Now is as good a time as any to let our newest readers know all the different ways you can access RAB. If you’ve been around for a while, then consider this a refresher course.

RSS Feeds
Hopefully by now you’re taking advantage of the magic that is really simple syndication, or RSS. If not, that’s cool, but I recommend signing up for something like Google Reader. This site will tell you everything you need to know about using RSS feeds, but in short, you can subscribe to the feed of your favorite sites, and instead of manually visiting each one multiple times a day, the information will be brought right to you as it’s posted, all in one convienent spot.

Our main feed can be found here, but we also have a feed specifically set up for our amateur draft coverage. The main feed will bring you all of RAB’s content, the second is just for draft coverage. As you can imagine, it’s not very active between mid-August and March.

Subscribe via E-mail
If RSS feeds aren’t your cup of tea, you can get RAB sent right to your inbox. Just stick your email address in the appropriate box to the right (the one that says “Subscribe to RAB via email,” duh), and all of our content will be emailed to you as it’s posted.

Twitter
Has anything changed sports coverage in recent years as much as Twitter? Any breaking news will be posted their first, in 140 characters or less. You can use a (free!) service like Tweet Deck or Echofon to easily follow your friends, favorite sportswriters, celebrities, whoever has a Twitter account.

We have two separate Twitter feeds here. Our main feed is @RiverAveBlues, where the three of us will muse on various topics, post any breaking news, engage in playful banter with readers, stuff like that. It’s worth signing up just to read Ben’s knee-jerk reactions during the games. Our second feed is @RABfeed, which will automatically link to all of our posts as they go up. That’s pretty much all it’s there for, but it’s very useful.

If you want, you can also follow the three of us on our personal accounts: @bkabak, @joepawl, and @mikeaxisa. I can’t promise everything we tweet about will be about the Yankees, or even baseball for that matter, but you won’t regret it.

Facebook
It’s probably our least utilized social media presence, but there’s still over 850 people that are fans of RAB’s Facebook page. I’m not much of a Facebook person myself, but I recommend hitting our page up to connect with fellow Yankee fans.

Contacting Us
If for any reason you want to contact us (maybe you have a question, or a link to a cool story, etc), the best way to do so is to use our little “Submit A Tip” box. You can’t miss it, it’s just to the right of the main column. If you want to tip us off to a trade rumor that we’ve missed, or something like that, please make sure you send us a link. Otherwise it’ll only take us longer to get a thread up about it.

If you want to contact us individually, then just drop us a line. Our addresses are in the far right sidebar. I know I haven’t been the best at replying at a timely manner, but my early New Years resolution is to improve on that.

So, you got all that? There’s a ton of ways you can have RAB’s content brought right to you, but nothing quite duplicates the experience of coming to the site, reading the posts, then debating the topics with our great group of commenters.

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Here’s your open thread for the night, so go ahead and talk about whatever you want. The Isles are the only local team in action, but it’s Friday night, go out and do something you’ll regret in the morning.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Open Thread: Accessing RAB

We already have a ton of ideas ranging from mundane to major overhaul that we’re going to pursue this winter, but we feel it’s important that you guys, the readers, have some input. Do you want to see more statistical analysis? What about less? More long features, or more short blurbs? What about the game threads, any ideas for improving the flow of those guys? Paginated comments perhaps? What about comment registration? Whatever you think can be done to make this place better than it already is, let us know. We’ll review and consider everything.

Leave any suggestions in the comments, otherwise use this as your open thread for the night. The Sunday night game is a good one – the Patriots at the Colts. Go Peyton. Talk about whatever you like, just make sure you follow the guidelines and be cool.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Open Thread: Improving RAB

You see that little star? That’s where we’re going to meet-up for the parade tomorrow. Specifically, it’s the northwest corner of the Beekman and Nassau Street intersection. Here’s the map so you can zoom in and stuff. Joe and I are shooting to get there around 8:30-9 a.m., but you’re welcome to come whenever.

The parade comes right up Broadway, so we’ll have to finagle our way over to get a good luck. I’m not 100% certain, but I believe they’ll set up a big screen in City Hall Park to show all the speeches and stuff. After the parade and stuff, we’re probably going to go grab a bite to eat somewhere, and everyone’s more than welcome to come. Leave any suggestions or anything in the comments.

If you want to come and hang out and watch the parade, email Joe or me, and we’ll exchange cell numbers to coordinate. If you do that tomorrow, e-mail Joe because he has the BlackBerry.

Also, if anyone has a better spot, let us know via e-mail and we’ll update plans.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

RAB’s parade meet-up details

The Yanks could add as many as five compensation picks (based on Eddie Bajek’s rankings at MLBTR), but that assumes all ther Type-A and B free agents decline arbitration and sign elsewhere. Not bloody likely.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

2010 Draft Order Tracker

Remember, people of all ages and backgrounds visit RAB. For all you know you could be cursing out a 13-yr old kid. We encourage discussion and informed debate here, but blatantly calling people names and putting them down is not acceptable. Attack ideas, not people. Ben, Joe and I have put more time and effort into this site than you can imagine, and we want to maintain what we’ve already created: the best community of Yankee fans on the interwebs.

So, one last time, please just be respectful of each other. It’s okay to disagree, but you can think of better ways to express yourself than cursing at someone or calling them names. Thank you for understanding.

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On another note, we’ve noticed an increasing number of off-topic comments. We’re fairly heavy-handed in eliminating those because we don’t want a situation similar to the one Matthew Cerrone faced on MetsBlog.com recently to crop up here. For more on that situation, read Cerrone’s entry from May.

To that end, we now have a “Submit a Tip” box in the left-hand sidebar. It’s right below the RAB Info box. You should use it to send us links to news you believe we would find post-worthy or musings or rants. All messages go to the three of us. So please don’t just drop in news about the Red Sox, the Mets or something completely unrelated to the topic. Send it to us or save it for the open threads.

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Finally, as always, you can keep up with RAB via other means as well. We have a Twitter feed that we tend to update sporadically throughout the day and during most games. Check that out if you’re already on Twitter.

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Feel free to use this as your open thread for the night. The Mets are playing the Cardinals, but I’ll be watching Texas taking on LSU in Game One of the College World Serie Finals over on ESPN. I guess you can watch House and Lie To Me, but dude, it’s the CWS! Anyway, anything goes here, just be cool.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Open Thread: An RAB PSA

First and foremost, please take a second to review our Commenting Guidelines. Even if you’ve been with us since day one, give them another look because we’ve added some items recently.

Secondly, the draft is three days long this year, and I’ll be liveblogging all three days. The liveblog will be mostly be me relaying news, sharing thoughts, taking questions, etc., but the liveblog posts will also serve as a draft open thread. Please keep your draft related comments there, or in any spillover threads. We’ll obviously have plenty of non-draft content on the site as well, so keeping your discussions in the appropriate threads will make everyone’s life easier.

I will also be posting short capsules on select players after the Yanks pick them. I won’t write up a capsule for every player the Yanks pick, just the notable ones. For example, here’s Gerrit Cole’s capsule from last year. Use these posts to discuss that player and that pick only, any other draft talk should go back in the draft open threads. No one likes to repeat themselves in a bunch of different spots, so this is to everyone’s benefit.

We’ve run into the perfect storm this year, because in addition to the draft we also have the Yankees up in Fenway for a three game set. We’ve experienced technical difficulties on draft day before, and even though we’ve since upgraded to a dedicated server, there’s still a chance the site may crash at some point. I’m hopeful the liveblog will help alleviate the load on the servers, but who knows. The important thing is that if the site does crash, please be patient. Hitting refresh a million times a minute will only make it worse. Wait a minute or two before you try to reload the site. We’re fully aware of it whenever the site goes down, and trust us, we’re doing all we can to get it back up and running.

Finally, the best way to follow along with all of the draft content we’ll have over the next three days is to subscribe to our draft feed. You should also subscribe to our regular RSS feed so you don’t miss anything else. If you’re not familiar with RSS feeds, check this site out. Basically, an RSS reader like Google Reader will bring the information to you, so you won’t have to check your favorite site multiple times per day. Once you start using one, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. Other than RSS, you can also follow us on Twitter @RiverAveBlues. We don’t tweet every post, I swears it, but we use it for random thoughts or to engage is conversations with you guys. You can also check out our Facebook page.

Draft day is without a doubt one of the most exciting days of the year, and we ask that you follow along with our ground rules to make it a more enjoyable experience for everyone. Thanks in advance.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

RAB’s Ground Rules for the 2009 Draft

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

About last night’s RAB outage

Friday, August 14th, 7:10pm start
Sunday August 16th, 1:10 pm start
Friday, September 18th, 7:10pm start
Sunday, September 20th, 1:10pm start

Aaron has two tickets available per game, and again they’re just $32 each. I know it’s damn near impossible to plan that far in advance, but if any readers live in The Emerald City, or will happen to be there on business on these dates, here’s a chance to catch your team in action with a fellow Yanks fan from crazy good seats. If you’re interested, email me using the address listed in the far right sidebar.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

Tix available for Yanks-Mariners in Seattle

We understand the Yanks are in the middle of a brutal slump, but we have to keep things in perspective. They’ve played just 28 games, not 128. The three of use are every bit as frustrated with the team as you, but that frustration doesn’t give you a green light to personally attack your fellow readers. We’ve always asked that if you disagree with something someone’s written, attack the idea, not the person. This goes for everyone, not just those new to the site or others who some may perceive as favorite.

(Note by Joe: Read this article, at least the part until he pimps his book. No one’s going to take the advice, but I figured I’d throw it out there in an attempt to reduce the personal attacks in the comments.)

To paraphrase a long lost commentor, River Ave. Blues is more or less for the intelligent fan. We’ve been lucky enough to establish a strong community of rational fans who are willing to defend their beliefs with facts rather than spout off nonsense based on pure emotion. If someone posts something idiotic, don’t go out of your way to call it that. Most people will silently agree with you, and responding to trash only leads to more trash.

This is just a friendly reminder from Ben, Joe and myself. We thank everyone who’s made RAB part of their lives, and we look forward to watching the team turn things around and finishing the year strong.

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

RAB Community Standards

Post from: River Ave. Blues A New York Yankees blog

A RAB month to remember