D-Day Approaches

The draft is tomorrow and I'm exhausted already.

On Tuesday, I met with Lumbergh and his co-owner, who we'll call Tweedledee, mostly because he failed to reveal any distinguishing characteristics about himeself during the meeting. We gathered at the same midtown pub/restaurant where Lumbergh and the Thin Man met me a few weeks ago. This time, I followed Tweedledee's lead and ordered a beer. I needed it.

I had just finished my own league's fantasy baseball draft the night before and had spent that entire day furiously cramming for the draft, which didn't do me as much good as I would have liked. My team is fine, but I've left myself plenty of work to do during the season to make sure I win. That's fine, a little competition isn't bad. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time for it with the two other leagues I'm in, plus a baby's imminent arrival.

In any case, I came to the lunch meeting prepared to talk about my auction strategy and the kinds of players we should be going after. I waxed poetic about the economics of the salary cap and how we should be conservative with star players and instead target below-market values across the board. With 17 fantasy teams choosing from a pool of 24 major league teams to fill 23 roster spots, it's going to be challenging to find quality players at each position. The fact that 6 major league teams are left out of the bidding is a little discouraging, since so many good "sleepers" are on those teams: Royals, Orioles, Mariners, Nationals, Pirates and Padres. To be sure, those are the worst teams in baseball, but there's no need to leave them out.

My strategy session was met with approval from Tweedledee and complete bewilderment from Lumbergh, who was only interested in whether I thought Luis Castillo and Daniel Murphy would be good players to have. Clearly, I am going to have to balance their desire to win with their preference for crappy Mets role players. But with 391 players being drafted tomorrow, I'm going to have scrape the bottom of the barrel at some point, so it might as well be with Mets.

After a long, trying ordeal, I was able to download a fantastic auction draft software that will really help me during the draft. For some reason, it's only compatible with Windows, and I have a Mac, so I had to dig deep into the abyss of moving boxes in my apartment to resuccitate my old Dell in time for tomorrow.

Adam is going to come and be my assistant GM for a bit tomorrow, which will be helpful as I get my feet under me in this foreign auction format. I think it will be a lot of fun, but also incredibly draining. 12 hours of constant chess matches and poker faces with a room full of hardcore lawyers. I am counting mostly on my knowledge of baseball to keep from being eaten alive. I'm well prepared, but it's also my rodeo, so we'll just have to see how it all plays out.

8:00 a.m. tomorrow it begins. Nice way to start the weekend.

A Different (And Bizarre) Kind of Fantasy Baseball

That's why I get it in 'til the sun rise
Doin' 90 in a 65
Windows rolled down screamin' "Ah!"
Hey-ey-ey, I'm so paid.

- Akon

A few weeks ago, I was approached by a pair of partners at a high-powered New York law firm to draft their fantasy baseball team for them. They had heard of my fantasy prowess from a mutual friend and had scheduling conflicts with the draft date and wondered if I might be available to run their team on draft day. Ordinarily, it doesn't take much arm-twisting to get me to draft a fantasy baseball team; I am a three-time champion and three-time runner-up in my six year-old 12-team rotisserie league, after all. But, this draft is different. This league is different. We're talking about a 17-team auction draft. We're talking about a draft that could take twelve hours. On a Saturday. In an office.

Lumbergh's gonna have me come in on Saturday, I just know it.

Originally, this plan was pitched to me as a networking opportunity, being as I am, in fact, looking for a high-paying full-time job. Networking is nice, yes, but 12 hours! And unfamiliar rules in a format I've never played before? That's gonna come at a price. I'm no fly-by-night fantasy ride. I put serious work into this. Let's try this again.

"You won't have to pay in to the $550 league fee, and it'll be fun!" Uh huh.

"We'll give you 10% of the pot. Last year's winner won $3800." Keep talking.

"All right, what's it worth to you?" Well, I might have to take a day off of work (at the time, not a lie). How about you pay me a flat fee for the draft prep and the draft day work, plus the 10%.

Boom. $200 in my pocket.

The next step was meeting one of the co-owners and the person who founded the league to explain how everything will go down. We met this past Monday for lunch at a Midtown tavern. Me, two lawyers who make more taking a leak than I make all week, and serious fantasy baseball. In retrospect, I'm just a cheap $200 whore. Gotta start somewhere, I suppose.

In any case, it was immediately clear that the bossman (we'll call him Lumbergh, after the aforementioned "Office Space" character) knew absolutely nothing about fantasy baseball. Very nice guy, late 50's, Mets fan, but fantasy baseball savant he is not. That's okay, that's why he hired me. The founder of the league (we'll call him The Thin Man, because, well, he's thin) has been doing rotisserie baseball in an auction format for 25 years. He won last year. He knows what he's doing, but he approaches fantasy baseball with all of the joy of a doctor cupping a pair of testicles and asking for a cough. Out come the charts and the graphs and the droll, soul-sucking description of how exhilarating it's all going to be. Thanks, Thin Man. Let's get together for a discussion of the ancient Roman tax code next week!

After the meeting, Lumbergh walks me to an ATM and handed me a wad of bills I didn't even bother to count. All I know is it's four days later I haven't had to go to my own ATM. He then took me up to the offices of the firm, which occupy several floors of a very tall building. He showed me the conference room where the draft will go down on March 28th. Food and beverage will be provided. Oh, one more thing! There are no breaks. The Thin Man advises me that most teams have two representatives on draft day so that one or the other can use a restroom instead of the diaper I will apparently be using. Fortunately, my good brother Adam has volunteered to assist me on draft day, and at least let me relieve myself like an able-bodied human being.

Like any good office meeting, we adjourned by establishing when our next meeting will be: March 23rd. For lunch, of course.

The Oil Can Cometh?

Seems our friend Oil Can caught a little bug at Red Sox Fantasy Camp. Check this out from the Boston Globe:

"
At 49, Boyd wants to turn fantasy into reality

Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd has long felt the game of baseball was taken away from him far too soon. He was 31 years old when he threw his last pitch for the Texas Rangers in 1991.

But now, at age 49, Boyd believes his shoulder is stronger than ever. He says his velocity is up in the low 90s and the 12-6 curveball and changeup have returned. He wants a chance to show a major league team he can still pitch.

"I have nothing to lose, and all a major league team has to lose is 15 minutes," said Boyd. "Give me 15 minutes and I'll show I can still pitch. That's all I want."

It's always been Boyd's dream to carry on the legacy of Satchel Paige and pitch into his 60s. Two weeks ago, at the Red Sox fantasy camp, Boyd started throwing in earnest again and was pleased with the results.

"After surgery in '87, it took me 10 years to feel good," he said. "I wasn't on the field, started gaining weight. All of a sudden, my arm has healed. The arm strength is there and it's there consistently. The more I throw, the better it feels."

Former Red Sox catcher Mike Stanley, who caught Boyd at the camp, said, "He looks no different to me now than when I caught him in Texas. He still has the same passion. I don't know if he was getting to 90 because we didn't have a gun, but he still had the same stuff. The same tight slider, curve, fastball."

"Satchel being my idol and knowing he didn't come into the game until he was in his early 40s, that's always been in the back of my mind," said Boyd. "Now, I've been given back the fastball I once had. I want to play.

"I spoke to some people about it. If I was given an opportunity, I'd love to work my way back. I think it would be good for the game. It shows me baseball is a forgiving game."

[End Excerpt]


Oil Can loves to talk and clearly it's a slow news day when the Globe decides to run a story about this, but I can hardly blame a reporter for being sucked in by the vacuum of Oil Can's mouth.

One day during Red Sox Fantasy Camp, Adam and I were walking into the hotel lobby after a long day at the ballpark and saw Oil Can just standing around near the door of the hotel bar, seemingly waiting for someone. Turned out, he was waiting for us. Or rather, anyone. I can't remember what we asked him, but it hardly mattered. What followed was over an hour of stories about his childhood as the son of a logger in a small town in Mississippi, with anywhere between 18 and 24 siblings, depending on either the father or the time of day, his career in the majors, the injury that derailed his career, and the barnstorming tour he began after his retirement, each story laced with lots of "muthafuckas" and "shits" for a heavy hand of color.

Clearly, he is a man who lives by his own credo for better or worse, and I'm not surprised he doesn't listen to naysayers tell him he's too old to come back, the same way he brushed off the racism he experienced as a ballplayer, especially in Boston. I'm particularly interested in his barnstorming tour, which takes the style and flair of Negro League baseball and pits them against a Washington Generals-esque white baseball team in exhibitions at minor league parks around the country. Unfortunately, the link to his tour's Web site doesn't reveal anything recent, which is pretty consistent with the amount of hot air that comes out of his mouth. I do hope that it gets organized because I would love to see them play, especially as I have been writing a play about a Negro League baseball player in the 1930's.

One thing that Oil Can lamented about today's game is that there are not enough characters, begetting nicknames, to keep baseball entertaining. That I can agree with. "The Big Unit" might be a funny nickname, but it's not a character. It's not a man who speaks his mind no matter who is listening and will tell stories that probably aren't true, and tell it all with an intoxicating, unpredictable flair. It's not Oil Can Boyd.

More Award Banquet Pics

Me, Adam and former Sox manager Butch Hobson, who, when Adam told him it was thrill to meet him, responded: "Me, too." Glad that we were able to fulfill Butch's lifelong dream of meeting Adam Weiner.

Spaceman couldn't stop getting a kick out of two Weiners and two Nathans being on a team together coached by a Johnson.

Adam Takes Home The Prize

To the shock of virtually no one, Adam scored the not-so-coveted Trainer's Award for his diligent time and effort in the trainer's room getting his various muscle and blister ailments treated. Actually, the biggest shock was when Joe Castiglione mistakenly called my name as the winner. The right man went up to the podium, however.
Savoring the sweetness of victory. Only 10 men out of 120 took home trophies. Congrats to Adam!

The guy who threw a complete game shutout at us won the Cy Young award. Adam got a hit off of him. The batting champ hit .800, so my .363 average doesn't look quite as good as it might have seemed.

Adam and trainer Paul, who kept Adam on the field and helped him feel better as the week went along.

Awards Banquet

Me, Adam and banquet emcee Joe Castiglione, the voice of the Red Sox radio network.

Joe not only emceed the banquet, but also called the games against the pros earlier in the day, even singling out Adam's backhanded stab at third base.

Pros and Campers Line Up For Post-Game Handshakes