Yes, we have no Game Time paper tonight.

Hey, gang - I’m posting on behalf of our Fearless Leader, Brad Lee (and also from page two of the PDF version, which if you don’t already subscribe, email gtbradlee at gmail dot com - tonight’s issue is $4 and you don’t even have to tip your vendor):

If you’re reading this, you go the paper via email. That’s the only way anyone got the paper for tonight. It’s kind of a weird situation.

...

This weekend is Winter Warmup for the Cardinals. Our head vendor Rich who missed some time pretending to be Santa last month is selling I think raffle tickets or chances to sit on Bryce Harper’s lap or something. He couldn’t sell. Front Page Jeff is my primary backup. He’s doing real journalism for Dan McLaughlin’s website, Scoops With Danny Mac. Check it out if you haven’t. He couldn’t sell. Damn Cardinals run this town, I tell you.

I got an email early Thursday morning. Amy who has been selling since 2000 and almost nearly retired last spring but decided to come back because she enjoys wearing plastic shopping bags on her feet when it’s cold, apparently. In the email she said she didn’t want to tell me what to do, but she told me we shouldn’t print the paper. Something about a snow storm and bitterly cold temperatures or something. Her husband Jeff could sell, she said. Uh huh, sending the husband out to do the dirty work. Well, I didn’t want Jeff standing out on a corner selling my wares all by himself.

I’m typing this on my laptop in Kansas City. It’s Cousins Party Weekend and a little snow wasn’t going to deter me, even though it made the last half hour of the drive a little too intense. I mention that because even though I am the executive in the corner office who runs this behemoth of an operation, I’m not too full of myself yet to keep from selling myself on the street corner. But I couldn’t. What you are reading right now is the first digital-only, fan-run paper in nearly 24 years that I’m aware of. Pretty sure Jeffio never did one. And Gallagher was insane enough to print when there was an ice storm against the still shitty Predators when maybe 5,000 people showed up. Even attention whore Towel Boy didn’t make that game, but Gallagher sold the paper. Maniac.

Running this publication (can I call a digital-only product a publication?), there’s a lot to live up to. There are some who believe this paper will never be as good, insightful, wicked or as funny as the original Game Night Revue. I get it. I still laugh when I think of Jeffio’s Rejected Dr. Seuss Titles including Horton Hires a Ho. And there are others who think the seven years Gallagher ran GT that will never be touched. However. I’ll put the GT Podcast up against any that focus on the Blues. You should subscribe for a month at just $5 and hear for yourself. I’m fucking proud of this thing you’re reading, even if it’s only a series of ones and zeroes or whatever makes digital stuff all digity.

I thought I would be depressed at not printing, but actually, it’s a little freeing. The cost of printing, especially on the weekend, makes sustaining the paper difficult when sales are impacted by weather or losing or the opponent or the night of the week or the length of the homestand or the whims of people who don’t want to part with a measly $4 for 24 pages of insights, jokes and more. I can enjoy spending time with my cousins and their kids and my kids and not worry if I tweeted about the vendor locations or if the vendors were on time or if any vendor has hypothermia. There’s nothing I can do about most of that from the other side of the state. Bartender, the publisher needs a refill.