Respect for Exit 55

Rob's Blog Profile Photo

Streaks of doing something in a row are super impressive. 

Whether that be in sports, like Lou Gehrig or Cal Ripken, or anything in life. 

Like writing. 

My friend, Rob Adams, announced earlier today on his blog, "Exit 55", that his consecutive days streak of blog posts will come to an end tomorrow. Today is the last day of the streak. 

Since December 30, 2018, Rob has written a blog post every day. 

2,129 consecutive posts. 

Just incredible. 

Another friend, John Nash, challenged Rob late in 2018 to "Project 365", which meant writing one post every day for a year. Rob did that and so much more. 

Some might say, it's just writing, how hard is it? Oh, it's a lot harder than it looks. Believe me. 

To have the time, energy, and creativeness to come up with topics just shows incredible dedication. 

It's also about having a device with you to do it and having internet access everywhere you go. 

Yes, it's possible to write on a phone, but much simpler to write on a laptop or computer. 

And so much more that goes into it. 

It's not about the number of readers, and sometimes people write for themselves, but you also want to write something interesting, in some way. 

It's not my story to tell, and Rob wrote a lot of it on his blog, but everything that has gone on since Rob started the streak, both personally for Rob, and in the world, just makes the streak even more impressive. 

He's written about so many important topics. Some posts are more serious, some more light-hearted. And many different topics. Sports, both local and professional, family, music, broadcasting, and so much more. 

That is what makes his blog even better, how diverse it can be. 

As Rob says, he will continue to blog, and I hope he does a lot. I always look forward to his posts. However, now there is no pressure, and he can write when he wants about what he wants. 

If I write more, I am just rambling. 

I just wanted to give the respect to Rob, "Exit 55", and the streak that it deserves. And I likely didn't give it the justice it deserves. 

He's not only a tremendous broadcaster, but a terrific writer as well. Most importantly, an amazing, loyal friend and person. 

I'll leave you with this. Make the Exit 55 Blog part of your reading. 

Well done, Rob. Well done, my friend. 

Enjoy the well-deserved break. 

Accuracy and Legibility

In a lot of what we do in sports, we deal with rosters, and lineups. This is seen in all sports, but especially in a sport like baseball. I'm going to refer to rosters throughout this post, but that includes baseball lineup cards. 

It's so vital that rosters are both accurate and legible. 

Accuracy means having everyone listed and having all necessary information listed. This means all uniform numbers and positions are included and correct. If a player switched numbers from originally listed, that's okay, just made the change. 

Whether it's the PA announcer, broadcaster, writer, or anyone else, we want to be accurate with what is being reported. The only way we can is if we get accurate information given to us. Sure, we can search around, but we shouldn't need to, and we are taking chances at trying to piece through information. 

If people are missing on the rosters completely, then we have to go searching for that, and we don't want to show up teams and coaches either. 

In terms of legibility, not everyone has the best handwriting. I get that. I'm a prime example. That's totally okay. Then type and print out a roster. There are many templates, or you can make your own. There's also a way, if teams use Game Changer to keep score, to print out rosters that way. 

This way, everyone isn't guessing what the spelling is and therefore possibly saying a name wrong. Yes, those in PA or broadcasting still might need pronunciations on certain names, but it makes it much easier if the roster can be read.  

Even for writers and people doing social media posts, it's important to have the correct spellings so the names are correct in print. Whether that be online, or truly in a real newspaper. 

I'm sure some of you are reading this and saying, why should coaches be expected to provide rosters. Well, when it comes to a sport like baseball, or softball, we can print rosters, if they are available, but we still need the accurate lineup cards for each game. We can't just guess that. 

Also, even if only numbers are needed, in a basketball scorebook, for example, include names. It just looks better. More professional. Honestly, include as much information on a roster as you can. Obviously name (first and last) and number (where applicable for sport) is important, but position, and then sometimes height and weight any anything else that are sport specific are always helpful. 

I could ramble more on this, and I probably have other things I want to say that I am forgetting, but I won't bore you anymore. 

Summer's Over

Time to begin the "Road Trip" of another school year

Well, officially, summer is not over, but summer break for me is over as I go back to work tomorrow*. 

*Let's be honest though, I've done work over the summer. 

This summer was good. To go along with the photo I used above, now we begin navigate school year. 

 As a wrote about, I had a blast writing about Fairfield Legion Baseball. 

I did miss the fact that there was no broadcasting of Little League baseball with Rob Adams this summer. That had been a staple the past three years (summer of '18 and "19 and early fall of "20). 

Rob did do a Babe Ruth New England Regional baseball tournament in Trumbull late July and I enjoyed joining him for the one day of that. I couldn't join him for more, as we went on a family vacation to Las Vegas and California to visit family and friends. You can listen to all of the games of the tournament that Rob broadcasted here. 

The vacation was good. We visited my mom's friend in Vegas and did a few Vegas things, including walking the Las Vegas Strip and seeing a show. Then we went to California to visit, my Dad's brother and his family. I took a lot of photos from the trip. 

Taking photos on a trip or at any event is something I wish I was better at and hope to do more of. It's just a way to document life. People did it years ago but it should be so much easier with smartphones now.

 I wish I wrote more this summer, personally. I wrote for Legion, but not on this blog. I wish I would be like Rob and write all the time about many different topics, items, and thoughts. I feel like when I write, it's only about major topics. I keep saying it, but hopefully I will write more going forward. I just don't have that much interesting stuff to write about. 

Year number four begins tomorrow. I would say it will be an interesting year, especially the start, but every year has been interesting, for one reason or another. None of the previous three years I've been in the job have been so called "regular" years. 

Excited for sports to get going. Football and boys golf (boys golf is now a Fall sport as of this year) are already underway in Connecticut and the rest of the Fall sports get underway on the 26th.

It will be busy and likely crazy but it should be exciting no matter what. We will see what happens. 

Looking Back On 2020 and Forward To What's To Come

I wasn't going to write about 2020. Let's be honest, it wasn't that exciting. There was nothing that specifically stands out, at least from a fun, good, point of view. But then I'm like, if I want to keep writing, I should write something. There's kind of that "I see other friends who blog (Rob Adams and John Nash, specifically) writing end of year posts, maybe I can/should. 

Overall, this has been a boring year, but in the same fate, an Ok year personally. However, plenty of friends have lost family members this year and plenty of others are dealing with tough times. Obviously, COVID-19 has been a big chunk of the year and has impacted all of us in many ways. 

From a local sports perspective, we had the 2019-2020 winter season cut short, no 2020 spring season, and an abbreviated 2020 fall season. At this point, the 2020-2021 winter season is put on hold, so we will see what happens in the coming weeks. There were some sports played over the summer and it was nice to see baseball. I got to see a bunch of Fairfield American Legion games, as well as Fairfield American and Fairfield National little league baseball. In addition, Rob and I broadcasted the CT State Little League baseball State Tournament. 

If I think about some local games and moments from the year that stood out, there aren't that many. More, there are behind the scenes moments that stand out. Those are stories we can tell at later times, or are for others to tell. In terms of games, here are a few that come to mind. 

1) Fairfield Legion walk-off vs Greenwich in the playoffs

Fairfield walks-off on Greenwich 7-6 to advance in the FCBL Playoffs #ctbase pic.twitter.com/tQyTMPDkLu

— Shawn Sailer (@ShawnSailer) August 9, 2020

2) Hamden defeating Montville in the Little League State Tournament

 

3) Despite it being a Warde loss, the Mustangs boys basketball FCIAC semifinal game was a fun back-and-forth game that came down to the final seconds. https://events.locallive.tv/events/37157 

I'm probably forgetting some games that I should include, but honestly there were not that many. I also tried to find games where I had video or audio. 

Oh, and I really need to learn more music so I can know what people are talking about and be more involved in conversations. That will be one of my New Years resolutions. If I can somehow relate the songs to sports, that would be much easier and much more likely that I will pay attention. 

Here's hoping things get better for everyone and we can enjoy 2021 and beyond. It's not going to change just because it's a new year, but hopefully things change soon. Also, as I wrote a couple blogs ago, hoping for a lot of sports soon. Thankful for many friendships built and those strengthened and looking forward to more of that.  

To better days.....

Missing Sports

I haven't blogged in over two months. I keep saying I want to blog more, but I just don't have much to write about, and don't want to write about news you can get many other places. What's the point? I need to be better at finding topics and just write. Write for myself. It doesn't matter who reads or doesn't read. It doesn't need to be sports (even though, as I say below and everyone knows, sports are my life). I want to continue to keep my journalism passion and sharpen my writing skills. 

I look at what Rob Adams is doing over at his blog, Exit 55, with Project 365+. He's almost at two full years of one blog a day. Or John Nash at The October Weekend, who first challenged Rob to Project 365 in 2019 and continues to blog often. I'm not saying I'm going to be them, but I just see what they are doing and which I would write more. 

Now to my main point of this post. 

I miss sports, especially at the local level. I realize what's going on in the country (and the word) with the COVID pandemic is more important than sports, but I am still holding hope that there is a safe way to have local sports around here. 

Connecticut fall high school sports ended in early November* and as of now, winter sports don't start until January 19th at the earliest. Hopefully we get some sort of winter season in. In addition, no matter what happens with winter sports, the CIAC (Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference) has said they will try to give as much of a normal spring season as possible consider the spring athletes lost their entire spring season last year. 

*It was a modified season, but we got a fall sports season in without much disruption and the athletes and teams got to have a fall sports experience, which is the goal. 

I see photos from people in other parts of the country where games are being played. It makes me miss sports even more. 

As I said to someone else, not only is high school sports my job, it's my life. As pathetic as that may sound. I live for HS basketball and HS baseball. 

Between helping out the basketball team at Ludlowe and being on the Ludlowe baseball coaching staff and then of course dealing with all the other Ludlowe and Warde teams as part of my job, there's not much else. There's still work to be done, and I'm able to get ahead on some things, but not as much as I'd like just due to the uncertainty of the seasons. 

I've enjoyed all the professional and college sports we have gotten to watch. From MLB, to the NFL, to college football and college basketball, as well as the NBA and NHL and so much more. I've been home more so I've watched a bunch and it's been great to watch. To those who say it's not real, or it doesn't matter, you're not a real sports fan. 

We will see what happens. Hopefully we have some answers soon. And hopefully there is more from me around here. 

Welcome to Shawn's Blog

As many of you know, I'm a writer. I write a lot about sports and sports related happenings.

With that being said, I decided to create a blog. It will probably be mainly sports but it may be other items as well. I will probably talk broadcasting and media and probably just random things I want to and feel the need to write about. (And by the way, this blog is called "Sailing with Sailer" and will have lots of sports talk but will have zero to do with sailing)

I have done some formal writing, including being the Sports Editor of the Sacred Heart Newspaper, The Spectrum, among other publications, but this will allow me the freedom to write about what I want, when I want. I hope I do a lot with this.

Thanks to many who have blogs and have inspired me to create this blog. Among those are Rob Adams, Susan Shultz and Sandra Began. There are many others as well. Each of these three people have very different blogs/websites to get many different purposes across. One thing they all have in common is that they are excellent writers.

As always, any suggestions on topics, feel free to let me know. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.