Thanks theymos!  I thought that might be it.

As a follow up, on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transactions#Generation it says:

"The data in "coinbase" can be anything; it isn't used"  So why the check for between 2 and 100 characters?  Is this just to prevent too much data from being stuffed in there?  Just trying to understand the reason behind it.

Also, this block looks like it has a really long coinbase field (130 characters).  How was it allowed?
http://blockexplorer.com/rawblock/00000000000009e6e9b08e2ced87f48e08654d03bbd0027ef0f5d1da803522a3

Thanks I really appreciate the help!