How to FBB 2019: User’s guide for Washington Nationals fans...

Welcome to Federal Baseball (aka FBB), a so-called Washington Nationals support group and credentialed media site (since 2010).

We’ve been hard at work under the current management covering the Nationals since mid-August of 2007.

[ed. note - ”This is an updated version of this post, which we put up each and every season before Opening Day as a sort-of-orientation for the site.”]

Heading into our 12th season as part of the SB Nation, we’ve added to our staff of talented writers, so we thought that it made sense to reintroduce ourselves and provide some hints about how to use the site more effectively.

FanShots, FanPosts, the comments section, our Twitter page, our Facebook page, our live GameThreads, where the readers can talk during games, link posts and more. So how do you FBB? Glad you asked...

THE COMMENTS SECTION (ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK, JUST KIDDING):

This is where most of the discussion on Federal Baseball takes place, especially during the GameThreads. Helpful hints? Check out the first 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” (which is super-embarrassing), and you’ll also keep the individual threads for particular comments going.

If you like something you read, “rec” it, as you see with the first comment below.

Enough people rec a comment and it turns green because green is a pleasing color I guess.

Want to skim through the new comments on a story in rapid fashion? Embrace the “z” key.

When you click into the comments section, the “z” key will change your life. It allows you to skip through the comments in high-speed fashion... Go ahead and try it next time you look and see new comments on the site.

You can also add images and GIFs (though adding a lot of them tends to slow high-traffic GameThreads, so use them judiciously, please) to add some color and fun to the threads, see instructions below...

You can “flag” comments too if someone’s trolling or getting personal or offensive... though we like never have trolls around here. Also: I make $2500 a week working from home. Want to know how? Do you remember Danny Espinosa? Discuss.

COMMENTS PT. 2, IMAGES, LINKS, ETC.:

Across the board under the subject line: B = Bold; i = italics; then S to cross out any words you choose, and block quotes for, you know, quotes with blocks; then bullet points for lists, I mean, I guess; numbered lists for lists with numbers; pictures, to uh, add pics; links, for links to things; spoiler windows, which blacks out the comments redaction-style so that you have to scroll over it to read the content; and, finally, emojis.

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, I know, get over it, and type and then edit quickly.

So now you know how to comment, right? What if you have thoughts, images, tweets or something else to share?

FANPOSTS/FANSHOTS:

This is your place to shine and share your thoughts on all things Washington Nationals.

Have a comment that’s too much/too 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 6 stories on the front page, and if it’s active we’ll consider adding a group of them back to the front page, but seriously, you all have to step up your FanPost game if we’re going to do that again...

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 yet another in a long history of concerted efforts to promote FanPosts again this season, so if you want to get your opinions out there, that’s the place to go.

If you want to just share something quick and fun with the rest of the Nats fans here at FBB? See FanShots below...

FANSHOTS:

You may have noticed that there are more FanShots on the front page these days... or at least there are in-season, when we, uh, actually do them, which — you know, we’re a little lazy, what?

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). Yes, 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 in the Welcome to NatsTown section.

TWITTER:

We’re on Twitter @federalbaseball where we tweet live updates during games for anyone who’s unable to watch live or follow in the GameThreads.

[ed. note - “If you turn FBB on in your Twitter notifications, live updates will show up on your mobile device while you’re out and about and unable to keep track of the game action. And we’ll tell you about Anthony Rendon’s walk totals in college every time he walks and you can watch the comments blow up with people who are angry we tweet that every time he walks. It’s all good fun. Also, the people who complain are fun-hating jerks.”]

Anyone who is at a game and wants pitch counts and live updates and videos, follow us and turn on notifications and we also do our best to keep you up-to-date with the latest news by retweeting everything we find that’s worth reading and lots of @PitchingNinja clips...

Check out our Twitter feed below...

Tweets by @federalbaseball

FACEBOOK:

We have a facebook page too: (facebook.com/nationals.federal.baseball) and we think Mark Zuckerman does a great job running it.

Make sure to go to that one, because if you go this one — facebook.com/federalbaseball, that’s my personal feed which features Marcel Proust quotes and links to pop culture-y stuff that probably won’t interest you much. Though there are currently some nice photos of the theater in NY where I went to see To Kill A Mockingbird on Broadway...

We’ve made a concerted effort to pick up our facebook game in the last couple years, posting links to all of our stories and sharing everything that we find out there on the internets that’s worth sharing. And of course, they changed things up so it doesn’t really sent us much traffic any more. Lesson: Don’t try.

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?

Now let’s introduce you to our staff. Most of them you’ll already know if you spend time at FBB, but we don’t want newcomers to have to wonder how all these fine people ended up here...

FBB’s STAFF OF WRITERS, NEW AND OLD, OKAY ONLY ONE IS OLD, OLD:

• Name: Patrick Reddington; Role at FBB: Credentialed writer; site manager; post game reports; Proust enthusiast; old guy in the picture below ... on the left.

Bio: Proust, Kerouac, Alain Resnais, Chris Ware, 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 film 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 (though not so much superhero stuff) who likes Will Eisner’s work, everything Alan Moore, Jonathan Hickman, Bryan Lee O’Malley, Brian K. Vaughan, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware (current obsession for the last few years) 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 for the record) and yes that is, in fact, actually a Montreal Royals cap I’m wearing in the pic. Big Expos fan growing up and I followed the franchise to D.C. and fell in love with the nation’s capital. Also if you don’t like Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, we can’t be friends.

Name: Will Kubzansky; (@WKubzansky on Twitter); Role at FBB: Wire Taps, sharable content, the occasional opinion piece and whatever else Patrick will let me do.

Bio: I’m Will, and this is my fourth (!) season at Federal Baseball. I’m the chief Wire-Tapper, and also do Fanshots, and other short pieces on sharable content, as well as some opinion/analysis pieces every now and then. I’ve been going to Nats games since 2005 (when I was four years old), and became obsessed with the team around 2011, when I started writing about the team and eventually ended up here at Federal Baseball, where we’ll get to cover an NLCS one of these decades.

Name: Matt Weyrich; (@MattWeyrich on Twitter); Role at FBB: Staff writer, post games, opinion/analysis.

Bio: I’m a senior journalism student at JMU with a passion for baseball and pretty much anything having to do with sports. Originally from Northern Virginia, I grew up rooting for the Nats and have made some of my favorite memories among the crowd of Nationals Park - including Jayson Werth’s Game 4 walk-off home run in 2012. Follow me on Twitter @MattWeyrich for links to all my articles and sports commentary with some slight bias toward my favorite teams: the Nats, Wizards, and Saints.

Name: Blake Finney; (@FinneyBlake on Twitter); Role at FBB: Staff writer, opinion/analysis, friendly neighborhood prospect enthusiast

Bio: I’m Blake, the new kid on the block with a funny accent, entering my first season with Federal Baseball after previously writing for District on Deck. Having spent over 10 years staying up until the early hours of the morning in England watching baseball, it’s a relief to now be this side of the Atlantic on a normal sleep pattern. I also previously played, umpired and managed in the British baseball leagues, giving me a wealth of experience in and around the game that we all love. Unfortunately, my curveball isn’t quite as good as it used to be.

Name: Adam McInturff; (@2080adam on Twitter); Role at FBB: Minor League guru for 2080 Baseball and FBB.

A native of Washington, D.C., Adam will be periodically contributing scouting pieces on Nationals prospects for Federal Baseball. Currently, he’s the Assistant Director of Professional Evaluation at 2080 Baseball. Previously, Adam worked in the Baseball Operations departments of the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers after serving as a Senior Prospect Writer for Baseball Prospectus.

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!