Imagine the universe started with a spark.
Call it a big bang, an explosion, or anything that can get your mind to envision matter being flung into every direction of space, ultimately reaching a boundary on all sides that would represent a spherical shape.
At that boundary, the gravity of all of the individual stars, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and other UFOs made up of space matter floating around would restrict the expansion from the source of the spark at the middle of the universe. The universe would retract, collapsing in upon itself and drawing all of the items of matter closer together. Some items of matter wouldn’t survive.
Imagine a second spark.
One which would propel all of the existing matter into the further reaches of space, beyond the original boundary, propelled into further expansion until it reached a new boundary.
Expand. Boundary. Collapse. Spark. Expand. New Boundary. Collapse. Spark. Expand.
An infinite universe is one that is always expanding, and in such a universe, no object would be stationary.
The universe would be bouncing back and forth, pulsing like a heartbeat, the chest of the universe pushing out with each beat and each breath.
This same concept of a structure could be applied to how all things grow over time, such as an MLB baseball team, a website, or just an idea.
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Imagine an idea starts with a spark.
Call it divine intervention, a cognitive message from your future time-traveler self, or anything that can get your mind to envision a random series of thoughts collecting together in your head to form a plan that you didn’t previously have.
“I’m going to start a website to track the Pirates prospects.”
That was my spark in 2009.
That was the creation of Pirates Prospects.
That universe expanded to a boundary further than I originally imagined. The universe bounced back and forth a few times, continuing to expand out further with each pulse, but not before almost collapsing in upon itself a few times.
The Pirates Prospects universe has produced ten Prospect Guides, the most comprehensive coverage of the Pirates’ minor league system, and has hosted a lot of talented writers over the years. It has also generated one of the best communities following the Pirates on the internet.
One year ago today, Pirates Prospects closed down over at its original site.
Pittsburgh Baseball Network (PBN) was another spark I had in 2019, and that universe launched one year ago today. Pirates Prospects was added as part of the PBN, and continued with the 10th Anniversary Prospect Guide.
P2 was never meant to be a small section under PBN. It was always meant to be its own site. However, I needed to focus on building PBN, while planning what the return of Pirates Prospects would be.
Tomorrow, Pirates Prospects will return over at its own site (piratesprospects.com), becoming the first Network Site under PBN.
The second Network Site won’t be far behind…
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Imagine that an expanding universe is just a bubble growing as it floats in a sea.
This bubble universe, whether it’s a physical universe or an idea, might be surrounded by other bubble universes in that sea.
Pirates Prospects is still its own universe. While that universe was retracting and preparing for the next spark to expand it further than before, I was focused on building up the PBN Multiverse.
In my mind, and in the plans I laid out at the start of this, Pirates Prospects will be joined by many bubbles in the sea of PBN. Each of them will represent their own concept and their own focus on Pittsburgh Baseball.
At the start, Pirates Prospects will be subscription only (though we’ll have two weeks for free to kick things off). Anyone who has subscribed to PBN will have their subscription transferred over to P2. This will be the bulk of the funding for the entire Pittsburgh Baseball Network. We’re building our coverage up the same way the Pirates are building up their organization.
PBN will be a completely free site, containing my daily First Pitch, Wilbur Miller’s “No Quarter” Pirates blog, and John Dreker’s Pittsburgh Baseball History. Ultimately, I want to continue the community we’ve built here and over at Pirates Prospects over the years. This is the most knowledgeable community on the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I want No Quarter to feature that, while being accessible to everyone.
Everything that you’ve seen on PBN will remain on PBN, with the exception of a few features that will change or move to other sites. I’ll be focused on building up the MLB analysis here. We will be looking to add contributors, and if you’re interested in joining us, email me at timwilliams@pittsburghbaseball.com.
The features at Pirates Prospects will be new, mostly yet to be seen on PBN. These features will go more into depth into the system, with three player features a week to start and four analysis features.
In the past, Pirates Prospects ended up expanding to the point where we barely covered what the site’s name described. We were covering the MLB team, the daily transactions, trade rumors, and so on. The actual prospect coverage got buried at times. With all of the other stuff located on PBN, we can now focus Pirates Prospects as a site fully devoted to prospect analysis. I’ll have more details tomorrow over at PiratesProspects.com, but I’m very excited by what the new version of this site will be.
Thank you for everyone who has been on the Pirates Prospects journey since I started this in 2009. I can’t wait for what is next!
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Phase Two of Pittsburgh Baseball Network will see Pirates Prospects split off as its own site, with the three core sites all seeing a planned expansion in the next year. Check out those plans below, and check back tomorrow for the new version of Pirates Prospects.
