If you've been paying attention lately, you've noticed that Baseball Toaster has had a bunch of its knobs and switches and dials and wires fall off in recent months.  Today, with the largest part of our engine leaving to join the Los Angeles Times, we are officially sending the Toaster to the scrap heap.

We'll leave the casing intact--the archives for the blogs that are not being redirected elsewhere will remain online here indefinitely. But after tomorrow, we will cease publishing new blog entries. A few days after that, we will close up comments. The Toaster will then be left here, frozen in time, a snapshot of an era that has passed, until it one day finally rusts away.

The cliches that baseball players spew when they retire are all true and appropriate here.  Thanks to all my teammates.  Thanks to the fans.  We've been through deaths and births and triumphs and disappointments together--you've been like a family to me.  The only thing I can think to say that would differ from a typical sports retirement speech is, "Bite me, Russian spammers."

Here's a list of where the Toastmasters are scattering to:

New locations

• Jon Weisman (Dodger Thoughts, Screen Jam), LA Times
• Alex Belth/Cliff Corcoran (Bronx Banter), SNY Network
• Scott Long (The Juice Blog), NSFWSports.com
• Josh Wilker (Cardboard Gods), CardboardGods.net
• Ember Nickel (Humbug), Lipogram Scorecard

Back to the old location

• Will Carroll (The Juice Blog), Baseball Prospectus
• Philip Michaels (Catfish Stew), Intertext.com

New blogs, but not just sports

• Mark Donohue (Bad Altitude, Western Homes), Big Western Flavor
• Phil Bencomo (Cub Town), site TBA

Reply hazy, try again

• Mike Carminati (Mike's Baseball Rants)

Tearful retirement speeches

• Score Bard (Humbug)
• Derek Smart (Cub Town)
• Bob Timmermann (The Griddle)
• Ken Arneson (Catfish Stew)

Yes, I am retiring from baseball blogging, as well.  But not before I post one final, epic, monster-sized (so large I had to alter my database structure to accomodate it) Catfish Stew blog entry on Wednesday, my 43rd birthday.  I'm going to get it all off my chest, leave it all on the table, use up all my fuel, and then I'll have nothing left to say or do but send myself off to the junkyard, anyway.  It will be the last post here on Baseball Toaster.

After that...see you around.

Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.