Birthday time! Celebrating one year as a blogger

There comes a time in every blogger's life where it's appropriate to reflect on where you've come from, and map out where you hope to be going. And what better of a time than All on the Field's first birthday, a milestone many Weblogs never achieve?

Looking Back
It's been a year since my initial post about how ridiculous it was that the NBA was fining Kobe Bryant for his violent, flailing follow-throughs. It wasn't the best post I've written, but it was a decent start. Two hundred fifty (250) posts later, this baby is still chugging. A few highlights along the way:

• My fourth post was a little number about my favorite sports cliches, including "we left it all on the field." Hence the title of the blog.
  
  
• The most viewed post was one about Dan Marino's cell phone going off on set a CBS, an entry that attracted something like 6,000 views in one day thanks to a link from Will at Deadspin.
  
  
• And the most commented-on post -- as well as the one generating the most hits from Google search results -- is the debate on whether cheerleading is a sport. To reiterate to all of those passionate cheerleaders who have argued about how hard cheerleading is, that doesn't make it a sport.
  
  
• The Separated at Birth series has also generated a lot of feedback, most of it more positive than comments on the cheerleading post.
  
  
• One of the most enjoyable entries was the interview I conducted with Jim Bouton, author of the classic Ball Four. Bouton was nice enough to accommodate a hacking blogger for a 10-15 minute interview over the telephone, and there was a lot of insight in what he said. Email interviews with former Yankee Scott Brosius and Steroid Nation author Gary Gaffney were fun, too.

Looking forward

Just about everyone wants to be better at what they do, whether it be work or play. Since I earn a few bucks blogging, I consider it a mix of the two, though it leans heavily toward the play. That being said here are a few hopes and dreams I have for this blog in the coming year:

• More interviews. I've gotten a lot of good feedback on the three that I've done, and while they require a lot more legwork than banging out 250 words about what a sourpuss Kobe Bryant is, there is a much higher degree of originality with an interview.
  
  
• Greater interaction with commenters and other bloggers. Truth be told, I've been a bit disappointed at times at the lack of commenting on this blog. It may have something to do with the fact that I post just once a day, 4-5 times a week. But I'd still like to think that we can get some good conversations going here, and I would hope to be an active participant.
  
  
• Further developing my blogging "style." There are all sorts of different types of bloggers out there. You've got the ones who take shots at the media, those who post short little blurbs many times a day apparently in hopes of attracting Google searchers, and those who tackle the hottest topics that everyone is talking about. I like to think of All on the Field as a niche blogger, kind of similar to Lion in Oil. But I don't want to be limited to that either, and it's important to be my own blogger.
  
  
• And, of course, more great content.

If you have any suggestions for ways to improve All on the Field, I'd welcome them. To those of you who visit regularly or periodically, thanks for reading. And to first time or infrequent visitors, you're welcome back here anytime.