HAPPY NEW YEAR. IT'S ABOUT MOVING FORWARD.

Happy New Year from everyone here at Bleeding Yankee Blue!

This year flew.  Between my own personal life, family and crazy activity schedules and all of that... I just remember when it was Halloween and thinking... "My god, where has the year gone?"

Bleeding Yankee Blue has accomplished so much.  We have expanded in the sense that we have a few new writers, and still looking for more by the way (Read HERE) and the writers we do have have grown in to appointments for our readers.  They have become journalists, solid writers with their own flare, they're on niche.  We don't have a strict policy about a lean or bias other than we root for the New York Yankees.  But as you have seen in our body of work... if we're unhappy with our team, a player, a manager... we're going to tell you.  That's because one of the main goals of this Yankee Fan website is to always have integrity, always be unique, conversational, fun and most importantly thorough with how we present this product.  We will not lie to you.  We will demonstrate character!

Through this entire process... we have gained friends... you, to read through our pages, disagree or agree when needed and take to the social media to tell us exactly how you feel.  We, in turn have an obligation that journalists these days appear to have forgotten. We don't disappear after we write our stories. We will interact with you and hash it out.  Never nasty, always a good dialog between our audience and my writers... and always a resolution.  That works, and we practice that here at Bleeding Yankee Blue. I can name dozens of sites that do not.

That's why our audience is loyal. That's why you come to us every single day! That's why celebrities like Laura Posada have worn us, Russell Crowe retweeted us, 

Source: New York Daily News

This year marks 6 years since the first story I posted on the Web about my New York Yankees.  The story was WHY LAST NIGHT WAS IMPORTANT and I will forever be connected in some weird way to Sergio Mitre because he frustrated me so much... BYB was born.  Meanwhile so much has happened... yet other things have changed.

Photo: Getty Images

For one, Joe Girardi is still here and sadly, since our birth in 2010... the Yankees have not won a championship.  Strange, but not surprising.  The Yankees have made plenty of turnover... we've seen guys like Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Mark Texieira and Alex Rodriguez retire.

We've fell in love with guys and their short stints with the Yankees as well.  Guys like Raul Ibanez...Kerry Wood... Eric Chavez.

We've seen the kids transform and then disappear like Manny Banuelos and Andrew Brackman.

(July 16, 2016 - Source: Elsa/Getty Images North America)

And we've even seen a few blossom... Dellin Betances... Tyler Austin to name a few.

(Sept. 6, 2014 - Source: Travis Lindquist/Getty Images North America)

We've watched the Yankees get dramatically younger... we've seen Robinson Cano take the money and run, watch Jacoby Ellbury and Ichiro Suzuki come to New York almost unexpectedly and through all of it... all of it, you guys have continued to read us, tell your friends about us, grow with us, wear our clothes, wish us the best of luck and yes... I can tell you that I am overjoyed, excited, thrilled and all those words that I can't think of right now.

BYB has blossomed and tonight we celebrate on New Year's Eve!  I remember when this whole thing started.  I was leaning on Rob Abruzzese of Bronx Baseball Daily asking him a lot of questions, probably annoying him pretty well, but he was helpful.  But he said something very important to me back then... this is me paraphrasing...  "It's a grind, but if you can get past the 2 year mark, you have a good shot of making it. " My goal however was to not stop.  We haven't.  I mean sure, we've seen some writers go on to college and find no time in their schedule to write for BYB... but we need to continue no matter what and my writers and I know that it's a commitment, even though it's free... even though we need to work it into our schedules no matter what.

Our writers know that we have an obligation to our readers.  We know that we need to produce product for you every day, especially if there is news out there and especially if we have a hard opinion that you need to hear, be it about Yankeeland or about life.  Bottom line... we need to make sure you're fed, because you expect it, because you like my product and because you love our writers and BYB team.

And so on this New Year, 2017... I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such an incredible audience.  You are smart people who appreciate and respect the grind, and know that we are human beings.  There will be mistakes some days.  There may even a day we take a day off... but in the end, we always will be here for you to give you our very best work.  That's because we are passionate folks with a love for writing and a love for the New York Yankees.

Thank you friends.

Thank you family.

Farewell to 2016.  Hey 2017... BRING IT!

Robert Casey
BYB Chief, Managing Editor & Head Writer
@BleednYankeeBlu