(This post originally appeared on Bus Leagues Baseball.com)
Having been in the sports blogging game for almost five years, I can honestly say it's a tough gig. Writing for the love of a player, team, sport, or league can take a lot out of you. You have to read about or watch them every day, you have to find something to write about, and then you have to publish. And a majority of the time, it's all for a pittance.
Some bloggers get lucky. Some develop systems and schedules that make publishing about a team easy. Some have nothing better to do but throw their all into a blog with the hopes that someone will discover them and pay them for their interest (admittedly, the chances of this were greater five years ago).
But constant blogging takes a toll, especially if it's for a niche interest such as model airplanes, Bigfoot hunting, or even minor league baseball. To spend even an hour a night blogging when you know only a few dozen people are reading and sharing your love can make whatever you are blogging about seem to be more of a chore than an expression of passion.
At worst, blogging about a niche can pull you away from things you would rather be doing, such as enjoying your hobby or worse, missing out on moments with the real life people in your life.
And it is that inability to spend time with loved ones that is causing blogger Jim Donten to close down Claw Digest, his blog on the Charlotte Stone Crabs and the Gulf Coast League Rays.
I've been following Claw Digest since Jim started blogging this spring. I even interviewed him for this site earlier this season. His blog was very informative, with a heavy dose of stats, player performances, and match-up data. It was apparent he had a love for the Stone Crabs and GCL Rays. As a fan of Minor League Baseball, the Florida State League, and anything related to the Tampa Bay Rays, it will be sad to see him go.
But I know Jim will not be gone for long as he has camoed at RaysProspects.com and I'm sure we will probably see him in there again in the near future. Or we may see him on twitter, where many niche bloggers have gone to ply their wares, trading extensive posts for 140-character comments.
Spoken from experience, sometimes it's best for bloggers to travel in packs. Sometimes the wilderness of the blogosphere is too much for one person to take on alone. Although some bloggers do their best Bear Gylls and survive on bugs and berries for a while, in the long run they often find it's best for their sanity to re-join civilization and ally with a group of like-minded folks. It takes the pressure off having to provide constant content and in many cases it also makes for a more well-rounded site for the readership.
So Jim, best of luck in your future endeavors and thanks for all you did at Claw Digest.