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TL;DR Ch-ch-ch-changes for Me

Here's the story of a crazed A's fan who start a sports media revolution...leading to a much bigger media revolution.

I'm ending this with a photo of pretty much my favorite athlete of all time.
I'm ending this with a photo of pretty much my favorite athlete of all time.
Ed Mulholland-USA TODAY Sports

Howdy, Athletics Nation! It's been a while but I figured I'd check in since I kind of announced something big today. December 31 will be my last day as a full-time employee of the company I started by launching this site many, many moons ago. I have been offered a role to stay on as an advisor to Vox Media and I have accepted that role. But my baby is in other people's hands now.

Yes, I'm leaving Vox Media to basically take a break. My wife Erika went back to work when my son started kindergarten this past August and it seemed like the perfect time for me to take a break and focus on the most important thing in the world to me: my family.

You may or may not know this, but my Dad passed away of a heart attack when he was only 47 years old. Today I turn 44 years old and as I creep closer to that age I realize that my father never got to experience a single day of retirement. It makes me sad to think about how hard he worked to never be rewarded with that break. I learned a tough lesson at 18 years old that stuck with me.

So in part as an homage to my father, who taught me a ridiculously hard work ethic, I'm taking that break he never had to hopefully be the best husband, father, brother, son and friend I can be. The good news for AN? Nothing will change. Alex, Nico, Jeremy and company will all remain in place. And who knows? Perhaps a certain old time ANer who wrote pretty regularly back in a different time could spend a bit more time around here. You know, unofficially.

And with that I simply say, thank you AN. Thank for you being such an incredible community that laid the foundation for everything else that's happened with Vox Media. Thanks for helping change the dynamics of sports media to focus more on the people who love it the most. Thanks to Nico for becoming the new main man way back in the day and running with the ball to make it his own. Thank you to baseballgirl for being such an incredible writer and an even better person. Thank you to Alex for being the man to run things now. And thank you to all of you for reading and supporting this crazy idea. Love to you and yours and I'll see you around here.