It’s time to say farewell

My profile says that I first joined Twinkie Town on February 14, 2010. Huh. That’s Valentine’s Day.

If I could have a Facebook description of my life on my profile, it would be set to “It’s complicated.” Since college, I feel I’ve been stuck in a seemingly eternal battle between my loves of education and baseball. About 10 years ago, my close friends were a bit surprised when I announced I wanted to be a teacher, but that’s because I saw the long road ahead with baseball.

I still tried, though. I first started my own blog Off The Mark in October 2009. A couple years later, I parlayed that into my current gig here at Twinkie Town thanks to our former overlord Jesse. Twinkie Town led to recording data from major league games for Inside Edge in 2015, and then I attempted to get a more prominent baseball job at the 2015 Winter Meetings. Here’s the thing, though, the Winter Meetings are not meant for shy introverts. I walked in with four interviews and left with opportunities with the Tampa Bay Rays and MLB Network. Ultimately, neither came to fruition.

Stuck at a crossroads, I reevaluated what to do with my life. I determined that while baseball was what I loved the most, teaching was the more rewarding, fulfilling, and financially stable job available for me. Admittedly, I started at Twinkie Town with an ulterior motive of it being a springboard for something bigger. Today, I see that I’ve been writing here weekly for just shy of six years.

I feel awful to be walking away right after Maija/myjah and Stu announced their departures, but I cannot stress enough that this is pure coincidence. Since rededicating myself to teaching, I knew that I would have to start a masters degree someday. Well, that day is today, or more specifically next week. To be honest, I’ve felt burnt out as a writer for a long time now. I can’t count how many times I either mailed in an article despite knowing it wasn’t my best work, or I got to Tuesday night and thought, “#%$!, I haven’t written my article yet!” Writing at least once a week for the past nine years through primarily losing seasons can do that to a person.

In theory, I could juggle all my obligations at once, but I’ve learned throughout the years that I don’t handle stress well. Thus, I’ve been in the process of clearing my plate, which means I notified Inside Edge of my intentions of moving on as well. For the next couple years, my focus will be purely on teaching and grad school with nothing else to cause me worry. In theory, at least.

It’s time for the expressions of gratitude. Thank you to Jesse for giving me the opportunity to write at Twinkie Town. Thank you to myjah for all of her coaching, I feel I’m now an expert at SEO. But most of all, thank you TT readers for your time over the past six years. It’s going to be hard to see breaking news and resist the urge to pound out a couple paragraphs in 15 minutes.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just bought MLB ‘18: The Show for PS4 as a personal Christmas gift. I’m off to do as much player editing as I can before all my free time is taken away next week.