Being the follow-up for a popular figure is never easy. As a former Tigers radio announcer put it, you want to be the guy who follows the guy.
So I knew when I took the reins of Bless You Boys, it would be an interesting experience, not the least because my blogging style was almost as far away from Ian's as you could get.
I never dreamed it would turn out so well, almost from the start. Month after month, we had the most visitors ever, the most page views ever, the largest discussions ever. The main author sets the tone for the community, but the yeoman's work comes from within the community itself. You're the ones making the comments. You're the ones hitting "like" on the Facebook buttons, retweeting links, inviting friends and strangers alike to come see the place you hang out to talk baseball, and welcoming them with open arms when they arrive.
A huge thanks to each and every one of you for that, from all of us at Bless You Boys.
We hope you'll keep doing what you're doing, keep bringing in new people and coming here first to talk Tigers, and we'll strive to get better at what we do on our end. Hopefully a year (and a month) from now when it's time to say goodnight to baseball for the winter all over again, we'll look back and be even prouder of what the site has grown into than we all should be today.