And so it ends.
Seven years ago, Lawr Michaels and I merged our sites, with Lawr graciously agreeing to use the Mastersball brand. Brian Walton joined us as Managing Partners. When we went public with the merger, the overwhelming reaction was, "What took you so long?"
A few years earlier, after two years with Fantasy Planet, I rebooted Mastersball with the help of Gary Jennison, J.P. Kastner and... Lawr. Without Lawr's generous offer of sharing server space, along with freeing J.P. to build the new site, there's no way I could have gotten back in business, so to speak. A couple years later, the time was right to merge Creative Sports and Mastersball.
The seven years with Lawr and Brian, and the rest of the staff, were a supreme pleasure. I couldn't ask for a better couple of guys to work with. But, a lot happened in the ensuing seven years, both personally and professionally. Lawr talks about it in his touching farewell.
Early in the summer, I made one of the most difficult decisions ever bouncing around my gray matter.. I called Lawr and Brian and told them I needed to simplify things, saying I really need to focus on my freelance work with Rotowire and ESPN, along with a great group of loyal Platinum subscribers. Not to mention, my health. Don't worry, I'm fine. I just want to stay that way.
The best way for me to do this was to fly solo with Mastersball. After breaking the news, their response was, "What took you so long?"
You see, great as it was to be in business with Lawr and Brian, they're even better friends. Their concern wasn't the business, but me. I can't express how much that means to me. I'm not very good at this, but thanks guys!
I have no doubt Lawr will build Creativesports2 into an industry leader. i wish nothing but the best for Lawr and his staff.
More importantly, I'm forever grateful to Lawr for not only being there when I was getting back on my feet nine years ago, but for being a great friend for two decades.
And so it begins.
Today marks the first day of Mastersball as a solo entity. And, it didn't start out so great. I still have no idea why, but the system decided to auto-renew over 800 registrants, sending them a receipt for a service they didn't order. Oy vey.
If you are one of the unfortunate recipients, please accept my apologies. Trust me, Platinum is NOT on auto-renew. No one was actually charged. For that I am thankful. It was bad enough deleting over 800 memberships by hand, rebating that many PayPals would have been more tilting, not to mention embarrassing.
Anyway, things should be squared away and the first release of 2018 projections are available. If you're a Platinum 2017 subscriber, you can access then through November 14. If not, Platinum 2018 is open for business!
Plans for public facing content are still a work in progress, though I have plans for a November series featuring the playing time outlook of a team a day. Check back later for the Arizona Diamondbacks review.
in the meantime, I have a plane to catch in a few hours as I'll be joining Lawr, Brian and many others in Phoenix for the Baseball HQ sponsored First Pitch Forum.