Hello everyone, and welcome to the unofficial 2,000th installment of Any Given Lundy.

That’s right: Unofficially (I’ll explain that momentarily), what you are now reading is the 2,000th missive that yours truly has penned (keyboarded?) for this blog.

The reason the total is unofficial is because it counts only those entries written since July 12, 2007, which must have been the date of our first blog software switchover. The blog actually launched in February 2006, and everything composed between then and July 2007, maybe 350 posts,  is pretty much lost to the ether as the archiving didn’t transfer.

Oh well. Two grand is still a nice, round number, even if it’s not a wholly accurate one.

In celebration, or at least acknowledgement, of the milestone, here are some random thoughts regarding my six-plus years in the web log game (yes, for those of you didn’t know it, blog is short for web log):

– In an early attempt to attract readers and stir a bit of controversy, I opened by stating my opinion that cheerleading is not a true sport unto itself. By way of response, crickets chirped and tumbleweeds blew across my computer screen as readers did not exactly flock to the blog in droves. I think the first month generated a total of 600 pageviews; nowadays, the monthly total is typically between 10,000 and 15,000.

– Another early post criticized the Winter Olympics, which were then under way in some locale I can’t remember (Albertville? Turin? Lillehammer? I really couldn’t say). Unless the U.S. is authoring some huge hockey win, I really don’t care about the Winter Games, or the Summer Games for that matter, especially the way TV covers them. The Olympics sometime seem less a sporting event than fodder for a series of mini soap operas.

– For the first year or so, the blog’s header read “Steve Lundeberg: Not on steroids, but thanks for asking.” I stole that line from someone I read about in Sports Illustrated. “Any Given Lundy” has been the title for maybe a year and a half. Our former Internet guy asked me to come up with a name, and that’s what I came up with.

– When I started writing the blog (at the rate of 3-4 entries per week), I looked at it mainly as just sort of a fun diversion for me, not anything that would actually matter to anyone else. In the years since, however, I’ve heard from a number of people who for one reason or another visit the blog daily, or close to it. I’m not kidding myself that it’s the cure for cancer, but I do now feel like it’s important enough that I have committed to doing a fresh post 365 days a year. If folks are counting on seeing something new in this place every day, well, everyone’s life has enough disappointment without me adding to it.

– The Thursday Top 7 has been a feature for roughly half the blog’s life; the first list was my favorite girls names. Sometimes I feel like I’m running out of topics to make lists about, but then something always presents itself.

– I get asked with some regularity if it’s hard to think of something to write about every day, and my answer is that generally, no, it’s not. But sometimes it is, and I do end up doing a fair bit of writing late at night.

– Thank you very much to everyone reading today, and to all who have ever read on an any day. I really do appreciate it, and special thanks to those of you who have taken the extra time to comment, either on the blog itself or by sending a personal note.

And now, today’s Catch of the Day, No. 33: It’s the Wilson A2000 (seemed appropriate) that I bought for myself prior to my junior season of 1980 at Putnam High. It cost $62.50 at Caplan’s Sporting Goods in downtown Portland. Despite having a fantastic piece of equipment, I was a shaky third baseman and thus got converted to catcher prior to that summer’s American Legion season. But as you can see, I’ve managed to give the A2000 a lot of use despite the positional switch: