To my friends of AN, I'll be leaving you for about 573 days starting the first week in January. I'll be doing two years (minus good time credit) at a federal prison camp for minimum security offenders.  I got indicted for mdma related charges back in 2004, plead guilty in 2005, finally got sentenced to 24 months in 2006, and I'll start serving my time in 2007 -- a long process that now has it's end in sight.

Although I live in the Bay Area, I'll be doing my time about 1000 miles from here, so I'm sure A's news (and discussion) will be close to nill.  I'll keep an eye on box scores and I'll be cursing Bobby Crosby as much as possible, but staying in touch with AN will be near impossible.  baseballgirl has been kind enough to serve as a liaison to A's stuff and to you guys for me while I'm "inside".  She promises to print out some of your better discussions and mail them to me (I won't have email or internet access); I may get cute and write a dairy or two with my unquestionable insights into A's baseball </sarcasm> that could get scanned and posted, we'll see.  If you feel like writing me while I'm in, you can email me between now and January 5th and I'll give you my new temporary address, or you can ask baseballgirl after that, she'll have my mailing address.

One last thing; I haven't really been able to participate on AN much since we lost in the playoffs...  Some of you were very offended by a comment I made about Cory Lidle after we learned of his death -- I wanted to apologize to those people for being insensitive and crass, obviously there is a time and a place for that kind of humor, and while it may be my style, I shouldn't have posted it here.  Please accept my sincere apology.  

Take care AN.  I'll be out toward the end of the 2008 season, and I expect big things for our little team. I'll keep up my passionate fan hood, at least until they move to the suburbs and I abandon them like a bad real estate deal.

Merry Christmas - eamb