Halos Heaven update from the new Site Manager, Jessica DeLine

By now, most of you who are regular readers, have heard that I took over interim duties as site manager over the summer. In truth, it began further back than that, and I have been sailing the ship unofficially for nearly a year. I can now say that the change of position for me is officially final.

When I first starting writing for the Angels, it was on my own personal blog and outlet for two of my passions: Angels baseball and writing. I found Halos Heaven and was really impressed with the community here, so I begun posting. The support I received from Josh Mayhood (our former site manager) and the community was quite impressive, and I stuck around as Josh took notice of my passion and brought me under his wing.

It was a tough time for the site, as not longer after Josh had taken over as site manager the site experienced massive staff turnover. Needless to say, Josh needed help, and I begun to write.

There have, of course, been some changes along the way from one site manager to another, and I will certainly bring my own flair in running the site. In the end, it’s about quality content, a sense of community, and great gathering place for Halos fans of all types and all places

I think it’s important to keep an edge to Halos Heaven. It’s part of its uniqueness. But, it’s possible to keep that edge and still produce some quality content that even non-Angels fans may want to read. Criticisms of the team, management, players are always welcome and often encouraged. In fact, what kind of earnest fan base would we be if we didn’t rant and rave about all that stuff?

That being said, the line we need to be careful with is when it comes to personal attacks. Players read Halos Heaven. Families read Halos Heaven. A player may be slumping but we have to be careful in our critiques and remember: they are people, too. They have feelings. Their family members have feelings. We don’t need to be suck-ups by any means. Calling it like it is and being mindful of the process are not mutually exclusive.

I deeply appreciate all of you regulars who keep coming around. It’s been a challenge over the past 3 losing seasons but many of you have stuck with it. There is a place for fair-weather fans at HH, but there is definitely a place for enthusiastic, fervent fans who stick with the team no matter what their on field results show you. We welcome all fans, especially the jaded, cynical ones who’ve only had brief tastes of victory over the past few years.

I’m sure some of you are wondering where Josh is. I haven’t spoke with him much recently but he’s around on social media. He will hopefully rejoin us at some point as a writer here: he has a great style and tells great stories. I wish him nothing but the best.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that taking over site manager duties from Josh is a bit bittersweet. The circumstances could have been better, but I hope to do everyone proud and continue the tradition of Halos Heaven being the BEST place to go for Angels news, commentary, and community.

If you are new to the site, we have plenty of resources for you. Be sure to check out the Welcome to Halos Heaven hub, in which you will also find interviews with our staff writers. It’s a great place to learn the site and familiarize yourself with the people here and how things work. You can also visit the site’s “Masthead” which lists all our writers and allows you to easily look up their profiles.

For those of you who are in the TL;DR crowd, here is the quick rundown of our amazing staff: Stirrups curates the best baseball links post in the business and you can find that every weekday morning on our website. Rahul, when he’s not writing objective deep-dive player analysis, is running the Twitter account, editing many of the articles you see on this site, and doing general help with layout, Facebook posts, and more. Rex is our man on the ground in Arizona and you will certainly see stuff from him when Spring Training rolls around. While others certainly do player interviews, Jeff is the master of them all. Rick and his witty sarcasm, who I recently discovered was on the staff long before me. Carlos and Chase are also on the writing team but put content but only when they can, so you may not see them post all the time. H.T. Ennis (aka HT Tennis, aka Jeffrey) you may know from the 162 contests he posted during the season for each and every game the Angels played. Brent is our newest writer and you’ll see his bio posted in the coming days. I certainly couldn’t run this site without all of these awesome writers and contributors!

To those who would like to write about the Angels here on HH in an unofficial capacity, you may join the site—if you aren’t a member already—and write a fanpost, which appears on the right-hand side of the page on desktop view. High-quality fanposts will be promoted to our front page and shared among our large audience of Angels fans.

Furthermore, if you ever have an interest in joining this talented group of writers we have on the Masthead — don’t be shy in contacting me. I’ve helped add some great talent to what those who came before had already put together, and we are always looking for fans who are passionate and want to write about the Angels in a more formal capacity.

In homage to Josh, who often posted music videos within his stories, I leave you with one of my favorite singers doing a classic cover. Don’t Stop Believin’ and go Angels!!