For more than 13 years, Baltimore Fishbowl has served our readers by opening a window on what makes our city and region interesting, livable and special.We are constantly evolving, expanding our attention beyond the core neighborhoods of our early days to encompass the whole city and surrounding counties. As a small, nimble operation, our tone and focus has often been set by the writers who appear on the site most often.Today we are announcing one of our biggest changes.Dan Rodricks, one of the most respected and revered storytellers working in what he would call the Greater Patapsco Drainage Basin, will be bringing his column to Baltimore Fishbowl.Dan recently announced his departure from the Baltimore Sun, where he authored more than 6,600 columns over a historic career that also included stints on WMAR-TV, WBAL-TV, and WYPR Radio. He has also written three books and two plays, and we all had a hunch that Dan wasn’t done.Dan and I have known each other from The Sun, where I was State House bureau chief, White House correspondent and metro editor.I will never forget my first encounter with Dan Rodricks. It was in the Sun’s Towson bureau, where I was first assigned and where Dan paid a visit while working on a piece. I was excited to get to know someone sharing the upper echelon of big-city newspaper columnists with Mike Barnicle, Jimmy Breslin and Mike Royko.He asked me where I was from. Randolph, Massachusetts, I told him – a decidedly blue-collar town a bit south of Boston. “I know it,” he said. “I’m from East Bridgewater.” There are only 10 miles between these two places.“I’m sorry!” I replied with a smirk, in what I had hoped was a humorous display of my knowledge of the relative rankings of Bay State communities.He scowled. “You know what? You’re a wise-ass,” he replied, and turned away. I tried to apologize. But it was the end of the conversation. He would have nothing more to do with me that day. Man, did I feel like a jerk.My takeaways: First, Dan takes tremendous pride in his roots and his identity. The young man from East Bridgewater has become one of the true sages of Baltimore, his adopted hometown and a place that he now embodies. You can draw a line, without exaggeration, from H.L. Mencken to Dan Rodricks.Secondly, Dan was right. I am a wise-ass, in a way that often leads to a bit of trouble. Fortunately, the damage appears not to have been permanent, and here we are today.We welcome Dan, and we welcome his loyal readers and fans who are entertained, outraged and inspired by the stories he tells and the real-world characters he lets speak.If you are reading this, you likely know that Baltimore Fishbowl has become an important part of the metropolitan media landscape. We aspire to cover what others don’t. It’s not that we pick our lane; it’s that there are enough pathways that we can zip around the stories we know others will cover, and reveal gems that might be missed.It’s worth noting that Baltimore Fishbowl is free to read; there are no paywalls and no subscription needed. That’s a business model that we will continue to maintain, but we’d be lying if we didn’t say that we hope some of Dan’s fans respond favorably to our occasional requests to become supporters.Dan will be here in the coming days. Please sign up for our no-cost daily newsletter, if you haven’t done so, to keep reading him. You won’t regret it.Dan Rodricks, appearing onstage in his play “Baltimore: You Have No Idea” Credit: Todd Douglas