Our Absence From The Blogosphere

Dear loyal readers,

Stating the obvious, this blog has failed at being a blog. We have long been believers in quality over quantity and that belief flies in the face of conventional wisdom regarding "how to run a successful blog." In the blogosphere, quality seems to be appreciated, but once a readership is attained, quantity retains them and good ol' quality is free to take a back seat. At a certain point, we decided that instead of forcing the issue, we would only post when the mood struck and we needed to let something off of our chest. In other words, the blog went back to being a hobby and stopped being a source of information.

In the past month, we missed the news about next year's Yankees tickets being the same price as in 2009, and in some cases, cheaper. We never discussed the ridiculously convoluted method of selling postseason tickets (pre-sales, preliminary pre-sales, pre-preliminary pre-sales, etc etc). There will certainly be some sob stories about loyal partial plan season ticketholders who will be left out in the cold once playoff tickets go on sale because of the decreased capacity of the new stadium. We'll probably miss the boat on that story as well.

Regarding the stadium experience, we have been sitting on some food-related stories - one discussing the sale of natural casing Nathan's hotdogs at Yankee Stadium (spoiler alert - they sell them, and they're $6 for a hotdog the same size as the $3 kiddie dog, but according to a foodie tipster, they are totally worth it). Another post we never wrote was one discussing a not-so-great experience at our beloved Audi Yankees Club (undercooked prawns, overcrowded seating areas, horrendous service).

The fact is, life got in the way of this humble little weblog that we created back in 2007, and in order to achieve the quantity of posts expected of us to continue growing, we would have had to badly hurt the quality and originality of our work. Some combination of new Yankee Stadium burnout, an increasingly stressful "day job," an engagement, writer's block and general apathy led to the downfall of New Stadium Insider as some of you knew it back from January - May 2009. Never have we appreciated the work of blogs like RiverAveBlues.com like we do today. Those guys plug away and continue to put out quality work day in and day out. Perhaps it is their "day job," but regardless of their circumstances, running a blog like that is no easy feat. Trust us on that.

We completely intend on owning a space in the interwebs for the foreseeable future, we just don't plan on outwardly marketing the space and seeking out growth opportunities. There are plans to reinvent the NYYStadiumInsider.com domain sometime in the new year (hopefully with a fresh, new design) and put NewStadiumInsider.com to rest - after all, the stadium won't be new forever! We would love for tipsters to continue to send us stories involving our Yankee Stadium niche, and when time permits, we will craft stories that we hope will take a unique angle on the Yankee Stadium experience. When bad weather strikes the NYC area on Yankee game day, you can bet that we will be obsessing over every radar and passing along the information to all of the google-directed passers-by who happen across NSI.

If you really love our opinions and ramblings, you can find us on Twitter, where we average 8,286 "tweets" per day (actually 45), mostly containing opinions on the current state of the Yankees. We also contantly tweet from the games and offer our witty commentary (did I call this a humble little weblog earlier?) in real-time. If you like New Stadium Insider and you like Twitter, you'll like to follow us on Twitter. It is that simple.

So there we have it. We're going back to being an unconventional, casual blog. We're not shutting down shop, but we're not making any promises about when and how often there will be new blog posts. We'd recommend using an RSS reader, adding our feed and never missing a new post again. You can also continue visiting the web version of the site and click on ads. If we can earn money for doing absolutely nothing, we'd greatly appreciate that as well.

In all seriousness, we'd like to thank everyone who made this site a smashing success this Spring, and we're sorry to have disappointed any of you by stepping away for a while. Back in April the site received nearly 100,000 page views - something we consider our crowning achievement. Never did we expect for our writings to reach so many sets of eyes and it really is flattering. To all of the fellow weblogs who have graciously linked to our posts ( specifically Deadspin.com, RiverAveBlues.com, Big League Stew, FackYouk, MetsPolice.com), thanks for helping to spread the good word. Without you guys, the only ones reading this site would be us, our girlfriends and our parents.

If you read this far, you should win a prize. Unfortunately, MLB will probably serve some kind of cease and desist if we offer one, so you are SOL.

For now, it is time to enjoy the Yankees' quest for championship No. 27.

Best regards,

New Stadium Insider Read the full post, after the jump

Where Have You Gone, Stadium Insider?

I typically don't break the "Stadium Insider" character, but I just thought I would pop in and let everyone know about the recent blog hiatus. In the past month or so, I have gotten engaged as well as taking a vacation. Further, work has been rather hectic (you know - the real job that pays my bills and allows me the luxury of going to Yankee Stadium and spending my money on bad food).

I may have created lofty expectations in the offseason and in April/May when I was scheduling posts so that there were multiple posts spread throughout the day. Our traffic numbers from those months indicated that the readers were embracing the posts - in April we had nearly 100,000 page views! Unfortunately, working 9 AM until at least 6 PM takes a lot out of you, the ideas haven't been flowing off of the fingertips as freely, and I haven't been seeking out stories. If anyone can tell me how to add a few hours to my day, please contact me immediately.

For anyone who already doesn't follow me on Twitter, you can do so at Twitter.com/StadiumInsider. Posting updates there is pretty easy since they are only 140 characters - you'll notice that I check in a lot. I can also be reached via the contact link at the top of the page if you have any story ideas - I'll welcome the opportunity to be lazy and have a story dropped into my lap every once in a while!

I have some stories planned for the second half - best standing room only spots in the stadium, NYY Steak review, etc. As always, when bad weather inevitably hits the area and affects your trip to Yankee Stadium, I'll be here with updates from Steve DiMartino of NYNJPAWeather.com. I can't promise many posts, but I can promise that this blog won't just fade away into an obscure corner of the interwebs. Meanwhile, if you long for the type of material that we were putting out day after day in April and May, I would recommend checking out The Mets Police. They are officially a Mets Blog, but they have a season ticket plan at Yankee Stadium and are pretty much the Citi Field Stadium Insider. Highly recommended reading.

To anyone who still checks back here daily, I truly appreciate the patience and loyalty. To anyone who has ripped me in the comments section for not posting regularly, I am flattered by your readership. Hopefully this case of writer's block/blogging apathy will subside soon and I'll be back filling all of your quotas. In the meantime, please enjoy Yanks27's NSI Minor League Report, Bobby's Yankees book reviews and Nick's occasional stadium insider ramblings (his writing style resembles mine, so be sure to check the tagline at the bottom of the post to check on the author).

For the record, here are my second half Yankees predictions - Joba is going to turn around his season, Phil Hughes will enter the rotation in dominant fashion, A-Rod will make a run at the MVP award, and the Yankees will edge the Red Sox for first place. If A.J Burnett can have a month of dominance in October like his month of dominance in June, the Yankees will be playing in the Fall Classic. I have a feeling in my bones, people. Republicans are out of office, Moose is no longer doing an admirable job as one of the more underrated Yankees hurlers of all time (curse of the Moose), and the Yankees finally have a viable pitching staff. Our 8 year drought will be over in three and a half months and we'll be planning a tickertape parade down the canyon of heroes. You heard it here first. Read the full post, after the jump

More Housekeeping: Another RSS Feed Update & The "Read Full Post" Link

Let us start with a word of advice to any potential internet weblog authors out there - stay far away from "Feed Burner." Perhaps we just aren't well enough versed in this RSS feed business, but all "burning our feed" did was cause trouble. We have had people emailing us about feeds not updating, being delayed, and generally acting funky. For that reason, we have deleted our "Feed Burner" feed, and have decided to stick with the default blogger feed.

If you are subscribed to a broken feed right now, you probably aren't reading this. However, if you somehow come across this, please delete that stupid "Feed Burner" link from your RSS reader, and subscribe here:

http://newstadiuminsider.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

All links on the main page of the blog have been updated to reflect this change, for anyone just now stumbling across NSI.

On to other, less frustrating items. You may have noticed that we have introduced a link within each post that says "read full post." Blog experts refer to this as the "jump." Essentially, it allows us to put the most important part of the new post on the main page of the blog, but the full post on a separate page to prevent clutter. One relative who shall remain nameless pointed out the annoyance that some of our more wordy posts create. "Why do I have to scroll so much on your website," he asked. Hopefully the "read full post" link will mean less scrolling for those without scroll-wheels on their mouse. Yanks26' "NSI Minor League Report" feature abridged boxscores for all of the minor league games "after the jump," so be sure to click that link.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled debate regarding Nick Swisher laughing while he was pitching a scoreless inning in an unfortunate blowout loss. It sucks to get beat down by a division rival, but Jorge should probably calm down a bit, no? Read the full post, after the jump

Housekeeping Note: Introducing a New Commenting System

At some point today, we realized that the built-in blogger commenting system did not have IP tracking functionality built it. We certainly don't want to collect IP addresses, but we plan on running some contests this season based on the comments, and want to prevent cheating by tracking IP addresses. We are well aware of IP masking, but it is doubtful that any of our contests will be worth all of that trouble.

That being said, we proudly present the new comments. It will now be necessary to register a username of some sort which hopefully won't be too much of an inconvenience to anyone. The website that runs the new commenting system "Intense Debate" actually claims that their commenting system ENCOURAGES conversation on blogs, but then again, why wouldn't they claim that? It should be noted that the old comments will remain on old posts, and you will still use the old commenting system if you decide to comment on those posts. Everything from this point forward will utilize the new system.

In any case, this means that everyone from myself to Fake IPK to the commenter actually named Anonymous will have to create a new username. Just get it out of the way on this post, and why not introduce yourself? We have seen a considerable increase in traffic and in comments lately, so now is as good of a time as ever to start building a Stadium Insider community.

Just keep in mind, if we ever see the first comment on a post say "first" and nothing else, we will retire from blogging. Also, it will automatically ban your IP address from ever winning a New Stadium Insider contest.

Along those lines, look out for the announcement of our first ever contest in the coming weeks. The prize will be a pair of Grandstand tickets for the Yankees vs. Orioles on May 20. No, they are not great seats, but yes you will be able to check out the new Yankee Stadium. Details will follow, so be sure to bookmark the blog, add us to your RSS reader, and follow us on Twitter for all of the latest news. Read the full post, after the jump

REMINDER: Housekeeping Note - The RSS Feed For New Stadium Insider

Last week, we switched up the RSS feed for the site for technical reasons. We were under the impression that people previously subscribed to the feed would remain subscribed, but alas there was a setting in blogger that we forgot to switch.

Please click here to subscribe to the new RSS feed. The RSS feed link at the top of the page is always there for you as well. If you aren't using RSS feeds and Google Reader, you aren't getting the most out of the internet.

Thanks to Jay from Fack Youk and Mike from River Ave. Blues for pointing out the feed issue.

Talk about it in the Stadium Insider Forums!

Tax Season is here - Save By E-Filing Your Taxes and tell 'em Stadium Insider sent you - Only $19.95! Read the full post, after the jump