"There's nothing more interesting than your own rotisserie team and nothing less interesting than someone else's."
-Daniel Okrent, inventor of Rotisserie League Baseball
And it's true. I've been playing fantasy baseball for years and I've seen the glassed-over eyes of co-workers, best buds and (especially) girlfriends whenever I get amped up about a potential trade or a spring training position battle that goes the wrong way. So it only made sense that if I'm going to vent about my stupid, nerdy hobby (read: incurable, lifelong obsession) I may as well make it as public as I can, so that the entire world can ignore it.
A not-so-brief history of your narrator's fantasy baseball credentials:
1984: On a Saturday afternoon at my grandma's house, my 5 year-old ears hear someone on TV talking about some guy named Strawberry. I thought that was a really stupid name.
1986: That guy named Strawberry ended up being my favorite baseball player and his New York Mets won the World Series. Darryl was 4-for-20 with no home runs and 6 strikeouts in the Series when Davey Johnson removed him in a double switch in Game 6. I think we know how that turns out...
1988: I begin my non-illustrious, inconsequential, and mostly uneventful 6 year baseball career. I am the fat kid in right field. This should tell you pretty much all you need to know about me.
1992: My baseball fandom knows no bounds at this point. I have a subscription to Baseball Weekly and start paying attention to the sections pertaining to a game called Rotisserie Baseball. Further research exposes an itch to actually play it and I attempt to organize a league with my 7th grade classmates. However, the powers that be at St. Joseph's middle school are concerned about the illegal gambling ring that I am heading up so the league never gets off the ground. I also receive a pretty severe punishment from my parents.
1998: Thanks to the burgeoning internet and access provided by my college alma mater, I finally realize my dream of playing fantasy baseball. My first foray into the game is a salary cap league hosted by some website that I can't even remember. It may or may not even still exist. My team - named "The Masturbating Bears" after the Conan O'Brien sketch - was not competitive, but I was captivated by the game.
2001: A friend from work invites me into his fantasy baseball league and I do my first in-person draft. This was an AL-only head-to-head league, but each team was allowed to carry 3 NL players at any one time. Needing speed, I used one of my picks on Rafael Furcal, the 2000 rookie of the year. I got guffaws at the draft table from the league vets and endured not only season-long taunts, but also a dismal campaign from Furcal who got hurt and played in only 79 games. Despite my rank amateurism, I am allowed to stay in the league, probably since I appear to be easily separated from my money.
2002: I begin my non-illustrious, inconsequential, and mostly uneventful 3 year softball career. Several of the guys on the team are in a fantasy league, which I quickly join. This is the first time I'm playing in a league composed almost entirely of people that I know, which makes it much more fun though not any easier. I quickly come to the realization that I am a terrible evaluator of pitching.
2004: In a cruel twist of fate, I have hit the nadir of my fantasy addiction but also the apex of my fantasy success. I am managing 6 teams in 3 private leagues and 3 public leagues. The "Furcal" league - or as it is properly recognized The Ugueth What U Pay For League* - has expanded to 16 teams and now uses all AL and NL players, not that it helped me. However, I end up winning a small AL-only league with ease and finishing second in my softball team league only because we counted complete games. In the Marlins' 161st game, my pitcher Josh Beckett was winning 4-2 after 8 innings and 96 pitches when Jack McKeon pulled him for Armando Benitez, costing me the title. I hate you, Jack McKeon.
2005: After moving away from all my friends, I decide it's time to cut back on fantasy baseball. I'm only in two leagues this year, both with the group from the Ugueth League. One is an 18-team behemoth with a standard draft, and the second was a 12-team league with an auction draft, my first. I remember the software we used was glitchy as hell, to the point where we actually got a full refund and a free draft for the next season from the company that sold it. They're out of business now. Still, the auction draft was the most fun I had ever had at an online draft and we ended up consolidating these two leagues with the auction draft the next year.
2007: I start working with the Obama campaign in January and am so overwhelmed with work that I don't have time to play fantasy baseball. It's a dagger through my heart not to be able to do it, but at this point, I assume that Hillary Clinton will drub him in the Iowa caucuses and I can get back in the league in 2008. I think we know how that turns out...
2009: After a two-year absence, I rejoined the Ugueth League, which had now grown to 20 teams. The group from 2001 had dwindled to a mere handful - only five of the original ten - which makes me feel a little distant, nothing like the old softball team league. On the plus side, these guys don't mess around. It's a $50 buy-in with 20 teams. If you're not math inclined, that's a $1000 prize pool. No chump change.
2010: My 8th season in the Ugueth League and I finally win some money. I split my draft budget about 70/30 in favor of hitting (I intended to go 80/20, but that went out the window after I blew my entire pitching budget on Felix Hernandez and Johan Santana) and invested in a lot of "upside" players late like Mat Latos and C.J. Wilson. We play 6x6 head-to-head (R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG & OPS for hitters, W, L, SV, K, ERA & WHIP for pitchers), so I decided to punt both steals and saves since they're not as valuable in this format. It worked: I won my division (worth $100) and finished 2nd in the playoffs ($175.)
Now that you're caught up, let's explain the purpose of this blog. I intend to essentially live-blog my entire fantasy baseball season in the Ugueth League, starting from my draft prep and finishing at the end of the playoffs. Every match-up, every lineup change, every waiver acquisition, trade proposal, etc.; I'm writing about it all. I don't expect anyone to find my team altogether interesting, but maybe you'll enjoy the insight and the process into drafting and managing a fantasy team. Maybe I'll write something that changes your opinion about a player and he ends up helping your team. Maybe you'll figure out quickly that I don't know what I'm talking about (who does?) and doing the exact opposite of what I do reaps you dividends.
I'll post as often as it makes sense here. I've also got a Twitter feed that I'll be posting quick hits to: http://twitter.com/chinmusicftw. Hope you'll join me for the next 7 months or so.
*The name of this league and any of its participants have been changed in order to protect the innocent. No, scratch that, I just want to win so it's probably best if they don't ever read this...
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