Only Baseball Blogger Not Doing a Simulated Season Takes Up Pottery

Corey Bulow, 36, has written about baseball his entire adult life. Even in the off-season, he’s found enough material in winter baseball and hot stove speculation to keep posting. The COVID-19 outbreak has proven to be a content challenge he can’t surmount.

“There’s just nothing to write about,” said the Pine City native. “I could probably wring 250 words out of Tyler Clippard doing a long toss in his backyard, but I don’t even have that. It’s depressing.”

The phenomenon of simulated games intrigued Bulow at first, but he soon realized he was late to the party.

“People are firing up simulations of the cancelled games. People are pitting classic teams against one another. I assume there’s a hundred old-timey nerds doing a Strat-O-Matic tournament. All the fake baseball is already snatched up.”

That’s when he realized he had one path available to him: Pottery.

“I live out in the sticks, and someone decided to use our grove as a place to leave all their junk,” said Bulow. “At first I was mad, but some of the stuff that wasn’t old paint cans was worthwhile.” One of those things: an actual kiln.

“You don’t come across a kiln too often in the middle of the woods. It sparked something in me. I was reborn.”

Bulow has been fascinated by pottery since his childhood.

“My grandma took a ceramics class when I was a kid,” said the furloughed bar manager. “She wasn’t very good at it, and the only thing she made me was an ashtray. I was seven. Still, I always wanted to learn how she did it. And with all this extra time on my hands, it was time to throw the clay.”

In the three weeks that he’s been a potter, he’s learned one important thing.

“This is really hard. You know how in Ghost where Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze’s spirit make a beautiful pot? Yeah, that’s not happening. I’ve made a bowl and a cup and they look like I’m making fun of bowls and cups.”

Bulow says he’s not giving up. Yet.

“I’m going to try and make a vase tomorrow. But it would be suuuuuper cool if I woke up and there was a vaccine instead. If that happens, I’m just going to go and buy a vase.”

Image license here.