And Now We Are 4

The Racquetball Blog began four years ago today with the purpose of providing "independent writing and reporting on racquetball."

During that period Rocky Carson and Rhonda Rajsich have won two World Championships (will they make it three each next month?), Mexicans Paola Longoria and Samantha Salas have won three straight women's doubles titles - Worlds, Pan Am Games and Pan Am Championships, and Kane Waselenchuk has won just about every tournament he's entered.

We've been to the last four US Opens and watched countless hours of racquetball over the web via ESPN 360, UStream and, of course, the IRT Network. Web-casting has been a tremendous help to us.

Over the last four years, some people have arrived on the scene: Jose Rojas, Charlie Pratt, Krystal Csuk, Gigi Rock, and some have left: Jack Huczek, Mitch Williams, Dave Negrete, Brenda Kyzer, Jo Shattuck, Shannon Feaster, and still others left and came back: Alvaro Beltran and Kristen Bellows.

It's called The Racquetball Blog, but it could have been called The Racquetball Journal or Racquetball Reporter, which perhaps would have given a better indicator of what we're trying to do here. Because we're not about stirring the pot with indefensible claims or unfairly biased opinion or SHOUTING hyperbole. A lot of sports coverage uses that approach. We don't.

The tone here is respectful and fact based, although not always conventional. Our model is The Economist, which is part of the reason for using the "we" construction, not "I". Also, the facts or arguments should stand for themselves, and using "I" might get in the way.

Despite the straight up approach, we've apparently still annoyed people on occasion. Clearly, you can't always please everybody. So it goes.

But we hope that if you care about racquetball, as we do, that reading The Racquetball Blog will be pleasing more often than not. Feedback is welcome. You can make comments on each post or email us - theracquetballblog@gmail.com - and you can follow us on Twitter @racquetballblog.

We look forward to more "independent writing and reporting on racquetball," and hope you do too.

Follow the bouncing ball….