Welcome to Federal Baseball (FBB), a Washington Nationals support group.
We've been hard at work under the current management covering the Nats since August of 2007.
[ed. note - "This is an updated version of this post which we put up every season on Opening Day as a sort of orientation for the site."]
Heading into our ninth season as part of the SB Nation, we've added a few talented writers who will be contributing on a regular basis this season, so we thought it made sense to reintroduce ourselves and provide some hints about how to use the site.
FanShots, FanPosts, the comments section, Twitter, Facebook, live GameThreads where the readers can talk during games, link posts and our Nats Nightly podcast. So how do you FBB?
Comments Section:
This is where the discussion on Federal Baseball takes place, especially during the GameThreads. Helpful hints? Check out the image below while you read this. If you want to reply directly to something someone has said, hit that "reply" button and you won't have to apologize for a "reply fail" and you'll keep the individual threads for particular comments going. If you like something you see, "rec" it as you see with the first comment there. Enough people rec a comment and it turns green. Want to skim through the new comments on a story in rapid fashion? Embrace the "Z" key. When you click onto the comments section, the "Z" key will change your life.
You can also add images and GIFs (though a lot of them tends to slow high-comment GameThreads, so use them judiciously, please) to add some color to the threads.
You can "flag" comments too if someone's trolling or getting personal or offensive...
Comments Pt. 2: Images, links, etc.
Across the board under the subject line and "message' header: B = Bold, I = italics, then strike, and block quotes, bullet points, numbered lists, pictures, links and spoiler windows, which blacks out the comments so you have to scroll over it to read the content. Have fun with all these, abuse them if you like.
Also, you can preview comments before you post and edit afterwards, though only for a short time, so type quickly.
NOTE: Also, this may be helpful to anyone who has ever read the comments section and wondered what the heck people were talking about. It does get a bit weird a times, but we don't want the silliness that so many of us enjoy to start to become exclusionary, so our good friend (and occasional author) d_c_guy came up with this helpful primer before the start of last season:
Washington #Nationals Fan User Guide: 2015 Federal Baseball Lexicon #Nats http://t.co/2ns7M4MPxg pic.twitter.com/v6kwMgkIsq
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) March 16, 2015
So now you know how to comment, right? What if you have thoughts, images, tweets or something else to share?
FanShots and FanPosts:
This is your place to shine and share your thoughts on all things Washington Nationals. Have a comment that's too much/long for the comments section? Create a FanPost! There's an entire section for them on the right side of FBB if you scroll down below the Top 5 stories and we created a group that stays on the front page now so that they're not as far down the page. Turn those thoughts and long comments into posts of your own and if they get a good response (and don't have copyrighted material, profanity, etc) we'll promote them too.
We're going to make a concerted effort to promote FanPosts this season as the frequency and quality of them has increased in recent months, so if you want to get your opinions out there, that's the place to go. If you want to just share something fun with the rest of the Nats fans here at FBB? See below...
FanShots?: You may have noticed that there are more FanShots on the front page these days. That's part of an effort on our part to get more shareable, interesting items from around the internet in front of your eyes.
See a story, video, Tweet, or image you like? Create a FanShot. We're on top of a lot of the news and we've added a couple people to our staff to find this stuff for you and share it on FBB and on our Facebook page. But we can always use your help, because sometimes (not often, we're so on top of stuffs) we miss things. If you want to catch up on all the latest FanShots, they're on the front page now too as you can see above.
We'll keep the FanShots and FanPosts up high in the "river" as the stories below the Top 5 are referred to behind the scenes at FBB, so that you can find them quickly.
TWITTER:
We're on Twitter @federalbaseball where we tweet live updates during the game for anyone who's unable to watch live or follow in the GameThreads. [ed. note - "If you turn FBB on in your notifications, live updates will show up on your mobile device while you're out and about and unable to keep track."] Anyone who is at the game and wants pitch counts and updates, follow us and turn on notifications for us and we also do our best to keep you up-to-date with all the latest Nationals news by retweeting everything we find that's worth reading. Check out our Twitter feed below...
FACEBOOK: (facebook.com/nationals.federal.baseball) Make sure to go to this one, because if you go to facebook.com/federalbaseball, that is my personal feed which features Marcel Proust quotes and links to pop culture-y stuff.
We've made a concerted effort to pick up our facebook game in the last year-plus, posting links to all of our stories and sharing everything that we find out there on the internets that's worth sharing and Magnus Elhardt (see below) is taking it another level over there. The comments and discussion are picking up over there too, so if you're not following us on facebook, why aren't you following us on Facebook?
NATS NIGHTLY:
Three or is it four years ago now, Dave Nichols from the District Sports Page, who is now writing here at FBB, Doghouse and I decided to make good on something we'd talked about for years and finally start doing a nightly Nationals-themed radio show.
Each night, or at least as often as we can, and as soon as we can after the game is over, we get on BlogTalkRadio, post a link in the comments section of the night's post game report and talk Nationals for 15-20 minutes. What just happened, big news, trades, etc.
We cover it all, and the show is archived in a group at the bottom of FBB's front page and on iTunes. Check it out, you can even call in and talk if you're so inspired. Admittedly, it's become my favorite thing that we do.
Now let's introduce you to our staff. Most of them you'll know if you spend time at FBB, but we don't want newcomers to have to wonder how all these people ended up here.
FBB's staff of writers new and old:
Name: Patrick Reddington; Role at FBB: Credentialed writer, site manager, post game reports, Nats Nightly co-host w/ Dave Nichols and Doghouse.
Bio: Proust, Kerouac, Alain Resnais, Alan Moore and baseball. That pretty much sums it up, but for the sake of a better intro and to expand on my official bio, I'm also obsessed with directors like David Lynch, Patrice Leconte, Terrence Malick (he's probably my favorite) and Wong Kar Wai (actually he's my favorite), poets like Gary Snyder, Basho, Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams and writers like J.D. Salinger (but obsessed in a positive way in that case), Yukio Mishima and Albert Camus and I'm a comic book/graphic novel fan who likes Will Eisner's work, Jonathan Hickman, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Brian K. Vaughan and Brian Wood, and the art of J.H. Williams III as well as music by Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, of Montreal, the Olivia Tremor Control and Jim O'Rourke, just to name a few. I also practice meditation and I'm a vegetarian. But enough about me... BTW: the picture above is of me, Stan Kasten and Mike Rizzo (left to right) and yes that's a Montreal Royals cap. Big Expos fan growing up and I followed the franchise to D.C. and fell in love with the nation's capital.
Name: Doghouse; Role at FBB: Partner in crime, Post game WPA Graphs, co-host of Nats Nightly.
Bio: "Doghouse grew up in Southern California, where he cheered for Rod Carew’s run at .400 with the Angels before drifting away from baseball for many years. The Nationals brought him back into the baseball fold in 2005, and he hasn’t strayed since. He’s been hanging around FBB since long before its first 100-comment GameThread, when he used to calculate wins-above-replacement projections using an abacus, a pointed stick, and clay tablets. Now he just grumbles about all the Johnny-come-latelies, makes in-jokes for the other FBB grognards, and curates a selection of WPA (win-percentage added) highlights after each game. Doghouse is also practically synonymous with DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
Name: Will Kubzansky (@WKSideofNats on Twitter); Role at FBB: Daily Link post aka Wire Taps.
Bio: I’m Will - some of you may know me from the FanPosts and an escapade with some Orioles fans in the comments section. I’ve been going to Nats games since 2005 (when I was four), but developed a borderline obsession with the team around 2011. I translated that obsession into something productive and started blogging around. This spring, I was lucky enough to join to the FBB team, to write the daily Wire Taps. (Luckily for me, I was already searching to the ends of the internet for Nats news anyway.)
Name: Magnus Elhardt; Role at FBB: Maintains FBB's Facebook page, general contributor, assistant sanity coach for Patrick.
Bio: My name is Magnus, and I rarely watch baseball. I learned to love baseball listening to Vin Scully on the radio each evening, supplemented with words and numbers in the newspaper. I quickly found that the internet with a combination of cool communities of fans and wonderful piles of delicious data went hand in hand with radio. I have been hanging out at Federal Baseball since 2010 (mostly under the name dc_Roach), listening to Charlie & Dave, encouraging the use of play by play in GameThreads, writing often quirky, often stat-heavy posts to help supplement Patrick's hard work, and annoying Patrick with my use of the Oxford comma.
Name: Dave Nichols; Role at FBB: Credentialed writer, podcaster, analysis, opinion, gloom and doom.
Bio: Editor-in-Chief of recently-defunct District Sports Page, Dave has been credentialed to cover the Nats since 2010 (and the Caps since 2007). Dave covers college football and basketball, the MLS and WNBA for the Associated Press out of its Spokane, WA college sports desk and is a copy editor and contributor on the sports desk at the Spokesman-Review daily newspaper. Previously, he spent four years in radio covering the Orioles, Redskins and U of Maryland football and basketball. Twitter: @NicholsFBB.
Name: Matteo Meschi; Role at FBB: Shareable content.
Bio: Matteo is an author of federalbaseball.com since 2016, becoming the first Nationals supporter from Italy. Graduated in marketing, his passion is to develop media content of interest with videos and pics from social networks. In 2015, he started writing for an Italian sport website before becoming its editor. He now has the opportunity to be part of FBB and SB Nation community with the aim to follow/collect/share media content about the Nationals. Twitter: @thebutlernats.
So that's us... who are you? Feel free to share any and everything you want about yourselves and ask any questions you may have in the comments section below! Let's Go Nats!