STANDINGS

1.      BLUES                        155 PTS

2.      TRIBE                         144 PTS

3.      SKIPJACKS                105 PTS

4.      BEARS                       101 PTS

5.      SENATORS                 93 PTS

6.      BUMS                          85 PTS

7.      MONARCHS              81 PTS

8.      BOMBERS                  81 PTS

9.      TIGERS                        69 PTS

10.  REDBIRDS                  59 PTS

11.  WAHOOS                   46 PTS

12.  CUBS                            35 PTS

13.  CHIEFS                      4PTS            

This marks my 30^th year……….I should just end this edition right here and let it soak in, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything for 30 years, at least not in a row.  20 years with the railroad, 20 years married to my wonder beautiful wife, 16 years being a cement cinder block tied around the ankle of Art F/X, nothing close to the 30 years in this wonderful league of gentlemen.  Nostalgia always sets in when I come across the 3XL Tall polo’s with the names of teams that has since changed their team name and even though my shoulders have slumped, my chin has dropped and my boiler has expanded….they still don’t fit.  I’m not sure what year it was that we started the time honored tradition of outfitting the vanquished as a way of marking our territory for a year, but looking at it in hindsight it’s probably the best I could have hoped for, for my $100 a year or my $3,000 CD (that I could have had).

At least I have a little control over the gear, last year Jeff was pretty insistent on having pink shirts with a large butterfly followed by 12 smaller ones in honor of the Monarchs pennant winning season, but I was able to convince him that it was too close to Breast Cancer Awareness month and the butterflies were kind of a rip off of the Partridge Family, so he reluctantly went with the Ruler motif and the shirts we ended up with, which are starting to be my favorite, so you’re welcome.   Looking through my closet  I still have the suit that Dave was charged with helping me find for the wedding of a good friend of ours that very well may pre-date our league, so at least you guys know I cherish these garments and they aren’t going anywhere.

I’ve already lived 11 years longer than my father did and I’m rapidly approaching the age of my mother when she died, so I know what you’re thinking “How can someone play a game so long and not come close to winning?”  How could The Starland Vocal Band win a Grammy?  I could have written that ear- plugging train wreck sitting in the outhouse at the Eagles Nest reading the label off the lye container.   Well, I need new clothes now and then and this is the only way I know of getting them….. Dave isn’t always available when it comes time for me to go shopping.  I get an annual stipend of $100 for clothes and they always seem nicer if someone else picks them out, so I thank you guys for your tony taste in clothes.  It’s like trading peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch; they always taste better if someone else makes them.   I don’t know why I haven’t won but I do know that if that day ever comes I’ve already allotted the full amount of winnings to outfitting you guys in Tribal wear but I didn’t account for myself so maybe subliminally I see myself as getting shorted…Yeah, that it.

The internet hasn’t done me any favors either; there are so many rotisserie baseball sites now that it’s almost impossible to get a consensus….on anything, it’s like reading the reviews on a hotel or a restaurant, they’re all over the place and by the time you’re done reading them you’re no closer to making a decision than you were when you started. This year I even tried Angie’s list, I typed in “winning baseball rotisserie strategy” with my zip code and the search came up with Scott Krause and Dennis Bontrager.

               My plan this year is to Milli Vanilli my way to an undeserved championship.  So this season I’m going to change things up a bit, I’m going to start by paying attention, which that alone would be a change……a Bruce Jenner change.  Go big girl or go home, I always say.  OR, I could take some ridiculous risks on some unproven flyers, hope for some untimely injuries to the key players of other managers and do a little DL star poaching followed by some unscrupulous trades, then walk up to the podium to the sounds of boos and catcalls, give a tip of the hat to Afternoon Delight and accept my trophy. In all fairness to my lack of character…I’m torn.

I have 2 goals this year, have a well-balanced healthy competitive team and have a business lunch.  I’m almost 60 years old and I’ve never had a “business lunch”.  Scott does it all the time, I don’t know if he’s busy hammering out decisions and making it rain with important contacts or just blowing me off for lunch, but it sounds cool.  The closest I’ve come is yelling Buy!  Buy!  Sell!  Sell!  into a dead phone when a stranger walks by my desk.  The snag in this dream is actually coming up with a business;  I certainly don’t want to have a business meeting here at work.  I know what “Bob, let’s go to lunch there is something we need to talk about………..…..and drive your own car” means, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be on the business end of that meeting.  Denny seems to be onto to something, maybe I can get my foot in the door at his new rag.

I bow to the master of newbie’s and first timers, he truly knows his players.  I guess there is something to be said for living life on the edge drafting flyers.  To me, hoping to guess right is like trying to lift a golden monkey skull off a pressure plate in a booby-trapped Incan tomb without getting a face full of poison darts.  Over the years my face is starting to look like Bill Murray’s.

                                                                        What?

Nothing.

The times they are a changing, I think I’ve got a chance.  When the major league home-run champ Barry Bonds and the all-time hit king Pete Rose aren’t in the Hall of Fame and two of the best women athletes ever are Bruce Jenner and Carl Lewis………anything is possible.

Ub