As regular readers of the Canadian Baseball Network you have noticed their bylines.

Like Alexis Brudnicki (London, Ont.), the prolific writing machine, telling us about high schoolers to minor leaguers to major leaguers.

Like Tyler King (Toronto, Ont.), who reacts and observes as a Blue Jays fan, from Section 108 or Andrew Hendriks (Kitchener, Ont.) who follows the continual ebb and flow of the Jays roster. 

Or Danny Gallagher (Toronto, Ont.) the former Montreal Expos scribe, who has a nose for news whether it be major-league or otherwise.

And Matt Betts (Brantford, Ont.), who covers colleges like a tarp from JUCO Division III to a NCAA Division I in his weekly wrap.

We’re going to take you behind the scenes for a moment of self promotion and explanation of how things work.

Now whether it is a Jay Blue (From Away) post on what’s going on the minors, pieces from Brudnicki, King, Hendriks, Gallagher or Betts, they don’t magically appear on the website hours later.

Once a story is filed, Nick Ashbourne (Toronto, Ont.) would read and edit each story, find a picture, post, write a headline and hit the publish button on our Ryan Isaac (Toronto, Ont.) designed site of which Michael O’Connor (Peterborough, Ont.) is the managing partner. 

And then Kelsi Byers (Toronto, Ont.) sends out the news both via our Canadian Baseball Network Twitter page and our Canadian Baseball Network Facebook page. So, if you are scoring along at home the traffic flow went Brudnicki-Ashbourne-Byers. And it was a success.

We here at the Canadian Baseball Network are happy and excited Ashbourne was hired away from Sportsnet and part-time employment by Yahoo Canada Sports for a full-time job. However, now that Ashbourne is covering the Blue Jays it’s too difficult for him to combine the two jobs.

Into the fray moves Kevin Glew (London, Ont.), a passionate baseball man who runs the Cooperstowners in Canada blog. The change was seamless and now copy flow goes Brudnicki-Glew-Byers so you can hear the latest news about Canadians. 

The final story Ashbourne posted was this week -- Kentucky’s Kole Cottam a cool Canadian cat -- a piece in which Betts discovered another Canuck with the Wildcats, along with Zach Pop (Brampton, Ont.) and Tristan Pompey (Milton, Ont.).

Ashbourne began doing our social media work in 2014 (then the flow was Brudnicki-some-old-guy-Ashbourne. He began editing and writing in April 2015. His favorite piece for the Canadian Baseball Network was Fantasy baseball takes next step to “Fantasy Fantasy Baseball.”  It was one about a fantasy baseball board game and he said he liked it so much because it was so different.

His best for Yahoo adjudged by wise people was his piece on how the election of President Trump affects Canadian sports teams.

Ashbourne is gone but not forgotten. He’ll be a bullpen phone away when it comes time for a difficult posting (like a video). And while you may have read his last piece here we fully believe that his best is yet to come.

If you read Jay Blue’s Bo Bichette, Jarrett Grube, Christian Lopes and Francisco Rios post, it was Glew’s first. And seamlessly the baton was passed.  

Besides Brudnicki, King, Betts, Hendriks or Gallagher, we also have a group of self starters producing stories which includes the likes of: Allan Simpson (Durham, NC), George Farelli (Toronto, Ont.), Neil Munro (North Bay, Ont.), Adam Morissette (Ottawa, Ont.) and Jonathan Hodgson (Victoria, BC) ...  

Plus, Devon Teeple (Thunder Bay, Ont.), Dan Estey (Fredericton, NB), CJ Pentland (Ladner, BC), Melissa Verge (Titusville, NB) and Scott Langdon (Etobicoke, Ont.) ...
 
Plus David Matchett (Toronto, Ont.), Dan Haugh (London, Ont.), Dustin Saracini (Calgary, Alta.), J.P. Antonacci (Simcoe, Ont.) and Amanda Fewer (Calgary, Alta.) ...

As well as Justin Ayles (Brampton, Ont.), Kevin Wall (Richmond Hill, Ont.), Bill Young (Hudson, Que.), Michael DiStefano (Toronto, Ont.) and Jessica Ng (Toronto, Ont.).

We have said goodbye, good wishes and all the best to the likes of Mike Cormack, Sportsnet; Melissa Cuoto, The Canadian Press, April Whitzman, Toronto Blue Jays and Alykhan Ravjiani, Toronto Blue Jays. 

Ravjiani’s first published piece was for the Canadian Baseball Network, a fine read about Jeff Hoffman at Blue Jays minor league camp. 

We look forward  with anticipation to seeing our next successful scribe move on down the road.