Mac Thomason, the first Braves blogger on the web, has been fighting cancer for nearly three years, and he just suffered his worst setback yet. Several of his longtime readers and friends, including me, have asked the Atlanta Braves to recognize his role in building the online Braves community and to ask for help in his fight.
Thomason founded his blog, Braves Journal, in 1998, before the word "blog" even existed.
This was his first blog post, published on April 4, 1998:
Walt Weiss has a pulled hamstring. Which means that Rafael Belliard gets to play every day for the time being, since no one else on the team can play shortstop. Graffanino's played two games there in his major league career. With Andruw struggling, the Braves should probably consider hitting the pitcher seventh for the time being.
From the very beginning, Mac has combined sabermetric insight with a puckish sense of humor, keeping Braves fans warm through the long, cold winters and hot, sticky summers, years in which the Braves invariably had a pretty good team, but inevitably collapsed somewhere between June and September.
This year, the Braves had the worst collapse in franchise history, and in his daily recap for the last game of the season, Mac wrote:
Phillies 4, Braves 3 (13 innings)
And so it ends. Somehow, you knew Scott Linebrink would be involved. He would have to be.
The season in microcosm: The Braves got an early lead, held it to the very end, but lost it.
Mac is still fighting, but he can't do it alone. As he wrote Monday, "The time frame is unclear, but basically I was told that the best measure if they don't find a treatment is months rather than years." The baseball blogosphere should support one of its charter members, and the Braves should support their first electronic fan. He needs our help, in any way that you can offer it.
Thanks for helping him fight.
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