Me at Wembley Stadium in 2009.

I used to write about sports for a living. It was not as glamorous as it sounds. Nothing that requires a 4 a.m. wakeup call in Toronto to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Boston through Cincinnati in order to get to Fenway Park by 2:30 to cover that night’s Rays-Red Sox game is even remotely glamorous. But it was glorious. I did it for 24 years. That included 16 years with The Tampa Tribune, for which I covered the NFL/Buccaneers (1997-2001), MLB/the Rays (1999-2008) and the NHL/Lightning (2006-2008).

The recession and the death of the newspaper industry led to many layoffs at the Tribune, and I was caught in one of them. Now, I write web copy for an Internet marketing company in Tampa.

I am married to the amazing MomScribe and we have a 7-year-old son and a 4-year-old son who have no idea what I did for a living for nearly two-and-a-half decades. So, I started this blog (in part) to give me a platform for telling stories about that part of my life. It’s evolved into a catch-all for those old stories and the stuff that’s happening now in our lives. Every now and then, I’ll jump on a literary soap box and let it rip on topics that move me as a parent or just as a writer. I also vote in baseball’s Hall of Fame balloting every year, and I always welcome input from baseball fans.

Mostly, though, I just try to tell stories. I’m living proof that an American in the 21st century can be a fan of both NASCAR and NPR; can love Star Wars and Citizen Kane; can enjoy reading Tolstoy and Tolkien. I am a relatively recent convert to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and hope to one day attend a match at White Hart Lane with my sons. My work has appeared recently in Parenting Magazine, the University of South Florida Alumni Voice magazine, CBSsports.com, and other print and online publications. I was stunned and honored to be named one of five Spotlight Bloggers for the Dad 2.0 Summit blogger conference less than a year after I launched this blog.

I spend way too much time on Twitter and Facebook, so look for me there, too. If you would like to email me directly, please do so at carter.gaddis@gmail.com.