Fare thee well, MWSR

Well folks, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Here we are three years after starting Midwest Sports Rubes, and it seems that it's time to board up the franchise.
Looking back, we haven't tackled any difficult subjects, but we've covered a bevy of them, to say the least.

Remember these topics?
The Lakers trade Shaq to Miami
Ricky Williams retires... then un-retires... then gets high... then gets kicked of the league... then plays in Canada... then... I lost track.
The fall of The Dream Team.
Glen Mason's Minnesota tenure, and firing.
Red McComb's hog-tying, then selling the Vikings.
The Randy Ratio.
Latrell Spreewell not being able to feed his family.
Maurice Clarrett being an idiot.
Kevin McHale being a horrible GM.
Don Stern's implementation of a dress code for NBA players.
The Viking boat scandal.
The Mike Tice Era.
The demise of the Flip Saunders Era.
The Dwayne Casey Era.
The end of Randy Moss.
The end of Daunte Culpepper.
Ty Willingham out... Charlie Weis in at Notre Dame.
Kevin Garnett getting traded to Boston.
Terrell Owens to Baltimore... no wait, to Philly, then to Dallas.
Terry Ryan resigns as Twins GM.
Dan Monson finally fired.
Johan Santana and Torii Hunter contract talks.
New stadiums for the Twins and Gopher Football.

There has been a lot of topics that we have pontificated on. And there will be a ton of future topics that we will have opinions about... those opinions just won't be posted here.
There are several reasons for allowing Midwest Sports Rubes to die. We always imagined this blog to be a community and interactive, but it never turned into that. We have rarely gotten much feedback. This is something that we have discussed and tried to figure out for the entire 3 years. But the bottom line is that it never turned into that. This has sometimes made it difficult to find motivation to write. The numbers say we have been getting 50 or so hits/week, but that number hasn't grown in well over a year. We also don't know if these are 50 unique viewers, or just the same 8-10 people checking the site a few times a week.
In addition, we still have the passion and aforementioned opinions that we once had about sports, we just don't have the passion for writing about them that we once did.
Lastly, we have come to the realization that a general sports blog is tough to maintain, and doesn't really catch on. It seems that in order for a blog to catch on you need a specific niche. As an example, the Fire Glen Mason Blog that we started a year before Mason was fired, still gets almost 50 hits per week... and it hasn't been updated since mid-January.
Jeff has encouraged me to turn the Fire Glen Mason blog into a Gopher Football blog, and I have obliged. Actually, Fire Glen Mason is gone, but my new Gopher Football Blog can be found at www.gopherfootball.blogspot.com. Jeff isn't sure what he will do yet as far as writing, but he's talented in writing and verbal communication, so you will certainly here from him in some form down the road.
Thank you for joining us on this sporadic journey over the last 3 years. Thank you to the readers and to those who commented... it's been real!