Here’s the Pitch has Some Personal News
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
The IBWAA’s Here’s the Pitch newsletter began as an experiment in the summer of 2020. We figured there are hundreds of IBWAA members who share a love and passion for writing about baseball, so why not give them a new platform? We began publication that October without any concept of how much reach or growth HtP could attain. All we hoped to accomplish was to publish an issue six days per week, highlighting a different IBWAA member’s content each day that would focus on a unique baseball subgenre, and raise enough money to pay all the writers and editors something for their work.
I’m proud to report we have met those goals for the past two-and-a-half years. We‘re gaining more paid and free subscribers all the time. We feature new writers every month, though we’re equally grateful for our reliable regular contributors. Most importantly, we’ve stayed true to our mission of providing writing opportunities for any IBWAA members who want to reach our audience, and we’ve paid every writer as promised.
This article isn’t intended as a sales pitch, but if you’re on a free subscription, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to receive more content. All monthly revenue is split according to a formula that hasn’t changed since HtP’s inception: 33% for the writers, 33% for the editors, and 33% for overhead costs and the proprietors. Your paid subscription directly supports the people who make HtP possible.
Without question, the people who are most responsible for HtP’s success are our three editors. Brian Harl, Elizabeth Muratore, and Dan Schlossberg have worked as a team to edit every single issue since the beginning. It’s because of their vision, creativity, professionalism, and love that HtP has flourished. The team of editors has also been remarkably stable. We’ve had the same three individuals running HtP since October 2020, which is equivalent to five millennia in Internet years.
When I first hired Brian, Elizabeth, and Dan, I told them that no matter what HtP would become, it should never be more important than their personal lives. When the day would inevitably come for any of them to move on, HtP wouldn’t stand in their way. For Brian, that time has arrived. I won’t divulge his private details, but due to some very positive developments for him and his family, he will step away from editing HtP at the end of April. We couldn’t be happier for him and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors.
This leaves us with a vacancy on our team, and I am pleased to announce that Benjamin Chase will take Brian’s place at the beginning of May. If you’ve been a HtP subscriber for a while, you’re probably familiar with his work focusing on prospects and the minor leagues. He’s a skilled writer and editor with experience as a reporter for The Plainsman in Huron, South Dakota, Video Baseball Scout, RotoBaller, and elsewhere.
We’re sorry to see Brian go but excited for Benjamin to come on board in his new role as an editor. If you’re reading this, thank you for being part of our continued success. I’m confident that we’ll keep giving you the outstanding, original content you enjoy six days per week as we begin a new chapter.
Co-Director,
Internet Baseball Writers Association of America
Good luck Brian!