Many of you are familiar with the (roughly) weekly Year-by-Year posts that I write for the website. Some of you have been reading, or at least aware, of them from the very first week, when I awkwardly broke down the 1946 AAFC season (in two parts) in a disorganized sort of first-time writer sort of way. More of you joined well after I started, and even more have only joined in the last few weeks.

Well, the Year-by-Year series is a weekly article that takes a brief, but hopefully comprehensive, look at a single season in 49ers' history. They are posted every Friday, and starting next week will hit your screen mid-day instead of the evening. Since my first week in 1946, we've been moving forward one year at a time. Now, though, we've hit a critical juncture in the series.

Next week will be 1979.

Bill Walsh.

Joe Montana.

That means suddenly people might care about what I'm writing. That's a vaguely frightening thought.

But because more people will, probably, be reading, and because so many people have joined the site fairly recently and may not be familiar with either my contributions to the site or, even, with me, I think it is important to reintroduce things. I'm excited to start writing about the Bill Walsh years, and I like to think that this is kind of what people have been waiting for.

So, first things... well, not first. Not in the literal sense, anyway. I guess it's more accurate to say, "So, first things nine paragraphs in," but that's not much of a useful turn of phrase. Not as a general rule. But, you know, first things now, let me introduce myself.

My secret identity is Garrett Croker (pronounced phonetically - the e makes the o long). I'm a soon to be 24-year-old copywriter, and I don't think it will surprise anybody when I tell you that I probably like sports or something. Actually, while I'd like to say that I'm just doing this unpaid gig for the mad roadies, the truth is that I love the 49ers and genuinely enjoy learning about their history. As a rule, I'm not very serious as a commenter within the individual threads. Not if I don't have to be. But I do take my articles seriously, and I just hope that I can continue to improve as I go. As well as the Year-by-Year posts, I have organized and scored the in-season prediction games on the website for two years running. But even that isn't just all fun and games. Some people actually won prizes (mostly fun games) this last season. I'm glad to be helping with the site.

And I hope you enjoy these Year-by-Year posts going forward. They haven't all been masterpieces so far, but I'm sure that all of the rest of them will be from now on.