Slowing Down The Cycle

Dearest Cyclists,

This is not a new issue of The Cycle. This is an update explaining why there isn’t a new issue of The Cycle, and why it might be some time before there is. In the short term, I have another editing project that is going to demand my time for the remainder of the month. Over the long term, I’m planning to take another step back in terms of The Cycle’s publication schedule. More to the point, I’m planning to take a step back from The Cycle as you’ve come to know it, in general.

There are many reasons for this, but the simplest explanation comes down to time management and quality of life. I’ve made the decision in the last couple of weeks that I need to try to live more of my life offline and away from my computer. The opportunities I’ve had to do so of late have been revelatory and revitalizing and have driven home the fact that I need to pursue those mental-health rewards rather than the sort of follower/subscriber/click–count rewards that come from my online pursuits.

I am not stepping away from baseball writing or my public-facing existence entirely. I will continue to write the (free!) MLBTR Newsletter on weekday mornings (subscribe here), adding my two cents on the big baseball stories of the day where appropriate. I will continue to tweet out reviews of the movies I watch on a nearly nightly basis (as of this writing, that thread, which I started in July 2020, includes 326 films spanning the last century-plus).

I also hope to continue to publish occasional dispatches from The Cycle. As of now, however, I don’t expect them to resemble the familiar issues in format or length, and I don’t expect they will conform to any regular schedule. More likely, if I have something I want to say related to baseball and both no other outlet through which to say it and the time and motivation to make it worth reading, I will say it via The Cycle.

For that reason, I hope you will retain your subscription. Paid subscriptions have been paused since last week and will remain so for the foreseeable future. No one is being charged. If you want to downgrade from a paid subscription to a free subscription (which may require cancelling your paid subscription and signing back up to the free list), go right ahead, but do please stick around as a free subscriber.

In the relative near term, I hope to share some thoughts on a couple of baseball books I’ve read recently, perhaps the latest City Connect uniforms (though, to be honest, I’m pretty tired of that entire program), the awards races (my recent Awards Watch cycle stopped short of the MVP races), and my All-Star picks (don’t fill out your ballots until June 29 at the earliest! maximize the sample size!), to name just a few things that are top-of-mind. If and when I do so, however, I may limit the dispatch to that single subject (I’m thinking of calling these The Cycle’s “Spokes”). So, keep that free subscription, and, every now and then, you may get a pleasant surprise in your inbox.

In the meantime, I can’t thank you all enough for your support of and interest in this newsletter. Your patronage gave me the motivation I needed to persist through minimal sleep for the majority of last year (I only wish I had the stamina to continue at that pace), and your continued interest is the primary reason that I intend to keep The Cycle spinning, however slowly.

With great gratitude,

Cliff Corcoran