A Yoo-Hoo To Arms

This morning, once the official and final stats for the 2013 season were posted at the OnRoto website, the Graging Bulls were officially crowned the Champions of the CFCL’s 30th season. It’s an honor that comes with a number of rewards, including the lion’s share of the prize pool and the CFCL Championship Trophy. One thing it won’t come with, however – unless there’s a hasty addition to the CFCL Constitution – is a Yoo-Hoo shower for Bulls’ owner Matt Grage.

Yoo-Hoo, a sticky concoction of chocolate flavoring and high fructose corn syrup, was traditionally poured over the head of the original Rotisserie League’s Champion at the season-ending party each year.

The closing essay in the first edition of the book Rotisserie League Baseball described it this way:

Unseen hands hold you, force your head down and pour water, dairy whey, corn sweetener, non-fat milk, sugar, coconut oil, cocoa, sodium caseinate, salt, sodium bicarbonate, dipotassium phosphates, calcium phosphates, guar gum, natural flavors, xantham gum, vanillin (an artificial flavor), sodium ascorbate, ferric orthophosphate, palmitate, niacinamide, vitamin D, and, yes, riboflavin all over your hair. The bizarre ritual is a Yoo-Hoo shampoo, and it is what you get for winning the Rotisserie League pennant.

The chocolate-flavored rinse will not leave your locks radiant and soft to the touch, and squirrels will probably follow you around for a day or two. All and all, the ritual is pretty distasteful. But there's not a member of the Rotisserie League who wouldn't gladly suffer the rite so long as it came at the end of a championship season.

You can hear the Rotisserie League’s first Champions, Glenn Waggoner and Pete Gehers (Getherswag Goners) and the league’s founder, Dan Okrent, discuss the that first Yoo-Hoo ceremony in this clip from the documentary “Silly Little Game.”




The CFCL never fully embraced the concept of the celebratory Yoo-Hoo shower, but there WERE two owners who got to enjoy the experience.

In 1990, I had that honor after my David’s Copperfields secured my 4th CFCL title. A subset of owners gathered at Bob Monroe’s house for the awards banquet, and at the end of it, we all headed out into the chilly night for the pouring ceremony (Bob wisely didn’t want to soil his carpet). Bob supplied the Yoo-Hoo, but rather than providing a single bottle, he had bought a 6-pack of juicebox sized containers to ensure everyone in attendance would have plenty of opportunity to pour. Bob, of course, could have just left them on the kitchen counter until the ceremony, but no … he made sure they were well iced so as to intensify the impact. Still – despite the freezing gooiness of it all, it was an incredible experience and one that I hoped to enjoy again.

The following year, 1991, it was Bob’s turn as CFCL Champion. Fortunately for Bob, he and his family had moved to Colorado before the season ended, so we had to douse him by proxy. With the ceremony out of our control, Bob afforded himself some comforts he didn’t provide to me the year before – an indoor ceremony, with a single bottle of room temperature Yoo-Hoo. Since no other CFCLers were present, his son Ryan performed the honors. There is one indignity Bob suffered that I was spared – documentary evidence. Bob’s wife Julie captured this photo of the ceremony, which she was only too happy to share with the rest of us in Chicago.

For whatever reason, the Yoo-Hoo ceremony was discontinued in the CFCL after 1991. But I say it’s never too late to bring it back … all it would take is some quick legislation by the Executive Committee, an approval by the league as a whole, and open spot in the Home Run Inn parking lot…

Trade Deadline Review: 1990

This is the ninthin a series of posts taking a look at the trade deadline action in each season during the CFCL’s first 29 years. Specifically, for each season we’ll look at each team’s trading turnover in the 3-4 weeks before the trading deadline. Individual deals were listed (though not analyzed) in the “This Week in CFCL History” posts.

Previous posts in this series:

1984-1987
1988
1989
1998-1999
2000
2001
2002
2006

Here's what when on at the trade deadline in 1990.

1990
Trade Deadline: July 10 (final out of All Star Game), trading allowed between contiguous teams until August 31
Number of Teams / Number of Trades:  4 teams, 2 trades
Number of Players Changing Hands:  20 players, 1 draft pick
Busiest Teams:  4 teams with one trade each
Contenders:  Mr. Paul’s Swordfish, David’s Copperfields
Rebuilders:  Eric’s Lambchops, Bald Eagles

What a difference a year makes. After the busy trade deadline of 1989 (10 trades involving 40 players), 1990 was virtually silent. 

For the third straight year, the Constitution dictated that only teams adjacent to each other in the standings could make trades after the All Star Game. This year, only one contiguous deal was made – a 7-player swap between the 3rd place Swordfish (53 points) and 4th place Lambchops (49 points).

Even before that, trading had been very light with only one other deal being made in July and August 1990.

By the time the free-trading deadline hit in mid-July, McGuire’s Picks held a 5-point lead over the 2nd place David’s Copperfields, and led the 3rd place Mr Paul’s Swordfish by 12.5.

The Picks apparently felt secure with their roster, as they did not complete a single deal around the trade deadline, instead deciding to stand pat (owner name pun intended). To be fair, they had completed a fairly significant deal in mid-June, acquiring Barry Bonds, Dickie Thon, John Smoltz, and Joe Magrane (see June 19, 1990 in This Week in CFCL History).

For a while, it appeared their gamble had paid off, as their lead over the Copperfields grew to 18 points by the beginning of August. By the end of the season, though, the Picks may have regretted not making a deal or two at the deadline … but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Here’s a breakdown of the teams that WERE active at the 1990 deadline.

BALD EAGLES

Acquired	Traded	Results
Rick Parker Jerome Walton Jay Bell Keith Miller Craig Biggio Jeff Parrett Andujar Cedeno	Ron Jones Barry Larkin Eric Yelding Mike Lavalliere David Cone Darryl Kile	The Eagles picked up a bundle of players, but they waived Parker, Walton, Miller, Parrett, and Cedeno before the 1990 season ended.   That left them with Jay Bell and Craig Biggio as carry-overs for the 1991 season.   Both players turned in good seasons in 1991, with Bell setting career highs (to that point) in BA (.270), HR (16), RBI (67), and SB (10).  Biggio contributed a line of .296-4-46-19, helping lead the Eagles to the CFCL Championship in their final season.

ERIC’S LAMBCHOPS

Acquired	Traded	Results
John Burkett Mark Grant Lloyd McClendon Mickey Morandini 1st round pick	Neal Heaton Bill Sampen Greg Olson	In what had become a puzzling trend for the Lambchops, they acquired a bevy of players in a rebuilding deal, but kept only one of them the following season.   That player was John Burkett, who won 12 games with a 4.18 ERA for the Chops in 1991.   The 1st round minor league draft pick the Lambchops acquired in the deal ended up being the #1 pick overall, and the Chops used to to snag future slugger Ryan Klesko.  They ended up dealing Klesko to Dem Rebels before he made it to the bigs, though.

 MR. P’S SWORDFISH

Acquired	Traded	Results
Neal Heaton Bill Sampen Greg Olson	John Burkett Mark Grant Lloyd McClendon Mickey Morandini 1st round pick	The surprising Swordfish found themselves with the chance at a 3rd place money shot, and possibly more.   They took advantage of their standings placement next to the 4th place Lambchops to make a late-season contiguous trade.  The players they acquired didn’t stink, but they didn’t provide nearly enough firepower to make an impact.   Heaton won 2 games with a 2.13 ERA, while Sampen also won a couple.  Olson hit .271 with a homer and 10 RBI.   The Swordfish ended up dropping in the standings, and David’s Ruffins snuck past them into the 3rd place and the money.

 DAVID’S COPPERFIELDS

Acquired	Traded	Results
Barry Larkin Eric Yelding Mike Lavalliere David Cone Ron Jones Darryl Kile	Rick Parker Jerome Walton Jay Bell Keith Miller Craig Biggio Jeff Parrett Andujar Cedeno	When the free-trading deadline hit in mid-July, the Copperfields were in 2nd place, but a distant 15 points behind the leading McGuire’s Picks.   They teamed up with the Bald Eagles on at the free-trading deadline and brought on a couple key parts for their second half effort.   Larkin hit for average (.295) and stole 9 bases, but didn’t deliver much power (3 HR, 29 RBI).  Yelding DIDN’T hit for power, but stole 33 bases after the deal.   Despite the significant influx of speed, the Copperfields picked up only one point in the SB category the rest of the season.   The big impact from this deal came from Cone’s 2.44 ERA and 9 Wins after the trade.  The Copperfields picked up 3 points in the ERA category in the second half of the season, edging ahead of the Picks by just 0.007 in the last week.    The edged the Picks in the overall standings, winning the 1990 CFCL Championship by a single point, though, truth be told, it was more the case of a Picks collapse than a Copperfield surge.  The Picks dropped 10 points in the second half.

1990 Standings at Trade Deadline and End of Season (click to embiggen)

 

 

 

 

First Free Agent Sealed Bid

On this date in 1990, Lee Smith became the first player in CFCL history to be acquired during the season via free agent bid, going to the Copperfields for 32 cents.

From the league’s founding in 1984 through 1989, there was only one way to acquire a free agent during the season … by calling him up from the free agent pool to replace a player who had been put on the disabled list, sent to the minors, released, or traded to the American League by his National League team. Free agents called up in this manner were awarded on a first-come, first-served basis, so if two teams wanted the same free agent, the player would go to whomever was the first to call and leave a message with the League Secretary (this was long before the days of e-mail and time-stamping). All free agents acquired in this way were awarded a .10 salary.

In the 1990 edition of the “Rotisserie League Baseball” book, the Roto founding fathers introduced the concept of a Free Agent Acquisition Budget (FAAB) for acquiring unowned players via sealed bid auction during the season. This rule was actually a new component of the Rotisserie Ultra rules that had been introduced in the 1989 book and that involved 40-man rosters and a number of other rules to take the game to a new level.

Given the make-up of the CFCL at the time, and the fact that we were still calculating stats and standings manually, the CFCL didn’t feel ready to adopt the Ultra rules, but we did see the free agent sealed bid auction as a potential solution to the growing dissatisfaction with the free-agents-as-injury-replacements-only system.

One of the consequences of that system was that injured players ended up being much more valuable than they should. Some owners … oh, let’s say Bob Monroe for example … made an art form of their eyes open for players who had gone undrafted on Draft Day and were turning in a strong season, and then trading for an injured player on the roster of a less observant owner in order to reserve the injured player and call up the targeted free agent.

When a star player was traded over from the American League mid-season, things began to take on a circus atmosphere as CFCL owners prayed for an injury to one of their players, fended off the inevitable trade proposals from Bob for their injured player, and submitted a claim for the free agent.

Things were particularly absurd when Mark Langston was traded to the Expos on May 25, 1989. No team had an injured pitcher they could reserve in order to acquire him, so the Mark Langston Watch began. Rich was able to comment on the situation in multiple weekly newsletters, and every CFCL owner knew that if Bob Monroe called with a trade offer for one of your pitchers, it meant the pitcher had just gone on the DL. It was June 13 before the Six Packs were finally able to reserve an injured pitcher (Bob Walk) and claim Langston.

When the concept of a sealed bid free agent auction was introduced for the Ultra version of the game in the 1990 Rotisserie League book, we decided to employ a modified version of it in the CFCL … using it only for players who had been traded from the American League during the season. As I wrote in a pre-season bulletin:

This Inter-League Trade Auction was run via actual sealed bid … teams had to mail (or hand deliver) their bids for the free agent in an actual sealed envelope. The full sealed bid auction can be found here:

1995 Inter-League Trade Auction Rules

On May 4, 1990, Lee Smith was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the St. Louis Cardinals and became the first player to be eligible for sealed bid free agent auction. It was a great test case for our new system … Smith was a premiere closer, and the Saves category was particularly tight early in 1990. At the time Smith was traded over, only 6 Saves separated the first team in the category from the last, so Smith could be a real difference maker.

Every team in the CFCL submitted a sealed bid for Smith over the next couple weeks except one (the generally uninvolved Mr. Paul’s Swordfish), with the Copperfields winning Smith’s services with a .32 bid. Here’s the Roster Change Report for the week, listing the full bidding results (click to embiggen):

Smith proved worth every penny, putting up a 2.14 ERA and saving 25 games for the Copperfields, who finished 3rd in the Saves category and won the league by a single point. The Copperfields kept Smith for the 1991 season, avoiding the buyout penalty, and ended up trading Smith to the Lambchops later that season.