IFL Theater: Managers Be Angry

Before I begin, I know ‘Bulls Jam‘ said ‘To be continued…’, but I don’t think people are ready to revisit that series yet after what happened.  And I know that I do things a couple weeks after the fact, but sometimes the creative process takes a little while longer.  Anyway….

Chicago’s baseball managers have not been happy in May.  Cubs manager Mike Quade blew up at his team against the Reds a couple weeks ago after a bad performance.  So what do the Cubs do the next night?  Play even worse.  (Hilarious)

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen blew up north of the border last weekend, after losing a 14-inning game to the Blue Jays.  Then he reportedly went after the fans the next day, and then blasted the media for what they reported on what he said.  Quite honestly, I have no idea what he’s ranting about here.  Might be something in the water in Canada.  But nevertheless, he’s one of my favorite manager/personalities in MLB.

So it appears that the managers might need to learn some kindness in responding to their teams, fans, and Chicago in general.  And who’s going to be the one to do it?  Ponies.  Confession time.  My Little Pony fans keep popping by the site and visiting, reading the two IFL Theaters that I have featured them in.  They pop by more than everyone else.  So I’m going to keep playing up ponies and sports in these works, and be a pageview whore.  It’s a good community though, they’re pretty sweet.

With that in mind, it’s time for the show…

IFL Theater: Season Wrap-Up!

As far as local teams are concerned, hockey is over this year.  In the American Hockey League, the Chicago Wolves and Rockford IceHogs didn’t make the Calder Cup playoffs, while the Peoria Rivermen were swept out of the first round by the Houston Aeros.  In the NHL, the St. Louis Blues threw away the best start in franchise history, thanks to injuries and inconsistent play, and did not even make the playoffs this year (ed. note: They’ll be back…they’ll be back…).  And the Chicago Blackhawks took the President’s Trophy winning Vancouver Canucks to overtime of Game 7 in the Western Conference quarterfinals, in a series that they nearly were swept out of.

So as far as Illinois is concerned, hockey is over with this year, and it’s time for a more intense focus on the baseball season.  Since I’m a good commissioner and all, I won’t even put my homer hat on and rant about how the Blackhawks were gifted a playoff spot because they scored a goal against the Blues in the last week of the season that should have been disallowed because Marian Hossa kicked the puck in (which didn’t even cross the line), and how that should have been a regulation win for the Blues, and how if the war room in Toronto had actually done its job, the Blackhawks would have been tied with the Dallas Stars at the end of the season and the Stars would have taken the playoff spot through the tiebreaker…

But I’m a good commissioner, and I won’t dedicate this post today to Game 7 game-winning goal scorer and hero Alex Burrows because of all that.

And I would be with fault if I didn’t let Puck Daddy have their say at the end of hockey in Chicago this year.

So this week’s edition of IFL Theater will focus on said Blackhawks, who will get the proper send-off that is required, thanks to some familiar (and apparently extremely popular) faces to the blog.  If you need a reference point for what is about to happen, watch this.  I will not apologize too for a lack of musical rhythm and timing, because I know I suck at it.  References and attempts to insult may be way off base too, acknowledging that I should watch more hockey, other than my team…

Ponies, Pageviews, and Praise

I want to get this post out of the way before I move on to the other things that are important to the blog today, like the next edition of IFL Theater (and applying for a job in Jacksonville, IL).  Once again, this is not a post about the leagues itself, but just a recap of everything that happened on this blog yesterday.  Some background information will be revealed too.  If it seems like that I’m way too excited about everything that happened to the blog yesterday, in terms of traffic and visits, then you’re right.  But this should explain why I felt proud, and, in some cases, have to defend it.

Yesterday, the IFL blog received the most pageviews ever in a day.  Here’s a breakdown of the stats that I quickly found:

• The final tally was 746 pageviews.  That’s 5 more than the entire history of the time the blog was on Blogspot (March-October 2010).  More technical, 75 more views since I added up all the views on Blogspot before November 2010.  That amount is also higher than the pageviews gained from October 2010 to March 2011 combined, and over half of the pageviews in April.  Granted, some of visits before yesterday came from spammers, but yesterday was all legit.
• Taking away the views from today (151 as of 7:50 A.M., another impressive feat), the total number that the blog has gained on WordPress is 1880 views.  That means that yesterday’s views accounted for 39.6% of the entire history of the blog.
• All of this was possible, thanks to the help of Equestria Daily, who posted last week’s IFL Theater on their blog.  All of that is explained here.  The clicks to the blog that came from that site, accounted for 545 of the pageviews.

So now that the statistical breakdown (which technically is the point of this blog) is complete, time to hand out praise and thanks for yesterday.

• Background story; I was the one that submitted IFL Theater to ED.  For those that do not know what ED is, it’s a blog that gathers and displays fanworks from the cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  As MLP:FiM is my new cartoon obsession, I submitted it to Sethisto at ED and see if it would qualify to be part of their blog.  They accepted it a few days later, and posted it yesterday morning.  I am grateful for the chance to have IFL Theater as part of the fandom.  Although ponies will not be featured on every future IFL Theater, last week was not their last appearance.
• To the people who visited from Equestria Daily; I thank you so very much.  I enjoyed reading the 28 comments (numbers I can only dream of here); which ranged from how much you enjoyed it, to what the hell they just read, to explaining where the original inspiration for the story came from.  You even gave it 4 out of 5 stars on the site.  Though, no one suggested anything to changing my team name, so the Muse Academy Muses survive (now to just come back this week).  ED bronies are always welcome here.
• To the people at 4chan that discovered the post and started a thread about the ‘bulls***’; thank you too for stopping by.  Your response to that edition of IFL Theater was better than I expected.  Stop by in the future and join a league or two.  Though, I’m surprised I haven’t seen a post about this yet on Ponychan.  Eh.

To summarize; yesterday nuked previous pageview records, your commissioner loves My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the ponies will be back in future IFL Theaters, everyone that come to visit the page is loved.  Thank you again to everyone who made yesterday at the Illinois Fantasy Leagues blog a historic one!

Today, We Are Bronies

Thanks to Equestria Daily, who so kindly made a post on their extremely popular My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic blog about last week’s IFL Theater.

Why am I pumped for this?  Because of that post and linkage, the blog has hit 100+ pageviews in a day for the first time ever.  And in the first hour it was posted!  Hells to the yeah!

I am not concerned about what comments are left there, or if some leave them here.  I’ll take anything, because it helps develop me as a writer.

So welcome fellow bronies from ED!  Stay for a bit and search around, learning to love our leagues.  Hell, join one next year.  But just understand, love or hate, the visits are appreciated.

UPDATE (1:15 P.M.): 370 total pageviews for last week’s IFL Theater, 324 coming from ED.  419 total overall pageviews at this moment.  Dear God.  For comparison’s sake, today alone has accounted for over a fourth of the pageviews in the entire history of the blog (since moving to WordPress back in October).

UPDATE (2:40 P.M.): As I type this; 503 total pageviews today, 434 of them on the IFL Theater post, and 376 of those from ED.  This is all fascinating to me, because it’s setting marks that I’ve never seen before.  And props to the new visitors for checking out other stuff too.

I’m so impressed by the record-setting output, that I want to change my team name to something related to MLP:FiM.  Suggestions for team names can be e-mailed to me, or sent on Twitter by putting @ilfantasyleague in the tweet.  League members are not eligible for this, because that is crossing territories that probably should not be crossed.  I’ve seen too many episodes of ‘The League‘ to know what could happen.

I’m embracing them, and I do not care.

IFL Theater: Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!….Again!

(Ed note: This post was originally scheduled to go up on a Friday morning.  But because Mediacom is the worst f***ing internet provider in the world, I couldn’t get it up until now.  Also, I would have included the White Sox, but just didn’t have the time for it.  I’ll make a ‘deleted scene’.  Nevertheless, enjoy.)

It hasn’t been the best news for Major League Baseball as of late in terms of combating steroid and drug use in its game.  Manny Ramirez decided recently that retirement was the better option than serving a 100-game suspension for his 2nd offense.  But that’s just Manny Bein’ Manny!  Barry Bonds, MLB’s all-time home run leader, was found guilty on Wednesday of obstruction of justice, but had a deadlocked jury on the other charges he was up for.  Although ESPN’s legal guy says he probably won’t end up in jail, the fact that it’s now possible is a black eye on his legacy, and another mark against the steroid era.

Ramirez and Bonds are veterans of the game, starting their careers in the early-90’s.  So it is assumed that they were not in school at the time.  However, many of today’s major leaguers are assumed to have been, and those that grew up in America, or ate at McDonald’s, were probably around to (be forced to) watch Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue! It basically was a cartoon that brought on every big name at the time, no matter what company they were drawn by, to tell a teenaged boy that he was being a dick about trying marijuana and other hard drugs.  It was put on every major network, handed out by Ronald McDonald, and preceded with a message by Bush 41.  It was…just awkward.

So do today’s major leaguers need a reminder that drugs are bad?  Well, today’s debut edition of IFL Theater will show that yes, yes they do….

The 2011 IFB Weekly Awards

This year the weekly awards for best record and stat leaders will change up a little bit.  This year, they’re being named after someone.  It’s a common practice.  MLB awards the Hank Aaron Award for the top hitter in each league, the NFL’s Man of the Year Award is named after Walter Payton, and the NHL’s Stanley Cup is named after Lord Stanley of Preston.  So we’re doing the same this year….

….only with cartoon characters.  You saw this coming.

So without further delay, here’s what’s being awarded this year, and who each award is being named after…