What This Lens is About

My favorite baseball player. Gah. Why did I get hooked on baseball? Oh yeah. Vin Scully, best radio announcer ever. Blast him.

Excerpt

May 5th, 2006. 23-year-old Russell Martin was called up from AAA Las Vegas for his major league debut to replace the LA Dodgers’ catcher, Dioner Navarro, put on the DL by a wrist injury.

June 21st, 2006. 33-year-old All-Star veteran pitcher Derek Lowe was getting frustrated after too many good outings without run support. Martin jogged out to the mound to check in.
“Relax, bro,” said the kid.
Lowe glared.
“I’m not leaving until you’ve calmed down,” Martin insisted.

Why I Made This Lens

Russell Martin was leading NL catchers in nearly every offensive and defensive category, but because it was his first full year in the major leagues, no one outside of Los Angeles was voting him in for the All-Star Game — they’d never heard of the kid! So I wanted to get the word out about him.

It helped! I got a ton of hits, the voting turned around in the last few weeks, and he went to the ASG!

Things I Learned Making This Lens

Pick a rookie player the INSTANT he starts looking like a good athlete. It is fairly easy to get a webpage on page 1 of Google for a rookie, before the media and fans have really “discovered” him. Of course, he may fizzle and burn, but you’ll own the Google ranking!

Fans are always looking for t-shirts and jerseys. Include an Amazon module selling them.

Note and be quick to add trivia the instant it comes out: name of new girlfriend, what the guy’s walk-up song is, why he changed the name on his shirt…etc.

Fans are also looking for photos, video highlight reels.

Don’t waste keyword space with a catchy title like “The Five-Tool Catcher of Cinquo De Mayo”. Use the guy’s name + his team name. That’s what people usually search for.

Things I DIDN’T Learn Making This Lens

Don’t make a fan page following someone’s career chronologically. After a few years, you have a HUGE amount of material, too much to plow through. I am still trying to trim and reorganize this lens.

Lens Stats and Milestones

As of today: Lensrank #15,769, 15 ratings, 6 favorites, 8838 lifetime visitors.

Best lensrank achieved: #202. Lifetime earnings: $99.33.

Related Lenses:

Russell Martin’s 2007 All-Star Season :: Vin Scully

Link:

Russell Martin of the LA Dodgers

My ninth lens, Jackie Robinson: American Hero is one of my best lenses, with great videos and pictures and a story to tell. Plus it earns mon

I created it on 05/25/2007, a month after Jackie Robinson Day (Apr 15).

Photo Credit: Allan Grant
Buy at AllPosters.com

What This Lens is About

The story of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, and what he endured behind the scenes to help the cause of civil rights.

Excerpt

If a player punched him or spiked him with cleats, or pitched a baseball at his head that might kill him, he couldn’t respond. If an ump made an unfair call, he couldn’t respond. If hotels refused to house him with his team, if teams protested his presence on the field or cancelled games to avoid him, he couldn’t respond. If the papers vilified him, he couldn’t respond. If spectators cursed him or ordered him to shine their shoes or threw black cats onto the field, he couldn’t respond. If he got death threats pinned inside his locker, or if his wife was harassed in the stands, he couldn’t respond.

All those things happened…

Why I Made This Lens

I wanted to teach more people about a personal hero of mine, and get across what “breaking the color barrier” really meant. I wanted to create a charity lens to support the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which provides scholarships and training.

I also wanted to find and share some video of Jackie playing baseball, because he was amazing to watch!

Things I Learned Making This Lens

In doing research for this lens, I learned more about Jackie Robinson– including the fact that he starred in a full-length autobiographical film, which is now archived online!

I also learned that two legal sources of good photographs are The Library of Congress (only some photos may be used…check rights and permissions) and AllPosters.com.

Things I DIDN’T Learn Making This Lens

If there’s a lot of webpages already on your topic (especially famous people), it’s really hard to optimize or get your webpage to the front of Google search engine results. It would take a ton of linkbuilding. It probably isn’t possible, because the best pages out there already have thousands of links to them. The only thing you can do is target “long tail” searches.

Lens Stats and Milestones

Lens of the Day: April 15, 2009

As of today: Lensrank #43,829, 159 ratings 60 favorites, 4135 lifetime visitors.
Best lensrank achieved: #6. Lifetime earnings: $33.66

Link:

Jackie Robinson: The Story of an American Hero