This guy with the Angels hat played some solid shortstop. By Owen Main

After a journey from San Luis Obispo to West Covina and back again, the Fansmanship.com squad overcame a nine-player roster to take second place in the Dodger Blogger Softball Tournament on Saturday.

After a fast start, the team earned the one-seed for the playoffs and won a semifinal game to make it to the final. The final game was a pretty well-played one, with both teams staying within a few runs of one another.

Fansmanship was up by 2 runs going into the last inning before giving up four in the final frame. A short rally wasn’t enough and Dodgers Lifestyle took home the trophy.

We got a rad plaque though.

Big League Dreams in West Covina did a great job. By Jon Soo Hoo –

I wanted to put in writing how great everyone who played on our team was. Rob, Dereck, Armando, Alex, Drake, Erik, Jennie, and Erin all performed admirably. I was even more happy with the way they conducted themselves throughout the tournament. It was a long, hot day, and by the end of it, not everyone on every team was as gracious.

I’m proud to say that those on our squad were really mellow and cool throughout. I will play with any of our players again, any time.

The best part about the Dodger Blogger Tournament is the people you meet and get to spend time with. We had a great time, brought home a plaque, and nobody got injured beyond the regular soreness that goes along with playing five games in a single day.

Photo of me swinging by Jon Soo Hoo via the Dodgers Photog Blog.

Photos below by Owen Main

For the past three years, TheLFP.com ‘s Mike Brown has put on the Dodger Blogger Softball Tournament.

Fansmanship.com participated in the first one a few years back and it was a blast. With two new babies in the leadership family here at Fansmanship.com, we took last year off, but we’re really looking forward to the tournament this Saturday.

Here are a few things I hope will happen:

Be better about meeting people

We drove from SLO and were a little shell shocked at the size of the whole thing last time. I’m really hoping to meet some of the other writers and twitter follows from various blogs.

I think I was a little more reserved last time. This time, I’m going to make a point to introduce myself to some fellow Dodger fans and writers.

Figure out how to take more of my own photos

The difference between two years ago and now is that I have some awesome photography equipment and some added skill I hope to put to use. Whether and how I can both play and take photos is a challenge I’m going to have to figure out.

Not get hurt

This one goes without saying, right? I’m almost 34. Sliding, diving, touching the playing surface in any kind of extraordinary way — that’s a younger man’s game.

Not embarrass myself

Though, really, hasn’t that ship already sailed many times over?

Find one more good twitter follow

Honestly I think who I follow on Twitter is pretty goddamn entertaining during an important Dodgers game. If I’m missing someone, please let me know. If I can get one or two more good follows, that would be pretty great.

Welcome some players onto our team

We had about 5 people drop-out at the last minute. The commitment of the drive from and back to San Luis Obispo really did us in this year. Mike looks like he’ll be remedying the situation, but I want to really be welcoming to those playing on the (soon to be) championship Fansmanship.com team.

Have the fun

The fun can be had many ways, and it isn’t always hitting a home run (though I’m hoping for one or two of those, too). Really, for me, the best part will be having a great time with some old and hopefully new friends along the way. If you don’t know me, please say, “hi.” It’s the people that will make the 450-miles-in-one-day round trip worth it.

Enjoy the current state of the team.

The last one of these I went to, Dodger fans were all making noise about ownership. It was a mystery who the next owner would be. We are now in a post-McCourt era. That, alone, is worth celebrating. Our collective expectations and outright enthusiasm can once again go untempered. To share that with a few hundred other people dressed in blue in a place that isn’t even Dodger Stadium is not an opportunity to be missed.

Our Blogger team in 2012 was amazing. We might even have enough for 2 teams for the April 11 event this year. 

Everybody reflects at the end of the year. We think about what we accomplished. I tend to focus on what was left undone.

This past year, Fansmanship.com has continued to ramp-up its coverage of Cal Poly Athletics — both with writing, photos, and podcasts. We were in Anaheim, then Dayton when the men’s basketball team made the NCAA Tournament for the first time. We were at Baggett Stadium for every pitch of the first regional Cal Poly has ever hosted. We were there when the women’s basketball team and women’s soccer team lost in the Big West Tournament and we were there when the men’s soccer team hired a former US Men’s National Team coach. I’m proud of what we’ve done. That said, there is much I’d still like to add to what we provide regularly on our site.

With an upcoming Dodgers Blogger Softball Tournament (it’ll be our second) on my mind, I got to thinking. How much have I really blogged about the Dodgers in 2014? Clearly, the answer is: not enough.

Sure, I posted about the excitement when they made the playoffs. We had some podcasts that reflected the pain and torment of losing to the Cardinals.

But I didn’t write about them as I would have liked. I could blame the fact that there was no way to watch them on television. In San Luis Obispo, they are just plain old not available, and the Giants are kind of staking a claim to the area of late.

The truth is that a focus on photography and a young child took me away from producing content that wasn’t Cal Poly-related.

When I complained about an assignment at a local, semi-rural newspaper, an editor at a newspaper once told me, “Owen, a writer writes.” So, that’s how I’m going to remedy the situation. I’m going to write. About the Dodgers. A lot. One of my goals this year will to have a daily, post about the Dodgers. That’s at least 365 Dodger-related posts this year.

Maybe some of them will suck. Maybe most of them will. Maybe (hopefully) I’ll find out something about my own fansmanship and love for the Dodgers that I didn’t know previously. Whatever happens, it should be a fun challenge and I hope you will come along on the ride with me.

Over time, this site has grown into one of the few consistent media outlets for coverage and opinion when it comes to Cal Poly athletics. That won’t change. You’ll just also see more Dodger-related material. I always tell people who write and guest write on this site to stick to what they are passionate about. The Dodgers and Cal Poly are two things I always have passion for, so the bulk of MY posts might be related to one or the other.

As a reminder, the more people we have contributing, the better the site is. If you’d like to contribute to fansmanship, perhaps to field a Giants or Bay Area perspective even, or to write about what you are passionate about, please email me: owen@fansmanship.com . Also, email me if you want to participate in the softball tournament in West Covina on April 11. We need players…

Happy 2015!