Why D3baseball.com?
Feb
2007
For many years, people have asked when I would be doing D3baseball.com. The answer was always “never.”
There were many reasons, and a couple of excuses.
For many years, I worked at Baseball Weekly. While that didn’t have any conflict with running D3hoops.com and D3football.com, it could be perceived as a conflict of interest to be running a baseball Web site on the side.
Compiling scores for Division III baseball teams would be impossible, I would tell people. There are 365 or so schools playing Division III baseball. They play 40 games. That in and of itself wouldn’t be so impossible if it weren’t for the fact that you can’t count on games to be played when scheduled.
Darn weather. 
I wouldn’t have time to run a Division III baseball site, I would say. I value my offseason, which starts at the end of March and runs through the beginning of July or so. When would I see my family?
But then Jim Dixon approached me in the middle of 2006 with the solution to all of those problems. (Or most of them, anyway.) And now Jim’s site, which you knew previously as Division III Baseball Online, has joined the D3sports.com family and has been renamed D3baseball.com.
I don’t work at Baseball Weekly anymore. (Heck, Baseball Weekly doesn’t really exist anymore.) Jim runs the site. And schedules and results … well, we still won’t be tracking them. Our partnership with D3Scoreboard.com will give us an outlet to print scores for some conferences — just the conferences that subscribe to D3Scoreboard.com — starting in 2008.
And so here we are, at D3baseball.com. Jim Dixon is the managing editor of the site and is responsible for its content. Ryan Coleman has been building the technology for the site and I’ll handle the administration end and contribute to building out the database of information on each school.
And you, the fans, will flock — we hope. Spread the word. Make sure your fellow Division III baseball fans know we’re here. Because I think this is going to be a lot of fun.
February 10th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I have run Division III Baseball Online for over a decade and I have taken the site as far as I can as a one man shop. Needless to say I am not a one man shop any more. The tools that are provide by D3Sports.com makes it possible for to post more information about D3Baseball and a core group of dedicated journalists will make this new site the place to find out about D3Baseball.
February 11th, 2007 at 5:41 am
The last five years I have been a part of the D3sports team has been an invaluable experience on many fronts, including the work I have done to make the websites more functional and user-friendly but also the hundreds of people I have met on the sidelines, in the stands, clubhouses, benches, front offices of countless schools and conferences. They are the ones that make this all possible for us and thus make it possible for you.
To all of Jim’s loyal readers over the past 10+ years, thank you, and to the rest of you that are making your first visit to these pages, thank you, too. If it weren’t for you we wouldn’t be here doing this today.
February 13th, 2007 at 4:29 am
A note to all users: Those of you who registered to comment on D3football.com’s Daily Dose have had their logins copied over to this board. Your username and password should work automatically.
February 13th, 2007 at 9:10 am
I’m glad that d3baseball.com is live. I was hoping that the right people would come together. That day is finally here. I’m looking forward to contributing.
February 13th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Finally… someone figured out that small schools are just as, if not more, exciting as the big schools. I am sure that this will be a huge success. This will be a great way to keep in the loop on a regional/national level.
February 13th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Wonderful idea! For my two cents worth, and I was a former D-I athlete, D III sports is about as close to pure as the student-athlete gets. Mind you, all D-III athletes are not scholars or choirboys, but they’re only on the field because they love the game. You can’t beat that.
February 13th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Fantastic addition. This will be great for promoting the game and the players.
February 13th, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Thanks to Pat Coleman for letting us fans run with the message board last winter, as he “turned the dogs loose”. The response must have been enough for Jim Dixon and Pat Coleman to believe that D3baseball.com would be a success.
In addition to being the second baseman, my father was the Sports Editor of the McMurry newspaper. I loved it when he let me read the old news clippings that he kept in the shoe box in his closet. He told me of stories of his listening to the minor league baseball broadcasts on the AM radio from the stations across the Great Plains as nighttime baseball became popular. He told me of how Dallas Radio Mogul Gordon McLendon would literally re-create ball games from wire reports over KLIF-AM 1190 for local audiences. The easiest major league games to catch were the St Louis Cardinals on KMOX, of course.
We now have Live Stats and Webcasts. We can blog and download game stories. Only the technology changes. The “Great American Pastime” and our love for it live on.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Great to see so many familiar faces at D3baseball.com. Cortland is scheduled to open its season on the road tomorrow at Hampden-Sydney. Boy it would be nice to be down there. Sunny skies forecast with a high near 60!