Ian Casselberry: I'm Your New National League Blogger and Pleased to Meet You

Well, hello there. I might be just as surprised to see me here as you are. Hopefully, the sentiment is mutually pleasant.

My name is Ian Casselberry, and I'll be an MLB Lead Writer here at Bleacher Report, along with Steven Goldman, whom you have likely already met. My beat will primarily be the National League, which is exciting for me because a good chunk of my previous baseball writing has centered on the American League.

But I'm not entirely a newbie to the NL. Writing for Yahoo! Sports' Big League Stew allowed me the opportunity to write about Major League Baseball as a whole, and that included plenty of posts on the senior circuit. After all, the NL has won the last two World Series (and four of the last six, if you're keeping track). Avoiding that would've been difficult (I'm sure the Texas Rangers feel the same way).

As a Michigan native, most of my blogging followed the Detroit Tigers, for MLive.com and SB Nation Detroit. That was preceded by a three-year stint as the managing editor of the Tigers blog, Bless You Boys. 

I've also worked in traditional media, covering the Tigers' 2006 World Series run for a metro Detroit sports magazine (that is now sadly defunct). That also gave me the opportunity to write about other professional sports teams, such as the Pistons and Lions, in addition to college and prep sports. 

While the view from the press box was a dream realized for someone who wanted to be a sportswriter since he was in high school and provided valuable insight into how traditional media works, I enjoy the immediacy and personal touch that blogging allows. Like you, I'm a fan of baseball, and it's fun to be able to write as one rather than adopt an authoritarian (and sometimes detached) tone. 

I enjoy celebrating the awesome athletic achievements we see on the field. I love ranting about a player who made a bad decision or an umpire who made a bad call. Digging in to figure out why some teams succeed while others fail, why certain players excel while others struggle, is yet another aspect of blogging that's enjoyable.

Not having to constantly feed the media machine gives us an opportunity to look at the game from different angles, to come back with some deeper thought and analysis after the fact. And that's something we definitely intend to do here at Horsehide Chronicles.

Nowadays, I live in National League country, with the Braves and Reds considered the "home" teams (at least that's what my MLB.TV package tells me). So getting to write about the NL seems like great timing. Stepping out of what's become a comfort zone over the last six or seven years is a challenge I'm eager to take on. It makes this whole baseball blogging thing feel new all over again. 

There's already plenty of news going on as we get started here, so I should probably get to that. Nothing like hitting the ground running.

Thank you for checking in and I look forward to your feedback. We hope to give you plenty of reasons to stop over frequently. See you again very soon.