitely going to return to if not only because players like Ricardo Rincon and Kevin Polcovich are so fun to write about.
• The first post that I started writing for the site was entitled “Why do we put ourselves through this?” I stopped it after finding it impossible to come up with a real reason and it has sat in the drafts ever since, collecting more dust than Jack Wilson’s Silver Slugger award.
• Hohlfelder started an NBA Draft Recap for 2007.  I’m hoping that that one is never released.

With all of that said, we definitely plan on continuing similar coverage of not only the Pirates but also the Penguins, Steelers, and Pitt sports (with some national stuff definitely mixed in).  Remember, we are still a “baseball blog,” so if the Pirates do something idiotic on a Tuesday in December we will cover that before we cover Lawrence Timmons’ most recent groin pull.

Thank you, once again, for helping to keep us around this long.  We do appreciate your visits and comments very much (even, and maybe especially, when they do point an idiotic error).

If you don’t understand this title, then you must not have seen Spaceballs (go see it immediately). Anyways, you may have noticed a new option at the top of this site. We’ve decided to take a page from Irate Fan’s book and sell t-shirts for those who want to voice their disapproval of the Pirates. Currently, they are available in three styles: white, yellow, and ringed. The white one costs $14.99 while the other two cost $15.99.

The first design, available on several kinds of shirts, is a play on the Pirates “We Will” campaign. Sure its obvious, but as far as I know, you can’t find this shirt anywhere else!  Click on the picture for a full sized version.  Obviously, “disappoint” is one of the tamer adjectives to describe the Pirates’ play. Post a different word in the comments and you might see it show up in the store tomorrow!

Additionally, if t-shirts aren’t your thing, we will soon be adding other products. We have the ability to sell just about anything with this or any other design, including hats, magnets, even thongs for the risqué.

So, if you like the shirt, buy one. If you don’t like it, please tell us why and we’ll improve it.

Anyways, I’m just asking everyone who enjoys this site to sign up for an account and maybe post a comment or two. Its no fun when it seems like we are writing to a brick wall. We really love feedback, even if you don’t agree with us. Feel free to argue with our commentaries or to post your own ideas during the liveblogs. We want to encourage participation by our visitors, and possibly implement a forum for you to talk amongst yourselves.

I would really prefer to require registration to comment, but if you have any other suggestions, drop me an email at webmaster[at]beliketike[dot]com.

The only issue we seem to be having is with our emails, but that should be resolved shortly. In the event that your email bounces, try again later. If you would like to contact each of us directly, you can use the following emails:

• Matt Felser (webmaster/sometimes writer) – webmaster[at]beliketike[dot]com
• Adam Wagner (main writer) – adam[at]beliketike[dot]com
• Jesse Ferko (occasional writer) – jesse[at]beliketike[dot]com

In other news, we’ve had a handful of users register for our site, but we have yet to receive a comment! Sign up today and be the first to comment on our site!