The Church of Alvis

So as many of you may or may not know I have a deep and abiding interest in sports. It's one of my real passions beyond video games. Many, many years ago I actually spent about a year and a half trying to get into the Journalism school at UW, and failed. I even went so far as to do a news internship for a TV station one summer because it's what I really wanted to do. Eventually the dream died because of my inability to get into the journalism school and a few other bumps. Or so I thought. I'd toyed for years with getting back into it due to my unhappiness at my real job, but I never acted on it. Until now.

Last year the Milwaukee newpaper had a contest for fan bloggers to follow the team for a year, I entered but was not one of the three chosen. Then recently my sister was at SXSW and met a guy who runs a sports blog called midwest sports fans. She talked with him some at an event and put me in touch with him. He and I exchanged a couple emails and he showed some interest so I sent him the article I wrote last year for the packers fan blog contest and he loved it and he offered me a chance to write for him, which I immediately accepted. So I spent some time trying to get inspired and write something really good, and failed. Until today.

http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2013/0 ... uppan-2-0/

I realize I'm the only member of the guild that gives a crap about the Brewers, and probably one of if not the only one who cares about baseball at all, but if you could take a minute to give the article a page view at least, a like and/or a share if you know anyone who might I'd really appreciate it. I'm hoping to make this into if not a career at least a paying second job someday and the only way to do that is to build a following and get people reading and liking my stuff, so anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated.

Stuff I'm planning to be writing about in the future will be the Brewers, the Packers and Fantasy Football for sure. I may write some about the College Football (specifically the Big 10), other UW topics and Fantasy Baseball.

Thanks for any support you guys can give me.

Good read man, and I certainly wish ya the best in trying to get a new career going!

Sent using smoke signals from my campfire.

Great Job Furiel!

Nice job man!

Can you blog about how Wisconsin deserved a 4 seed?



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Nice article Furiel, seriously. I know jack about baseball and made it all the way through, felt like I learned something too. I've been an automotive journalist for about 10 years now, getting a foot in the door is the trickiest part. Having that first published article to send to future prospects should really help get the ball rolling.

Constructive Criticism with my Editor hat on (I spent the 7 years editing the events section of the magazine I worked at, dealing with dozens of freelance contributors):
Avoid first person whenever possible. You only use it twice, in the headline and the closing paragraph, but in both cases it doesn't really add anything to the story, and it distracts the reader, making them wonder who this Chris W. fellow is. The gag we had in the office whenever we saw first person was, "Who the f*@k is <AUTHOR'S NAME HERE>" If the answer was a household name or something key to the story, it could stay. Otherwise, we'd change it.

Naturally this depends on who you're writing for, as some outlets encourage first person, but they tend to come off as more amateur bloggish and less reputable.

Really solid work, I hope it opens doors for ya! Good luck!

I COULD, not that it would matter, they still lost. I had this conversation with someone about the WI basketball team last week before the tourney started. Basically they could beat just about any team in the tourney, see two wins against Indiana and Michigan and one against OSU. However they could, and did, show that they could lose to just about anyone in the tournament too because they were incredibly inconsistent all year with their shooting and would go into long scoring droughts. And that's exactly what happened against Ole Miss in the second half. The scored like 5 points in the last 10 minutes of the half, and while their defense is good, it's not that good.

Personally even as a biased alum I still had them going out in the round of 32. At one point I had them in the Final Four because of their ability to beat anyone, but then I got more objective and decided to guess at when they would go cold shooting, and I was off by 1 game.

I'm currently debating if my next article is going to be a Brewers season preview or the Packers defense lacking talent at LB will hold them back.

And Skig, thanks for the advice I will keep that in mind going forward.

Liked and commented.

-Takanudo (wishes you the best of luck)

Not to hijack or anything, but Furiel would you and others be interested in an Alvian Fantasy baseball league on yahoo or something?

Opening day is this sunday so we'd have to hustle.

Easy method would be do ESPN's Baseball challenge:

http://games.espn.go.com/baseball-challenge/2013/en/

I'd happily beat the rest of you senseless in fantasy baseball

Let's say ESPN Baseball Challenge, Weekly rosters. I'll start up a group.

Okay the group Church of Alvis is formed. Password Alvis.

The way it works is you set a weekly roster. Each position player has a dollar value that will fluctuate during the season, but you only pay what you bought him/them at. Your salary cap is $50. Multiple people can have the same players. So Prince Fielder (1B DET) is currently $5.20. If he starts off hot his price will increase and if you decide to pick him up later it might cost you $6.00. Or if he bombs early his price might drop to $4.50. Regardless of what his current value is, you only pay what you bought him for.

God, how boring! I was expecting Furiel and got Chris instead. Talk about gypped.