A Decade of Brew Crew Ball

Ten years ago, on March 22, 2005, Jeff Sackmann welcomed us all to his brand-new Milwaukee Brewers blog.

Nobody tweeted, shared on Facebook, pinned, Google plussed, or did anything else with it. It got one comment, late that night, from someone whose username doesn't exist anymore. That comment mentioned how "One of the biggest questions facing the Brewers front office is just how soon should they bring up Fielder, Weeks, Capellan, etc from Nashville. I'll be interested to read comments in that regard. It will also be interesting to see if Sheets gets a $40 million contract this year!"

Since then, we've seen Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, and Jose Capellan come and go. We've also seen Corey Hart, JJ Hardy, Alcides Escobar, CC Sabathia, Zack Greinke, Lorenzo Cain and so many more come to the Brewers and eventually leave. We've seen the rise (and fall?) of Ryan Braun, the departure of Ben Sheets and Geoff Jenkins, and a couple of playoff appearances. We've worked our way through dozens of LaPorta's and wondered how well a pan of lasagna would do at first base.

What started with an introductory post and one solitary comment has turned into hundreds of thousands of comments, millions of words, and one of the best danged places to talk Brewers baseball on the internet. Jeff created and built an amazing place and worked for years to build it.

When Jeff was ready to give up control of the site, Kyle Lobner stepped up and took Brew Crew Ball to new heights. Kyle's written over 6,800 posts for the site over the years as he wrote about every facet of the team. He stepped back last year to focus on new things, but his mark still lasts on just how much the site grew over the years he ran BCB.

Over the years, there have been a variety of talented writers to contribute a few words on the main site. Roguejim, TheJay, battlekow, morineko, Alec Dopp, Eric Nehm, Fred Hofstetter, Nicole Haase, Jordan Mader, Derek Harvey, JP, Nate Petrashek, Rubie Q, Hangwith'em Rach, and so, so many more that I just know I'm forgetting.

What's more, the comments section has become a beast of it's own and the lifeblood of the site. Having such a great community to discuss the team with is a big part of what made me keep coming back to the site and I suspect it's the same for many others. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Everyone who keeps coming back and reading the site and takes the time to write a comment and who game threads or prognostikegs makes it all worthwhile.

Brew Crew Ball has had a pretty great decade. I'm looking forward to what the Brewers have in store for us to talk about over the next ten.