thanks al

I have mostly lurked this year as opposed to last year, but another great season by Al.

LSA.

Thanks Al for another great season. Have a safe, healthy and happy winter and see you in April!

And the same to everyone here. Have a safe, healthy and happy winter!

I don’t live in Chicago, so this is the closes thing I have to bar talk after the games.

Fully redeemable at Arbusto’s shop of awesome stuff, plus shipping and handling.

It was nice meeting you at Wrigley this year, and I look forward to seeing you in Mesa. Not sure what I would do without this site, probably get more work done, but would not feel half as connected.

We couldn’t ask for more from you, good sir. I was only introduced to this site this summer, and already I’ve found myself visiting here more than almost any other place on the internet. Hopefully our paths will cross at the ballpark someday.

(Also, I second the motion to replace the “gratuitous Geo picture” with a “gratuitous Wrigley Field girl” picture. I know it won’t happen, but a guy’s gotta try, right?)

…thanks again, Al. I really do appreciate all the hard work you put into this blog.

And let me take this opportunity thank all of the honest, faithful, reasonable and – most important of all – good-humored people who hang out here. You made a great regular season all the greater and an agonizing postseason a little easier to deal with.

Presiding over such a large and emotional group isn’t easy. Cheers to you for diligence and good care of this community.

As someone who posts infrequently, but who constantly reads, I appreciate the efforts of Al and those of you who do post regularly. Here are just a few of the folks I want to also thank:

SWL
DigitalBenjamin
Sue369
Ryan at Cubs Hub
Dragons Fanatic
dtpollitt
chanman

I am sure there are many more of you that I am forgetting, but when I think back over the season, those people were always there trying to keep the faith that we need to get through some of the rougher patches. Thanks to all for your time and effort and the laughs you brought us through the year.

That’s a great, heartfelt final wrap. I can’t calm down that quickly.

So it goes…

al moonlights as our sports psychiatrist.

Your time and efforts are greatly appreciated. Your knowledge, wisdom, insight, opinions and love of the Cubs as a fan transport us all along on our journey as Cubs fans.

Having been just a “reader” for a couple of years it is now great to be posting and have a deeper connection. Thanks to all the “regulars” too!

Thanks for making all of this possible.

Thank for the work you do here and thanks for letting me be here even though I’m a Cardinal fan.
I’ll be back next season.

This has been an incredible year to say the least.

Have a great winter and see everyone next April!

long as I have the opportunity. You give us idiots a great place to air our feelings.

Thanks for the ride.

Al, thanks to you. Your work is greatly appreciated by us all.

I love coming to this site and talking about the Cubs.

BTW That Galvan316, he’s some character

GO CUBS!

I read just about every SB Nation blog, and I’m astounded at how your coverage (done by you yourself, and not by committee) is heads and shoulders above the rest. You’re a credit to bloggers and journalists everywhere, and deserve every accolade.

another fine year on this site, thanks to your dedication, this is the best cubs site on the internet. and thank you for letting all of us crazy, dedicated, faithful, nut cases rant here, when we were happy or sad, or just plain heartbroken again.
after 43 years of life, again i’m waiting for next year.

for having a place for me to share my thoughts and feelings with other Cub fans. This is the first place I go every day when I get on the computer, even in the winter.

for presiding over the largest group of neurotic but passionate Cubs fans on the net.

How you can deal with all the cryin’ & whinin’ that goes on here, let alone the on-field antics of our team, is beyond me, man, but I understand that this is a labor of love for you. And like someone said above it’s the next best thing to a neighborhood bar for those us who reside outside of the Chicago area.

So thanks again buddy!

Thanks so much Al. You rock all of Cubdom!

There really isn’t anything I can add to this post that hasn’t been said, but this site is truly a valuable resource for any Cubs fan. Thanks for allowing this to all come together.

Cheers.

 although the ending wasn’t exactly as we planned, we still have lives to manage. Baseball can definitely break hearts, but i really want to thank you for just keeping me and probably everybody busy with this awesome website. i love reading all your posts and lets get em next year.

love the site, thanks for a great site despite having to work in the early morning. I’m very appreciative

Good site, good team, bad end.

We appreciate all the work.

thanks.

I can’t watch sportscenter after a loss and avoid most things sport related because I don’t want to be reminded of the loss, but BCB is the exception. Al, you run a great site and thanks for sharing the good time with us and helping us threw the tough times.

Yes, indeed, thank you for this wonderful site! Your dedication to running it amazes me.

I agree with what everyone said Al. This is the one spot I go to for all of my Cubs information. YOu do an amazing job with this website and I am truly apreciative of everything you do. It’s by far the number 1 Cubs site on the internet and it’s the first one I go to if I need a Cubs fix. We all thought this would be different this time around and we were let down again. When you post your Honus Wagner quote at the end of the season, it makes me remember how much I loved baseball as a kid. You have a gift with this website and I hope you keep it for years to come.

Al, my sincere thanks. I’m always grateful to you for giving us an internet home for our Cubbie fix. Even as awful as this ending has been, it’s helpful to have a place to commiserate.

I live with a Cardinals fan who will not even speak to me, because I was so heartbroken yesterday. I am so thankful for this wonderful site. No one here proclaims me as “ridiculous”

Along with all the others, thanks. I wonder if you realize just how much many (if not all) of us have come to depend on you and on BCB. As crazy as it sounds, BCB helps get me through the day more than just about anything else. We’ll get ’em next year.

I watch the games, i read the newspapers, i listen to sports-talk BUT nothing is as good as the summaries of the games Al provides. He is able to communicate those things that we are thinking.

The site is great – after big wins and tough losses i am here. The night we lost Game 3, I was here until 2 hours after the game. I don’t write a lot, but i do read most of the posts people provide.

Note to Al – a special thank you to you! I have never met you but i feel like i know you, I thought it was cool our kids had their Bar/Bat Mitzvah the same weekend.

I will check in often on the site – Go Cubs Go!

This was a fun first year here. I look forward to another one next year, sharing it with all the Cubbie Faithful, rooting the Cubs to title threepeat, and more successful postseason. Go Cubs!!!

I checked your site just about everyday since I found it back in April. Thanks for all of your work and insight. I have to say that I envy you. I would love to be able to watch the Cubs as much as you get to.

I can’t wait to come back for the ’09 campaign.

Al,

     Your passion is inspiring. Keep up the good work. Till next year…

As you know, I was out all day at a funeral and its aftermath. It has been a difficult week for me for reasons beyond the playoff loss.

Thanks for all your kind words — and my thanks to all of YOU, because without your passion and participation, this site wouldn’t be what it is. You guys (and girls, too) are the best.

Here’s to a title in ’09.

to the apprection expressed here for Al and the ship he navigates for all of us, other than some totally out of character sappiness. Here it goes…

When I can’t be here for a game, which was way more often this season due to work, I really missed it. Something will happen during the game that’s crazy or Santo will say something funny and I can instantly invision what SWL’s picture would be or how many times “poop” or “TWSS” would be typed in response to it. It’s nuts really to think you know perfect strangers so well, but then again, we are all Cubs fans and if that doesn’t bond strangers together, nothing ever will.

Ok, so that’s it. Thanks Al and everyone!

What a warm, witty, intelligent, passionate place BCB is! This blog is a reflection of all your considerable qualities. Thanks!

Al, I just want to echo the gratitude already expressed. You have developed a great community here. Your posts are informative and insightful, and I especially appreciate your persistence in maintaining a respectful atmosphere. You are truly awesome.

Big thanks from Texas!!

Cheers, sir. From this season onward I don’t even wanna follow the Cubs without BCB.

Your dedication is greatly appreciated.

You do a yeoman’s job on the site and do your best to stay positive, critique the team and BCB posters where appropriate and respect the multitude of voices expressed here in (mostly) heartfelt support of the Cubs.

My wife and I are planning to take in all three games next year at Comerica when the Cubs come to Detroit to play the Tigers.

If you decide to attend any of the games, hopefully we’ll get a chance to touch base. I have a Lugnuts cap that I want to give you. Maybe it has some Cubs luck in it.

To quote Ernie: “The Cubs will SHINE in 2009”. (Well, it didn’t work so well for us all in 1969, maybe it was 40 years too soon…)

Al, I just want to echo everyone else’s comments…I believe someone said in an earlier post, this is like postgame bar talk for those of us not fortunate enough to be in/around the friendly confines on a regular basis. I appreciate all that you do with this blog and really don’t know of anything you could do to improve it. It provides the Cubs fix that so many of us need throughout the course of the season, and offseason. Think I’m gonna bid farewell for a while though and take a break. The end of this season was pretty hard to stomach. I’ll check in from time-to-time, but gonna settle in for an offseason of watching some football and hockey.

Add my THANKS to those posted above. I transplanted from IL to Northern CA 25 years ago and this is the best way I’ve found to keep up with my beloved CUBS. I really appreciate the first-hand accounts form Wrigley.

Your frank comments are always much more telling than anything I can find through traditional media. Also your repeated reminders to savor the moments was great to hear (and proved to be important for me after how things ended).

on other threads, but I’ll make it official here. This site is the best Cubs site out there, and a lot of it is because of Al’s passion and writing talent. I know this isn’t entirely altruistic on his part — there is some money to be made from SB — but I also remember Al’s other blog, which wasn’t as high profile.

When you’re passionate about what you do, good things follow.

Now, Al, just don’t let all this praise go to your head. :)

Real Man of Genius

As everyone has covered, thanks for everything.

My first full yr. with Al and company, thanks for everyone’s patatience with my spellng and my random thoughts, i love the fact that i feel part of this sight. I wished i would hav went out to left field and met you Al, now,whereisthatspacebar?

Thank you for allowing all of us to experience with you the highs and lows that come
with being a Cub fan.

… down here, to those I hadn’t thanked before — again, YOU are what makes this community the special place that it is.

Hope to meet all of you sometime in 2009. Go Cubs!

But I also want to thank for such a great group of regulars here. In football I have female friends that love football, I’ve never had that in baseball. I hope you (and all the women of BCB) know just how much fun it was to have them to connect to. The Geo pics were a blast. So was that our Geo love, lead me to read some interesting books on catcher from the earlier last century. Where I learned so much.

I’d not the time to chime in this year but once again BCB was a great resource and place of like minded folk following my beloved team.

I’m still a bit numb from the post-season hit-n-run, but this will pass – because neither my love for the Cubbies nor my appreciation for those who rally to them fade for long.

Peace.

I can say without a doubt that this is the only blog I read every single day for at least half the year. It really does make being a fan a lot more fun, and it’s a great place to learn things about baseball and be a part of the Cubs community.

You’ve made my experience as a Cubs fan a better one! Our turn will come.

It was a very emotional season, and you handled it with class.

This is the first site I check every day. I look forward to giving you a high five one day.

is all the neat people who are Cubs fans. And Al, you give us a warm and comfortable place to congregate.

Thanks for all the work you do to keep this place going. I’m looking forward to joining you all next year.

And yes, the first four or five game winning streak that happens, even the doubters on this board will be back. It’s in our DNA.

Or, to twist another phrase: “We have been assimilated.”

here’s to a GREAT 2009!

This place was a godsend this year. Even being here for the playoff exit game was nice (in retrospect)… I needed to bitch to people who weren’t going to tell me I was over reacting.

I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed this year ANYWHERE near as much without BCB. :-)

Let no man put asunder. This community is so vibrant, full, and alive, and it is due to both Al’s hard work and dedication and the passion and participation of all of the BCBers above. Just check out other SB Nation Baseball Sites if you want a little perspective. I would venture a guess that this is easily the most trafficked blog on SBN. Nothing else comes close.

Bleed Cubbie Blue…Accept No Substitutes.
“Thanks, Al!”

… to make sure that everyone who said thanks after my last post in this thread, knows that I did read all of the thank-yous and appreciate every single one of them.