I really can't explain why I care if PB sinks or swims. I, like everyone else, will move on if and when PB folds or becomes obsolete. The bottom line is that I do care. I'm still here forking over my 120 bucks a year just like everyone else so I feel that my *support* is understood.

Those that choose to sit and polish thier rose colored glasses and wait for things to improve are perfectly entitled to do so. But don't characterize those of us that don't as whiners. We care just as much about this game as you do and we support it just as much too.

I'm not asking for people to complain. I am hoping that people can start to be objective and look at things as they really are. If it makes you feel better to say "way to go Mike, we're behind you 100% blah blah blah.. then fine. Those voices have always been here and have always been a part of this board. But the proof is in the pudding. When people start bringing up issues.. eventually things get bad enough and finally we get a response from Mike. So do I think that bringing up these issues helps? Your damn right I do. And history shows that I'm right. The trouble is that every time Mike gets around to responding, the "we're behind you 100%" crap starts all over again and we go into another long period of stagnation. Frustration continues to build and we start the cycle all over again only this time with a few less managers. It is a pattern that has been repeating itself since I began playing this game.

So now we are beating the financing drum again. This is a tune I've heard time and time again as well. The fact is that PB has had some signifigant sponsors and investors in the past and has essentially squandered those opportunities. Is that the fault of the *whinning* managers? No, the blame for that rests solely on Mike. Personally I think Mike is a great person. Unselfish, dedicated and just an all around nice guy. I have communicated with him though private email on occasion. But, along with all the credit he deserves for what he has accomplished here in concept, he is also deserving of some negative feedback for repeated failure to get PB stabalized both technically and financially. The result of those failures are two fold. Number one - PB has been in a time capsule for about three years now. There have been no signifigant enhancements or even bug fixes made to the game since I began playing that long ago. There have been promises, lots of them in fact. But again the proof is in the pudding and we have nothing to show for those promises. Worse yet, long standing technical issues have never been resolved. Can you still put a non-catcher behind the plate and have him throw out every base runner? This is just one example out of many that continue to put PB in the catagory of an alpha or beta test phase of development. This is the phase where most other software is being used for free while they work out the kinks! Number two - The number of managers is declining and continues to dive with no sign (yet) of a recovery. It's not getting any easier to bring in new blood either because the marketplace for this type of game is heating up and competitors are starting to emerge.

I think we can all agree that in concept this game is the best of it's kind in existance right now. So you have to ask yourself, why are inferior games that are being run elsewhere on the internet improving technically and have numbers of subscribers growing while here the number of managers has been on a downward trend for at least the past two years.. maybe longer. This is true despite the fact that alot of these other games are MORE expensive than PB! So really, why are people willing to pay more for an inferior product?

Well lets see. I started playing PB after I saw an advertisement in Baseball Weekly. I played a free launch league and then purchased a perp