So, I’ve got some news.

It might be bad news, or it might be good news, depending on if you subscribe to The Athletic and if you actually like(d) my weekly Monday morning Cub o’ Coffee column, which I wrote every week from March 2016 until about a month ago. I wrote over 200 of them, and never missed a week until…well February 10.

My editor, our good friend Jon Greenberg, had finally secured me a raise after four years of writing and I was grateful. He’s a great editor, one who fixed my mistakes, tolerated my penchant for run-on…everything…and occasionally dropped in a joke of his own or two. Lauren Comitor edited me, too, but I was never sure when because I always sent the text to Jon and then he did whatever with it, so clearly she afforded me the same leash. The only thing he ever asked was that I learn to single space between sentences as is the style on the inter webs. I only kind of did. After I wrote every column I had to do a search and replace and turn every double space into a single space.

So, what’s the deal? Well, my raise apparently sent up a flag that my contract had lapsed. To be honest I didn’t know my contract had an end date. I mean, I guess I did when I signed it because it was right on it, but over time I forgot and figured I was just writing “at will” and one of these days one or both sides would get tired of it all and end it. It’s not like it wouldn’t have come up eventually, but maybe you’d have gotten to pay for a few of my witty Marquee jokes before it happened.

So, that’s why Cub o’ Coffee hasn’t been on The Athletic for the past four weeks. I had to wait for two things that didn’t exist when I signed on in 2016 (legal and budget departments) to process a new contract.

Long story short (I know, too late) they’re not going to. Jon assured me it’s not because my numbers weren’t good (they were) and people even subscribed from a link in my columns (imagine that). And I believe it, because…I mean did you ever read the comments under my column? Hoo boy, there were always lots of them, even if most of them didn’t “get” any of what they’d been reading. So, I wrote every week during an offseason when nothing happened, and then spring training starts and Marquee implodes and I’m on the bench. Oh well, such is life.

I wasn’t one of the original hires, but I wasn’t far behind. I started just a few weeks after their launch.  It was a great run at The Athletic for me. I got to write about a Cubs’ World Series season and lots of people read it.  And then three more years on top of it. I never thought I’d last four years when I started, and honestly, I’ll bet none of you did, either.

I only got in trouble once. Remember when Yadi went on the DL with bruised balls a couple of years ago? I made fun of it on Twitter, as I’m known to do, and some irritating Cardinals’ fans (are there any other kind?) took offense and reported me to one of the higher ups at The Athletic and he demanded that Jon make me “stop that!”

Wait, I got in trouble twice. When a Cubs’ scout (not Cub Scout) died in 2017 I made one of my awful “He died doing what he loved…having a massive heart attack in his sleep” jokes and somebody got mad and told Jon that “lots of Cubs’ people were complaining about it.” Is it a terrible joke? Well, it’s certainly mean, but funny.  So, probably?

Were “lots of” Cubs’ people complaining? I don’t think they lodge actual complaints unless they can sell a sponsorship for it.

In both instances Jon told me, “I won’t tell you what to put on Twitter, but maybe not that.” And that was it.

See, he’s a great editor. He always let me be me. Although, believe it or not, over time there were jokes I didn’t make, both in the column and on Twitter, that I would have, but I didn’t want it to reflect poorly on The Athletic. I guess I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

I mean, I passed up more Dan Pompei and Mike Lombardi jokes than I can count, because they were on the staff, too.

For a while, The Athletic was on a roll hiring writers who had blocked me on Twitter for being mean to them. I always enjoyed that.

OK, so what’s next?

Well, I’m still doing the Pointless Exercise podcast with a weekly Cubs pod, and I’ve been doing more and more one-on-one interview podcasts with people like Bruce Miles (who didn’t replace me at The Athletic by the way), Kevin Kaduk, Kelly Dwyer, Mike Pusateri, and next week is David “Answer Dave” Brown.

I also have exciting news that I’m going to be hosting pre and postgame on Marquee’s broadcasts on Xfinity. Wait, what? Those aren’t a thing? Oh, whatever. Anyway, I’ll do live reads of Anchor.fm ads on Hillary Clinton’s new podcast. So that’s something.

I think it’s inevitable that I’ll start a subscription newsletter, and write several times a week, instead of just once, because daddy’s got bills to pay. When my wife found out I’d gotten a raise she had no problem going over our luxury tax threshold.

I’ll keep it inexpensive, and if you have to stop subscribing to something else to fit in your budget…well, do what you have to do. I think it’ll be a lot of fun, and I have had some big ideas for a while now, so we’ll see what happens.

Anyway, thanks for always reading. I’m not going away, I’m just not going to be where I was.

As they say at Marquee, “stay tuned–unless you are on one of the many cable and online services that won’t carry us.”