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The Coda Of TPOP

This is the 1,415th article that will be published on The Point of Pittsburgh, or TPOP as we quickly started calling it after realizing that was a lot to say and type. It will also be the last.

I pretty much stated why TPOP is going away in the announcement article at the start of September. In short, my time to dedicate to the site is shrinking with a passel of kids and activities, plus a job that demands more and more of my time. To take TPOP to the next level would require a significant increase in time and monetary resources to produce podcasts, short videos, and daily written content.

Remember the beginning of this month' Simpler times. Back before we knew about how Felipe Vazquez spent his free time. Back before the drudgery of watching this team muddle through the final month of baseball. And back before it looked like 2020 will basically be status quo for this directionless franchise called the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Unfortunately, a month ago Jason Rollison was also still alive. After finding out that he had Stage 4 kidney cancer in August, he shed his mortal coil last week and shocked the Pirates’ baseball community with his untimely passing. He and I co-edited two Pirate Guide books in 2018 and 2019, with fantastic writing contributions from a variety of writers. It was a pleasure to work with him on those books that we were proud to produce.

He was 38. I’m 43 and I’ve found myself in a stage of questioning my own mortality since my little girl was born 4 years ago. As you hold a newborn, you think about how old you’ll be at various milestones of her life. When she graduates college I’ll be 61. When she’s 30, I’ll be 69. I like to think I’m in reasonably good health, but you never know.

Jason Rollison’s passing led to an outpouring of support and well wishes. He was pretty much universally loved in the online community for his analytical work and his optimistic, jovial manner of dealing with people, even ones that he had issues with. Me, I’m different. I don’t like many people, so if someone is going to come at me for my work, I’m not going to be pleasant in response. How many other online-only writers besides Jason would get this treatment?

Jason Rollison made an impact. Well-deserved.

I don’t know if TPOP will have made an impact after we go. Quite frankly, it’s not for me to decide. I know we had a very loyal readership, both here and in the social media sphere, but once the lights dim how will we be remembered a year from now' Five years?

Impact is an important part of a legacy. From the TPOP writers’ tree, we have Joe Douglas in the Pirates’ baseball quantitative analysis department and Alex Stumpf writing now for DK Sports Pittsburgh. I’m very proud of both of them. That’s success to me.

But I hope that if you’re reading this that you carry forth the TPOP mentality of trying to raise the level of discourse in baseball analysis. Demand that your favorite sites, no matter how mainstream, get away from overvaluing pitcher wins and RBIs (or plus/minus and goalie wins, if you’re a hockey reader) and start to incorporate more of a sabermetric-tinged feel to their writing.

Or even better, start your own site that will do these things. Make a pod, make short videos, write content that no one else will write. Find an angel investor or go the Patreon method once you build it up. That’s how legacies are defined, by the impact they have moving forward.

Again, Steve and I would like to thank everyone who wrote for us and everyone who read our work over the years. Not all of the 1,415 articles were great, I’m sure, but I’d like to think that the vast majority of them were. In the words of the greatest Buddhist philosopher of our times, Keanu Reeves, I’ll leave you all with this:

Nerd engineer by day, nerd writer at night. Kevin is the co-founder of The Point of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Creating Christ, a sci-fi novel available on Amazon.

14 Comments on The Coda Of TPOP

  1. Thanks again, Kevin, for creating this perfect little corner of the internet for folks like me. I’ve mentioned before that, ironic as it may sound, Pirate fans are spoiled. Sure you can find 1000 articles about the why Nutting should sell the team or why Player X or Coach Y is a bum. But we have incredibly talented writers creating incredibly detailed, analytically-driven content that is just fantastic. We lost one of those incredibly talent writers in Jason, and we’re losing an incredible site..

    This site looked at the Pirates from the exact lens that I was craving, and it provided top tier authors to provide that content.. I even had to go and pay for DK just to keep reading one of them (Thanks a lot, Alex :|)

    This is long-winded, and I apologize. On to your life’s work. Thanks again, Kevin.

    • That is a very nice tribute, Joe. Thanks for all the support.

    • I fly almost every week and reading TPOP was the first thing that I did when I got into the plane. In fact, I'm on a plane now and will have to change it up a bit on my next flight. In addition to the site, I always enjoyed hearing Kevin on 93.7 with Tab Douglas. Great insight! Now go enjoy life and live in the moment.

  2. The departure of TPOP into that good night leaves a significant void, both in terms of the content and the quality of the writing. Farewell, and may the road rise to you.

  3. I hate to see you go but totally understand why. I will miss your insightful stories over the last 5 years. Best of luck to you and your family!

  4. Sad to see you go. TROP has been a staple in my morning links. My best you and TROP will live on in memory and the writers like ALex who have gone elsewhere.

  5. Thanks again for some of the best writing out there in the Pittsburgh blogging community. I’ve enjoyed this site and I will miss it.

  6. I’m sorry if this offends you because I mean no offense, but something about this brings to mind the Vazquez situation.

    At the end of August the Pirates had an asset that had a lot of value, then through no fault of their own that asset plummeted to zero. Likewise, at the end of August I had a place to go for good and insightful baseball articles and then outside of my knowledge and beyond my control that site is shutting down. The Pirates will try to compensate and fill the Vazquez hole just as I’ll try to fill the TPOP hole. It’s funny how if we can see parallels when we think about what life sends our way.

    Anyway, thanks for the many good articles. Good luck in you future endeavors. And in the words of Roy Rogers “Happy trails to you . . .”

  7. So sad you are going, I just found your site a few months ago. Great work that will certainly be missed

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