Hi everybody. Thank you for opening this email or checking out this website page. That was very nice of you.

So, there are going to be some really cool things coming in this space over the next few weeks — at least I think that they will be cool. And let’s begin with this: I’m again working with our good friends at Rainy Day Books to create a special promotion for people who preorder The Baseball 100, my book counting down the 100 greatest players in baseball history.

Here’s the deal: If you go to this link and preorder The Baseball 100, you will not only get an autographed copy but you can have me write ANYTHING YOU WANT* in the inscription.

*Within reason. Keep it clean. Keep it relatively short. And I will not say anything good about the Yankees or Billy Joel, obviously.

When I did this for Rainy Day Books with “The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini,” the inscription requests were, let’s just say, eclectic. You had your basic requests for anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, etc. Then there were requests from people asking me to take back my motto that fruit pie is delicious or admit Michael Jordan is better than LeBron or concede some other point. Then there were people who demanded I write something nice about Derek Jeter (which I did, dammit).

Then you had the really wild stuff.

It’s all on the table. And with this book, I’ll even throw in a special bonus: If you want to send me your favorite baseball player, I’ll write down, just for you, where that player ranks on the Baseball 100 all-time list.

All of this is a limited-time offer — you have to preorder the book from Rainy Day Books at the link before the publication date on Sept. 28. I am trying to work out a special offer for those of you who have ALREADY preordered the book (thank you!) and will tell you about it when I have that secured.

Some of you have asked how this book differs from the series that began here on JoeBlogs and then ran in full at The Athletic. I think it’s quite different, but that will be up to the reader. What I can tell you is that there is a new introduction, a special foreword by George Will, a special statistical overview and that each of the 100 essays was slightly, moderately or significantly reworked. It will also be a beautiful book. It will also weigh like 83 pounds.

OK, this is just Surprise No. 1. Lots more to come, maybe as soon as tomorrow.