In search of Joe

I was sitting in the passenger seat of my friend Andrew's car on a particularly lengthy drive home from work when we began (as so often seems the case) to talk about writing.

I forget how exactly, but we arrived at a point in the conversation when I mentioned one of my favorite writers, Joe Posnanski. I told Andrew about his wildly-popular blog where the ever-cruel world of internet commenters seem never to have a bad thing to say about what Mr. Posnanski writes. I told Andrew that I feel as if I've known Mr. Posnanski for years by reading tales of his daughter's first rec league basketball game or his hatred of the intentional walk. I told Andrew that I aspire to reach his level. Not necessarily to work for Sports Illustrated -- because that's an astronomical longshot -- but to have someone read my writing and feel at ease. Feel as though their day is richer for having taken the time to read. Feel as though they need to tell someone about this writing, as I have done on multiple occasions with Mr. Posnanski.

Then, Andrew hit me with (as any good journalist does, I suppose) a question I had trouble answering.

"What makes you like his writing so much?"

I ran through the tired text-book responses. I liked his sentence structure. I enjoyed his narrative arc. It's neat how he has the ability to make me interested in any topic. The words he uses are seemingly always perfect.

I didn't feel I had offered up the best reasons for my loving his work, but I certainly wasn't prepared for what Andrew said next.

"That's not going to get you anywhere. You need to find out how and why he makes you feel the way you do. Why, exactly, do you keep coming back to read his stuff? Why do you feel like you've known him your whole life?"

I suppose that if all of us could figure that out, what Joe Posnanski does wouldn't be nearly as special or, in a way, sacred to me. That said, I think one of the main missions of this newly-renewed blog -- you don't want to know how many 'The Phillies are terrible/The Phillies are awesome' posts I had to delete -- will be to discover the answer to Andrew's deeper and poignant questions. Why is it that we enjoy anything we read, and what makes us keep coming back for more?

Along the way, I'll use this as an outlet for writing about life and to tell stories. Not always the easiest task, but one I'd like to at least attempt.

So it's without many more words (or else this really would become like a Posnanski post) that I restart this blog and begin a new journey that has no end in sight.