Check out this CCS interview with SABRSox who runs PALEHOSED . PaleHosed is a White Sox fan site that has a pretty awesome community. Better than those other shithole White Sox “fan” sites.
CCS : Can you explain to us what exactly your website encompasses, what is your goal?
SABRSox: Palehosed.com, our website, is a place for Chicago White Sox fans to come and vent about the team, and then vent about everything else that makes existence on this mortal plane miserable, though it generally involves Ozzie Guillen’s lineups in one form or another.
We’re basically a group of very social White Sox fans. We meet up before games at tailgates, during games as we sneak down to the lower level of the park, at bars when there isn’t games, and then afterwards in one of the city’s numerous drunk tanks.
So if that’s the kind of thing you’re into, complaining about idiotic managerial decisions, meeting fellow Sox fans over the internet, and then meeting them in real life, that’s what we do.
CCS :When did you start the site up?
SABRSox: On the Eighth Day of August in the year of our Lord 2008.
CCS :Where did you get the idea to start your website?
SABRSox: The majority of the posters on our site come from other White Sox fan forums. The first forum censored speech too drastically in an attempt to gain mainstream media acceptance, and that became unacceptable for our posters. The second forum was run by a guy who didn’t like being challenged on his ridiculous assertions, and started banning people who disagreed with him. So the third time around, we decided to build the site as a community, and we’ve continued to run it that way since.
I should probably clarify that I don’t own this site. We’re 100% funded by the community. I own no part of this operation. I simply administer the day-to-day operations, along with the help of staff members who have been part of our small community for a number of years now, dating back to the first forum.
CCS :What would you say the pros are of your site? The cons?
SABRSox: I think we’ve got the smartest group of White Sox fans on the internet posting with us. Our conversations about baseball are certainly more intelligent, and more engaging than at any other White Sox fan forums. You don’t have any cheerleader mentality being forced upon you from the staff, and you don’t have people ripping into because you’re into Sabermetrics, or into old school scouting. What you are guaranteed is thoughtful debate, and in the end, that makes us all more intelligent and more engaged Sox fans.
The cons… have you seen the front page of our site? There’s certainly not much to say about that. One of these days I’ll do something with it.
CCS :Do you have any important or big upcoming plans for the site in the near future?
SABRSox: Not really. Besides fixing things in the front of the shop, there isn’t more left to do. Maybe we’ll move into podcasting near term.
Beyond that, in the long term, I’ve always wanted to do something outside of the site in terms of the fan experience. I follow football quite a bit (the real version, not American Football) and I always marvel at the fans that attend those games, especially the ultras. I’d love to be able to do something like that for baseball games. The Chicago Fire, for instance, have Section 8. I’d like Palehosed to eventually be something like that at Sox games. Of course, I live in Los Angeles, CA, so I’m not the best person to organize that sort of thing, but I think it would be interesting to have that kind of fan experience brought to baseball games.
CCS : We’ve discussed the site, tell us about you, hobbies, etc.
SABRSox: I’m an editor and motion graphics artist working and residing in Los Angeles, CA, though I originally hail from the South Suburbs of Chicago. I also design web sites, and that’s why I’m the admin at Palehosed.com. My main hobby is baseball, and I’m a SABR guy, so I like going through stats quite a bit.
CCS : Any users, readers you want to shout out from your site?
SABRSox: Not particularly, but I would like to recommend people follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Palehosed is the account name for both.
I want to thank SABRSox and PaleHosed for letting us conduct this. This column is to try to give Chicago fans and readers on our site other options. Because let’s be real….we aren’t going to keep you busy for 5 hours at work, you need to add another site into your rotation so you can successfully optimize your laziness at work.
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