Draft Day Come and Gone

Draft Day is the best day of the entire Fantasy League season. The application we use moves at near-breakneck speed (90 seconds!) so the entire draft is completed in approximately two hours, a little more, a little less depending on how many people are on autopick (3 seconds) and how many people haven't a clue who they want to pick (90 seconds) or how many people are present but absent (90 seconds). Although our rosters have 25 slots, 4 are already assigned to our keepers from last season, so the draft is 21 rounds long and we have 12 teams (we have had as many as 15 and would like to get a few more managers to keep the competition stronger) so in theory the draft could take 6 hours and 18 minutes, but the longest we've gone since we switched to the current app is 2 hours and 24 minutes.

So there's the speed thing, the draft's done before you get (too) bored with it. In the later rounds people start grabbing players because they have a good baseball name, i.e. Stubby Clapp, or they have a sentimental attachment to a player.

The app provides a Live Chat space so draft day is the only time we are all online together (though it's never truly been everyone but spread out across a couple continents makes a good time for everyone impossible) and we spend much of it mocking each other's choices and our own. Seasons when the keepers had not been pre-assigned by the commish and not excluded by managers we spent a big chunk of our live chat announcing another keeper gone to the wrong teem and betting which keeper would be next.

The live chat has dwindled as our original line up of managers has shifted away from the initial group that started the league and moved toward a group with fractured acquaintances. New managers are brought in by someone already in the league, but there is no shared history between the newest manager and the previously established group. It's good to have new blood, but it also feels more like a pool of isolated stat geeks. The original Talkin' Baseball crew came from a common forum, where we had spent literally years arguing and debating the game so we had a strong connection, an understanding of the person/persona behind the wheel of each of the teams.

Normally I schedule at work vacation time so I can keep up with the draft while also working undisturbed in my office. The date I selected this year was the day my workplace was shut down for Spring Break so that option was out. My dial-up access at home no longer has the vigor necessary to run the draft app so I took my laptop to Tim Horton's for the free Wi-Fi. I had used it before, in December, to submit my final papers for an online class and anticipated there would be no problem. Nope. No access, no Wi-Fi. The donut was good, the coffee so-so, but no Wi-Fi. Hence no draft day fun for me.

I guess I should go check out who's on the Huskytown Dukes roster before Opening Day.

Church at Faith Night

Liviana and I organized an outing for people from work to attend a B-Mets game and while people had fun, I'm concerned the bar was set too high!

It was a gorgeous night, great looking sky, temps very comfortable--Liviana and I didn't put our sweatshirts on until the final out. The B-Mets and the visiting NH Fisher Cats played well, and quickly--the game was over in under 2.5 hours.

We got everyone a seat in the box where we usually sit near first base; they're such great seats it was tough thinking we couldn't sit there when we first started putting this gathering together. Not only did we get a group discount, but because it was family fun pack night there were vouchers for a free hot dog and a free soda for everyone in the group.

Kids in the group got baseballs from players during the game, some members of the group were on the Big Board at different times, and one even got to play a between-innings contest.

People in the group partook of just about every food and drink offering at the park: popcorn, peanuts, ice cream, hot dogs, spiedies, salt potatoes, french fries.....One person came directly to the seats upon arrival then went for another beer; she came back several outs later exclaiming, "There's a whole other world down there [under the stands]!"

In addition to all that, the B-Mets, who won the game 4-2, had two rehabbing major leaguers on the field, Luis Castillo and Ryan Church. On Faith Night.

Ryan Church, you may recall, is on my fantasy roster, so I was tickled to see him play. I've seen him before, when he was with Akron. I went to meet up with some rabid Indians fans for an Aeros' game and I remember Church playing there that night. In his first at bat, despite pine tar and batting gloves, he had trouble hanging onto the bat.


You've heard how time slows down when you're in an accident? Whenever a foul ball pops up in our vicinity in the stands I have a hard time telling where it's headed, usually off by 10 or 12 rows easily. I had no trouble seeing that bat.

It came helicoptering straight at us. I had time to think, 'if it were a foul ball I would duck but if I duck now, this bat's going to hit me right in the head; just don't move.'

The barrel end grazed me in the ribs and the knob end grazed Mellow. Liviana threw her arm up and it banged her elbow as it came to rest in her lap.

We just started laughing. The usher rushed over to make sure we were okay; we smiled and laughed as we assured him we were okay. Then another of the B-Mets' employees came to retrieve the bat (unbroken bats are placed back into play) and check on us.

The bat went back to Church, and a different, dark-barreled bat came out of the dugout and was passed up to us. Church grounded out to second on the next pitch, breaking his bat.

I spent the next inning at the other side of the box, chatting with late arrivals, and as I sat there, just above the dugout, another bat emerged, people motioning up toward me. It was Church's bat, taped back together, autographed, for me.

The next morning when I got to work, someone brought me the Press-Sun Bulletin's sports section with the photo of Church (above) the above-the-fold feature.

How can we possibly equal that next year?

June 19. I'm telling people to mark their calendars.

Draft Day!

Believe it or not, Draft Day is a day I look forward to all year long. And I missed out on the start of the draft because the fire alarms went off and we had to evaculate the building until the fire department gave the all clear. One of the league members had bantered with me about "burning down the house". I blame him.

Of course, we had someone who had a personal situation that kept him from preparing for the draft which meant he ended up with 24 keepers belonging to other teams. As commissioner of the league, I removed all of them and redistributed as appropriate (though 4 teams still are overstocked), leaving a roster of one. One player.

People at work have been asking me if I got the players I wanted. I have no idea. Gotta go see who I drafted....


Melky Cabrera
Jacoby Ellsbury
Kosuke Fukudome
Mike Jacobs
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia
A.J. Pierzynski
Justin Upton
David Wright
Kevin Youkilis
Michael Young

Bronson Arroyo
Jeremy Bonderman
Boof Bonser
Lance Broadway
Billy Buckner
Chris Carpenter
Tom Glavine
Chuck James
Jon Lester
Tim Lincecum
Noah Lowry
John Maine
Anibal Sanchez
Chase Wright

Not bad, not bad. Only a couple silly selections. Chase Wright (picked just for the name) and Lance Broadway have already been given their walking papers. Billy Buckner, how could I not? Cole Hamels was the keeper of mine who get taken in the Great Keeper Draft. He'll be back by Opening Day.

I'm ready, and the people I work with are ready for the season to start too. I do, after all, become a whole different person during the Season. It's what lights me up!