STANDINGS

THOUGHTS ON THE DRAFT

Hard to believe we just completed our 27th Hot Stove League draft.  It’s also hard to believe the best Saturday of the year turned into…..well, just another Saturday.  This Friday night thing took a little getting use to.  I’m used to driving back to Lincoln on Saturday afternoon impaired enough to have a false sense of well being concerning my team, yet confident enough to maintain a fairly straight 25 to 30 mph on the interstate.  Maybe I’m just getting old but, the thought of blowing a .25 at 1am in the morning between Ashland and Greenwood has lost its charm.  That and the fact that my daughter who got a DUI this past year has a competitive streak in her and that .25 would be like throwing down the gauntlet in front of her.

I’m still having a hard time wondering why Joe’s 1,668th game was any more important than his 1,667th and with a 1,669th looming just on the horizon.  Maybe Dave got an inside tip on a comet hurtling towards Earth and decided to go with the family-time course of action instead of the Draft.  Hopefully next year on Draft day he won’t decide to load up the family for a trip to Home Depot to get a furnace filter.  Just to let you know where I stand, I have 2 Aunts and 1 Uncle that are over 90 years old and one of them is especially close to being shovel-ready.   I even considered taking out some hospice insurance just to keep an eye on her on the Thursday before the Draft so that I wouldn’t be involved in an unavoidable funeral on that Saturday.

On a serious note, Chuck, you were sorely missed at the Draft and all our thoughts and prayers were with you and continue to be for you and your family.  It had to have been extremely hard to juggle the Draft with all that was on your mind at the time, yet you did a masterful job as always.

Saturday March 26th was my grandson’s 4th birthday and my wife felt I should be in attendance.  Two weeks before, when the Draft date was still the 26th, Jody water boarded me for 4 hours and then tied me up and left the Home and Garden channel on for 24 straight hours……I didn’t blink.  “It’s not just me, there are 12 other guys involved, and while we’re at it, get out the pre-nuptial.  It’s right there in black and white.”  (Hmmm, maybe she’s the one that got to Dave?)

Newt Kiley

It doesn’t take a Bill James to figure out who’ll be last this year.  When you come to the Draft with one foot already out the door, you probably won’t have a good Draft…….he didn’t.  You either have the eye of the tiger or the eye of newt.  So here’s the deal, Newt: Put the Draft day date in your rolodex and refer back to it often.

New Draft strategy this year.  Usually I focus 50% of my pre-draft preparation on the first five rounds, 10% on the next 10 rounds and the remaining 40% on flyers that will have no positive bearing on my team what-so-ever.  This year I decided to spend 90% on the first round and 10% on round two, then just let the remaining rounds “come to me,” as the lady from the TV show Selling New York says, “Letting my Fung Shui (Fung Shway) carry my thoughts to cascade in a flow of peace and clarity.”  If you’re tied up for 24 straight hours with the Home and Garden channel on, eventually you are going to start watching.  Realtors pay someone to “create” peace and harmony in a prospective home to sell.  This usually requires the “expert” to sprinkle rose petals throughout the house and move furniture around so that the spirit of “glad tidings and Chi” has enough elbow room.  They have Fung Shui Masters. Yup, Fung Shui Masters….not the usual petal-chucking, spirit-toady, garden-variety.  So, I got that going for me, that or I was in an apocalyptic fog.  Time will tell.  Batting, pitching or drafting who you like has nothing to do with it.  It’s not who you want, it’s what you get that matters, and no one knows what they will get out of a player until the season unfolds.

 NEXT YEAR’S DRAFT

I’m not going to be drafting from Phoenix next year.  I want to nip that cat-herding fiasco in the bud before it gains any momentum.  I don’t know if it was that feeling of anticipation of the upcoming baseball season or drunken bravado or just a case of flying too close to the sun, but for some reason the kool-aid didn’t seem to taste as sweet the closer it got to Draft day for some people.  It started off like a Gabby Johnson foot-stomping, fist-pumping “Rarrrre Orrrrs” authentic frontier gibberish giddiness that quickly turned south when it came to pulling the trigger.  You know, I know, we all know, it has no chance of working.  It’s a logistics nightmare.

BE CAREFUL, TED

So………

Will the Whoo’s go back to back?

Speaking of backs, will this be the year that Ted finally gets carpel tunnel from patting himself too hard on his?

Or, will this be a wire-to-wire Whoo’s party?  With Tulowitzski, Fielder, Holliday and Verlander as a solid base, there is an argument for a repeat.

My money is on Ted’s palm and that hairline crack running down his scapula.  Careful now, that’s how Quasimodo got started, one day you’re on top of your rotisserie league, the next, you’re ringing a bell and living in a tower.

THE DATING GAME 

While on our van trip to Minnesota last year it only took a side reference to divorce, a “Hey, I heard that” from McBlunder, and approximately 400 miles for me to put together that Jon was getting a divorce.  I didn’t know that and was saddened to hear it and hope for nothing but the best for both of you.  On the cheery side, you are back in the dating game, a game that has changed a lot from our younger days and maybe for the better.  For anyone not named Buser, you might not be familiar with the term Dugga boys.  It’s the name they give old caped buffalo bulls that are expelled from the herd and relegated to just tagging along behind the rest.  So….for the sake of ease and just making shit up, we’ll call their female counterparts….Dugga girls, and, like their male counterparts in our society, they too are older and are separated from the younger herd.  It makes the stalk a little easier.  If you’re dead set on a trophy, contact Jim, he’s got all the camo and face black to help you with your hunt.

THE MYSTERY OF ITCHIE

I finally got around to calling Anne and asked her to fill me in on exactly what it is that John does, other than his annual male model gig recreating scenes from the Sound of Music for Christmas cards

and his former job posing for plus sizes at Men’s Warehouse, evidently he didn’t “like the way he looked” I guarantee it.  She said that John has given her an 800 number that she can call between 10:00am and 10:10am and between 4:00pm and 4:10pm to get a hold of him…….that’s it, that’s all she knew.  On top of that mystery he drafted his usual team of head scratchers that I’m sure he’ll Bernie Madolf into a ponzi scheme that will somehow last the whole season.  Either that, or he really is the guy in the Dos Equis commercials.  If that’s the case………..Stay thirsty, my friend.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

I’m a busy guy.  I have to be the busiest guy in the world who does nothing.  How can constantly doing nothing be so time consuming?  I have all kinds of time to plan and do nothing.  Nothing is more exasperating than losing 300 at-bats every year.  When I think about what I’m doing at 6:00pm every day, nothing comes to mind, I’m usually just sitting there doing nothing, watching it turn 6 o’clock.  Why can’t I take some time out from doing nothing and check to see if all my players are playing that day?  I got nothing.  I probably should spend a little less time trying to figure out why the wheels look like they’re spinning backwards in car commercials.

LOSE-WIN

Homer Bailey.  Homer Bailey and I have had an interesting relationship throughout the years.  In the past, Homer has cost me boat loads of points, I dump him and he immediately comes back and scores lights out for his new owner.  This year will be different.

A typical day for Homer starts out around elevenish, when he rolls out of bed, he then gets out his Garmin and tries to find his way to the ballpark, he high fives the security guard with his good arm, then skips into the clubhouse and takes a sauna and whirlpool.  Then he fires up the Xbox, finds the clubhouse attendant and engages him in a couple of hotly contested games, this is usually good for at least 3 hours.  Next stop he meets the media and tells them “I feel great, the arm is really coming around, I should be back on the mound by the end of the week.”  Then it’s off to find the trainer, where he tells him he’s feeling this terrible tightness in his shoulder that just won’t go away, he notices it the most when he’s toggling from a grenade launcher to a machine gun in the 14th level of Call to Duty.  The trainer nods in agreement, because he knows how hard level 14 is and immediately prescribes another 4 to 5 weeks rest.

Homer has the system down and I’ve got Homer down.  He is officially in “time out.”  I’ve sent him to his room where he will stay for the remainder of the season and even though he won’t be scoring any points for me, he won’t be scoring any points for you guys either.  Kind of a lose-win.

DENNY'S BRILLIANT MIND

After seeing the beautiful car that Scott received as a Christmas present from Beth at Ted’s winter party, Denny went home and implored his wife Patty to “at least” match Beth’s gift, after all they had been married longer.  He was summarily rebuffed with extreme prejudice. He was down but not out…..suddenly a light flickered over Saul Bontragerstein’s kippah, died, then flickered again, then illuminated the room. An idea!  A company!  A corporation!

                                                LUCKY BASTARD

T-shirts, mugs, key chains and home pregnancy kits was born!

Tell Beth to start saving, God only knows what Denny is going to show up in at this year’s winter meeting, but I know one thing……..he’s driving.

See you all at the winter meeting!