Outside of an occasional book review, I don’t see myself posting much here going forward.

It’s been fun sharing the last seven Yankees seasons with you.  And, thanks for your interest, support and feedback over the years.  It’s all been very much appreciated!

As promised, if you want to continue Yankees-talk with the friends that you’ve made here, please feel free to use the forum set up for that.  (And, I may just  pop in there from time to time as well.)

And, of course, you can still follow my work at the B-R.com Blog – as I will continue to make contributions there.

Hasta amigos!

That’s a long time.

I know that, several times in the past, I’ve talked about hanging them up. And, I have, somewhat recently, slowed down my pace in terms of posts to this blog.

In any event, now, I think the time has come for me to shut it down. Related, I expect this to be my last month writing here – and October 31st will be it for me.

Why? I don’t have the will to deal with more years of the Yankees Front Office.

Hal Steinbrenner is a paper tiger and shell of what his father was – and nothing like him on the inside. Hank Steinbrenner is the ‘Gob’ Bluth of the Steinbrenner family. Those two, like the rest of the Steinbrenner kids and their spouses, just care about the team making tons of money – and they’re fine with allowing Randy Levine, Lonn Trost and Brian Cashman run the show.

Ah, Levine, Trost and Cashman…

Where to start with those three? Heck, I’ll just cut to the chase and say that these three are the kings of “CYA” and ensuring that they insulate themselves more and more to the point where no one can touch them. If Levine, Trost and Cashman were dropped into a tank with nine Great White Sharks, I would not wager a dime on the fish. Levine would talk three of them to death. Trost would bore three of them death. And, Cashman would sign the last three to $40 million five-year contracts to pitch in Double-A, in exchange for letting him live.

Now, I know that the Steinbrenner kids aren’t going anywhere. Also, Levine and Trost will always have jobs with the Yankees as long as the Steinbrenner family owns the team. So, there’s not much hope for a change there.

To be candid, and this should not be a surprise to anyone who has been reading this blog for a while, I had hoped that this would be the last year for Brian Cashman. However, it looks like he will get a new deal with the team – after his current contract expires on October 31st.

In a word: Ugh.

Don’t get me wrong. I am still a Yankees fan. I will watch and attend the games. I will root for the team to win. And, I will be upset when they lose.

It’s just that I cannot see myself wanting to write about them anymore – since their Front Office is the same old story…for the last five years…or maybe longer.

Hey, it’s been a great ride. And, my many, many, thanks to all those who have read this blog and shared great comments and feedback, etc. I will sincerely miss interacting with you.

For what it’s worth, I will be continuing to add content to the blog at Baseball-Reference.com, if you would like to follow my work there.

But, unless the Yankees make a change – and the only one that can happen now is Brian Cashman – I don’t see anything giving me the juice to go for another season on writing about the Yankees. In the meantime, the next two weeks should be it for me.

It’s still open. And, if you haven’t taken it yet, and you are interested, click here to take it.

Second, some background on why I launched the survey.

I was thinking about this blog the other day, and it hit me that I’ve been doing this for seven seasons now. That’s a long time. How many other Yankees-related blog out there have been at it for the last seven seasons? You can probably count them on one hand.

Pondering this, I started to consider hanging them up at the end of this year. And, then I thought “Why wait for tomorrow…?” After all, what’s the difference, two or three months? But, before I made that call, I wondered what people thought about this blog, these days.

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The stats back from the survey, to date, have been interesting.

The majority of the people who responded are male Yankees fans over the age of 35 who have been reading this blog for more than 2 years, read it more than once a day on their own time at home, and find the opinion and commentary therein to be valuable.

That’s nice. The age thing is the one that means the most to me. Here’s more on that:
22.7% are 36 to 40 years old,
11.4% are 41 to 45 years old, and
34.1% are over 50 years old.

How cool is that? Maybe I should label this blog as the Yankees blog for the mature fan? I suspect this has something to do with the fact that I will be 49-years old in a few months. Perhaps my views, etc., are in line with other Yankees fans my age?

In any event, here’s some of the comments left in the survey to date (below). They paint an interesting picture of folk’s thoughts are regarding this blog and my work here:

• I dis-like hearing about Steve’s personal life. I don’t care about taking “the kids to the Blue Claws game”. or ” I got home and watched a movie and then tuned into the game” Or better yet who cares if Men of A Certain Age was cancelled? I never saw the show. Plus I don’t have enough time to watch t.v.
• 8/13/11 9:30AM
• Appreciate the blog’s consistent tone and point of view, even when I disagree with a particular opinion, point, etc. Used to dislike the frequent (and repetitive) bickering between commenters, but that seems to have leveled off.
• 8/13/11 8:20AM
• Best – Informative, Quality writing, interesting facts Least – Cashman bashing, always looking at the bad side of things instead of the positive side… making small events bigger than they are (presumably for effect)… Reader Comments are more difficult to access over last year or so.
• 8/13/11 6:26AM
• Best: Atmosphere, camaraderie, open forum for discussion Worst: Sometimes a “one trick pony” regarding certain criticisms
• 8/12/11 11:00PM
• I like Steve’s willingness to be critical. Other rah-rah sites are a bore. I love that the blog’s name is in honor of the Scooter. Steve, you’re an excellent writer and thinker. Thanks for taking the time to write.
• 8/12/11 5:53PM
• Description of the game and background articles.
• 8/12/11 4:56PM
• Best: The comparisons Steve makes between the past and present yankees, both on and off the field from a personal perspective. Worst: The irrational hatred of Alex Rodriguez, whilst overlooking other players foibles
• 8/12/11 4:09PM
• The thing I like best about WW is the respectful and intelligent debate amongst the authors and commenters of the site. The thing I like the least about WW is when old arguments and debates are rehashed and nothing new is said.
• 8/12/11 3:19PM
• Well written articles and commentaries about the Yankees. The only thing that I am not always in agreement with (although this true of any sports forum) is the second-guessing Cashman for the wrong reasons. I think that the second-guessing is often warranted, but that the cause and effect element is over-looked and/or ignored. Great, fun, blog that I always look forward to reading!
• 8/12/11 1:11PM
• best: lots of posts and the reader comments least: “if you take out these games against Baltimore”, “if you take out these wins against teams under 500″, “if you take out…” etc
• 8/12/11 11:20AM
• I don’t like steve.lol
• 8/12/11 10:58AM
• I like your opinions because they are similar to mine, I dont like that you attempt to close the blog down every so often.
• 8/12/11 10:57AM
• I made a habit of reading WW, starting while I was still living in NYC, as part of a conscious effort to develop a well-rounded list of Yankees blogs that would each offer something different — great analysis, rah-rah homerism, skepticism, humor. I followed one in each category. WW was my ‘cranky/skeptical/village atheist’ entry and I enjoyed it for that. When another writer was added who upped the overall level to constant severe negativity, I started reading WW less. Thankfully that experiment is over and WW is again playing its cusomary role for me, the one I chose it for some years ago, and I am back up to my previous frequency of readership. I comment occasionally.
• 8/12/11 10:52AM
• I read it for info on minor league prospects.
• 8/12/11 10:37AM
• Like Best: Opinions I agree with. Like Least: Opinions I disagree with.
• 8/12/11 10:29AM
• The website misuses statistics and uses flawed logic to back into conclusions that support Steve’s viewpoints. The bias and repeated petty nature of attacks in several posts diminishes Steve’s credibility. This is one of the worst Yankee sites out there and I check it only because I like it when the commenters point out how bad Steve is.
• 8/12/11 10:16AM
• I fret over Steve’s regular proclamations that he intends to bail out. Fortunately, he hasn’t/can’t.
• 8/12/11 9:32AM
• Best: Good forum for discussion. Worst: Author’s persistent negativity.
• 8/12/11 8:50AM
• Best: The frequent posts Worst: The negative attitudes towards the GM and some of the players (Rodriguez, Swisher, etc.), and the pessimistic nature of your posts.
• 8/12/11 8:19AM
• LIke Best – Honesty Like Least – Disrespectfully toned comments.
• 8/12/11 8:09AM
• WasWatching provides a very different perspective from most of the other NY based blogs. Your combination of commentary, stats and history is unique and much appreciated by this reader.
• 8/12/11 7:27AM
• Best- Comments of others. No complaints-View is slanted, but makes site unique.
• 8/12/11 7:23AM

Wow. My thanks again to everyone for this feedback. And, again, if you haven’t taken the survey yet, and are willing to share your feedback, it’s out there for you now.

Please accept our apologies for any inconveniences and/or disturbances which this situation may have caused you. Someone first brought it to my attention on April 8th. But, I didn’t see it, myself, with my own eyes, until today.

It’s fixed now.

Six years of blogging on the Yankees?  Yup, it’s true.

Wow. Thanks to all for their interest in WasWatching.com over these past 2,191 days and 10,841 entries. Man, the time has gone by fast…

Today, nearly six years after I started writing this blog, things are so much different. I’m now 48-years old. I just started a new job. My kids are soon to be seven and nine years old and involved in so many more things today than when they were babies. There are more Yankees bloggers out there than I care to count. Even the Yankees have changed – the owners, the front office, the players, the ballpark, etc. – from those Yankees teams of the ’70′s, ’80′s, ’90′s and early 2000′s that I loved so much. (More to come on that on a later date.)

And, my “status” in the Yankees (and general baseball) Blogosphere has changed. When I started, and in the first few years that followed, the majority of my “followers” were fans of my work. Today, the majority of those who follow this blog do so because they despise my opinion and want fuel to rip me on Twitter and other blogs. (This doesn’t bother me as much as many may think. It’s the American way. Build someone up and then tear them down. Just about anyone who has achieved a somewhat high profile in the public eye has experienced this to some extent.)

Lastly, in addition to family, work, age, the Yankees, the following of this blog, my personal interests have changed. (This has been snowballing for the past four years or so.) These days, in my “free time,” I am much more interested in learning more about nutrition, fitness and health than I am about writing about the Yankees. In fact, one of my goals is to spend less time playing around on a computer – after all, as a society, we spend way too much time in front of electronic devices – and using what time I am “on-line” more focused on items that are more important than sharing my opinion on Yankees-related matters.

I’m not saying that I’m completely done with all this – or that this blog is shutting down. There are other authors here, since February 2010, besides me. But, while I have shared in the past that it may be time for me to scale down on this operation, at this junction, more than ever, I think it’s time. Times change. Things change. People change. If it didn’t, I’d be wearing bell bottom jeans, sporting a David Cassidy shag hair-style, and rooting for Otto Velez to take Roger Moret downtown right now.

But, today is 10/10/10 – and that’s sorta like ten cubed. And, today is the 2,000th day that WasWatching.com has been in existence. Hence, “When Ten Cubed Equals Two Large.”

Two thousand days…and I don’t even want to think about how many hours over those days…it’s been alotta time. A whole heap of alotta time.

I started this blog as an outlet. A vehicle to share in the celebration of things in Yankeeland that I found enjoyable. Also, a mechanism to facilitate some venting on Yankees-related items that I found unpleasing. In the process, over these past five and a half years, I’ve also put myself “out there” to a fair degree…allowing many to get to know me, somewhat, through my sundry posts these last 2,000 days.

For the most part, it’s been a very interesting and fun journey. And, for sure, it’s been a learning experience. Related, whether you’ve been reading this blog for the last 5 1/2 years or for some portion of time less than that, please accept my thanks for your contribution towards those results.

Good lookin’ out. And, may you always hang wit’em.

Nope. I’m going…just for a tad.

Programming note: I’ve decided to take a tiny respite from blogging about the Yankees over the next three days or so – but “I’ll be back!” – for sure – when they return to New York for their next, and big, homestand. In the meantime, you’ll be in the capable hands of the other contributors here. Syotos for now.

One part of it would be where we could display photos of the authors and readers here, if they desire, so that we can put a face with the name – again, if that’s something the author or reader wanted to do. And, hopefully, they’d be in some sort of Yankees attire or setting.

The other part would be for Yankees-related photos that are unique and interesting – sort of like what they do at Fantography.net.

Again, I stress, I’m just thinking about it now. They key factor would be if anyone had any interest in such a thing. So, what do you say? And, thanks in advance for your feedback.