Trading the Gator - From the Cutting Room Floor - The Ralph Macchio Incident

The 2014 CFCL Draft is just two weeks away.  To whet our collective appetites, here's a little glimpse inside the Draft Day segment of Trading the Gator, the fantasy baseball documentary featuring the CFCL.

Note: See this post for the background on the CFCL’s involvement in Trading the Gator. 

The documentarians following the CFCL during the 2002 season shot hours and hours of video - the vast majority of which never made it into the final cut.  Included in those hours and hours recorded, was the full 8 or 9 hours of Draft Day, shot with multiple cameras, and including side interviews during breaks in between rounds.

The producers whittled the Draft Day segment down to about 7 or 8 minutes in the final cut of the film (we'll be sharing that sometime in the next couple weeks, to celebrate The Greatest Day of 2014).  Most of the Draft Day footage left cast aside in the editing suite consisted of those mostly silent, brooding moments as eleven owners sit waiting as the 12th endures the internal debate about whether to raise the current bid a penny.

There were a few really entertaining moments, though, that just couldn't make it into the finished product.  Case in point, The Ralph Macchio Incident...

The producers were kind enough to share some of the unused footage from Draft Day, so we were able to save this moment for posterity.

To set the scene, Six Packs' owner Kelly Barone was locked in a bidding war for Hideo Nomo with Bruce Ellman of Tenacious B.  It was the point in the auction when you're getting down to the last few players who are really worth spending for, and Kelly found himself with the choice of spending more for Nomo than he had budgeted or passing him by and possibly being stuck with a much lesser pitcher.

Kelly begins the clip apologizing for taking so long to make up his mind, and declares that he's at a crossroads in how he'll proceed with the rest of the Draft.  Bruce wonders whether he's referring to the Ralph Macchio film, "Crossroads", or the Brittney Spears offering of the same name.

Cue the film ...

 

My Savior - Gary Scott

The previous post is the part of Trading the Gator that  shows how owners prepare for the draft.  The plan for this blog was to have daily entrees from Draft Day 2013 through Draft Day 2014.  While we are in excess of 200 posts, we certainly have fallen short of our daily goal.

The clip from TTG, in part, explains why this time of the year is so hectic.  With spring training moving to actual games being played, Draft Prep is accelerating.  Prior to right now all we could do is look at projections, assumptions and last year's numbers.  Now we can actually see that one of our players pitched four innings giving up one run.  Or went 0-2.  Our time starts to get used up.

The CFCL has eleven owners who are professionals so there is the career thing to take up our time.  Seven owners are married and with that comes responsibilities and time commitments.  Four owners have young children which bring with it more awesome responsibility and time commitments.  The DoorMatts, thus far, are the only CFCL team to have "graduated" through the young reliant children stage to the empty nest stage, so while they dealt with the above challenges for many years as a CFCL owner, they currently enjoy endless amounts of time to surf the net for baseball nuggets.

Oh yeah, and it's also the time of year that Uncle Sam gets really interested in our money so there's a time commitment to organize our tax information, unless we want to wait until after the draft to put our accountants under the gun to meet the deadline.

There's a lot going on at this time of the year for all fantasy owners and unfortunately being creative on a daily basis has become a losing battle.  My apologies if you are a daily visitor looking for the latest memory of CFCL life from the past 30 years.

But having watched the TTG clip and seeing updates on the MLB network naturally made me think of  . . . Gary Scott.

It was spring training of the 1991 season.  The Rebels were coming off a very disappointing 6th place finish and needed to make a move for the future.  As we saw with the Will Clark Incident and the Jeff Stone Incident, pre-season hype can be costly.  Well, the Rebels are slow learners.  Reports out of Arizona all spring training long were about this phee-nom that was tearing up every pitcher he faced. 

Gary Scott was a 22 year old thirdbase prospect who, heading in to spring training, was not supposed to make the club out of camp.  He was viewed as someone who could be the next great thirdbaseman since Ron Santo, but he was not supposed to be that guy in 1991, in April.  But Gary would NOT be denied.  Every day the sports report on WGN radio told about Scott going 1-3 or 2-4 with an RBI. 

I used to listen to Spike O'Dell in the afternoons and I specifically remember about halfway through spring training the sports guy was doing an update and said "And from Arizona, Spike, guess who just drove in the winning run again?"  Spike responded "Not Gary Scott again!"  Sportcaster, "Yep."

Scott made the club and that sealed it in this GM's mind.  I HAD TO HAVE Gary Scott.  I built my entire draft around getting Scott and riding him to the title while he helped the Cubs win their division.  As the draft loomed nearer I sweated and fretted how to approach Scott.  Should I nominate him early when everyone else might be focusing on the likes of Charlie Hayes, Terry Pendleton and Matt Williams? 

But this is a Cubs Fan League.  Bringing him up early in the draft when everyone had money to spend could cause his price to be higher as emotional Cub fans drafted their teams.

If I waited too long, I may not budget my money properly and someone could lay in wait and snag him just beyond what I could afford.  Oh the dilemmas.

As it turns out, I don't recall exactly how it played out as to when Scott was nominated.  All I remember, as we drafted in the apartment David and I shared in Forest Park, was that I GOT GARY SCOTT!!!!!  And I got him for a steal - .09!!!!  My season is made!  I also seem to recall that everyone else on my "Have to Have List" ended up on my team as well.  What a shrewd drafter am I!

The one lasting memory I have is right after I bid .09 on Scott and the last standing owner folded, I exclaimed some sort of victory expression.  I also remember the other owners more or less looking at me as if to say "You poor fool.  This is just another example of a Cub having a great Arizona experience who will no doubt fail."

What did they know?  I wanted Scott.  I got Scott and together we would pop champagne together.  We would raise pennants together.  We would be awesome!

The results?

1991 - Rebels finished 5th (better than 1990 but a half point worse in accumulated points).

Gary Scott - one homerun, five RBIs, batting average of .165 and in the minors by May.

Foiled again.

The Will Clark Incident

Earlier in this blog’s life, we revisited one of the very first Draft Day “Incidents” in the CFCL’s history: the time the Co-Founders found themselves locked in an insane episode of bidding on Phillies’ outfielder Jeff Stone during the 1985 Draft. The end of that write-up teased a similar incident from the following year. It’s now time for the Co-Founders to to reminisce about 1986’s The Will Clark Incident…

RICH
I LOVE the history of the CFCL. I LOVE the fact that I have been a part of all the history of the CFCL – many times on the embarrassing end (see Jeff Stone Incident, Mitch Williams Incident, Murphy/Dysktra Trade). But every so often I am able to come out on top (Steve Carlton Incident). And here’s one more – The Will Clark Incident. 

The problem is I don’t remember the minute by minute, blow-by-blow happenings. I remember the before and I remember the after. The during? Not so much. It could be because I was still reeling from the Jeff Stone Incident the year before. It could be that it was 28 years ago and, really, how much can one person remember?

DAVID
Flashback to spring training, 1986 -- This was in the early days of Rotisserie and fantasy baseball, and information on minor leaguers and prospects was still fairly hard to come by. The minor league overview in Bill Mazaroski's annual magazine was the best of the easily-obtainable sources, and the owner who knew about Baseball America's "Top Ten Prospects" issues, let alone who could find one on a newstand, had an incredible advantage. 

RICH
Here’s what I do recall. The Rebels and Copperfields had teased each other with our plans heading into 1985 when we both had our eyes on Jeff Stone. After we squared off in the bidding on Jeff Stone, I think we were both reluctant to lend voice to our intentions for the 1986 draft. 

This time around we both had our sights on a young left handed slugger in the Bay Area. I can’t recall if we gave each other even a bit of indication of our desires or if we figured it out during the bidding.

There was still a good chance of “back-dooring” a young or unknown talent. There wasn’t ESPN and Internet. You had the Sporting News and Bill Mazeroski’s mag. 

DAVID
And it’s not like Mazeroski was over the moon for Clark. In the positional outlook for the major league team the magazine mentioned Clark as a possible contributor in 1986: 

"[Dan] Driessen’s limitations could help [Bob] Brenly worm his way in here, at least against lefthanders. And don’t count out last June’s No. 1 draft pick, Will Clark, who pumped 25 homers in just 65 games at Mississippi State last year, then jumped to Fresno and hit .305, drove in 48 runs in 65 games, jacked 10 home runs and had an on-base percentage of .458. Clark might not be able to make the jump this year, but it won’t take him long."

The minor league write-up at the back of the magazine said: “He’s a disciplined left-handed hitter with 20-homer strength and Gold Glove potential. Clark will get a chance to take first base this spring because he’s so far advanced in the mental aspects of the game.”

Jackpot! Just what every Rotisserie owner longs for – mental aspects!

Clark didn't even make Maz’s Gold List (the prospects likely to make their presence known in the majors in the coming season). Instead, that list was toting the likes of Todd Worrell, Lance McCullers, Andres Galarraga, and Roger Mason. Maz’s list of secondary prospects did mention Clark, saying that he “could make the leap this year – sometime.”

All-in-all, not exactly ringing endorsements; and not the type of write up that would set our winter hearts a-lusting.

RICH
So if you read those periodicals, you knew of a guy named Will Clark. Had a pretty good college career and was expected to make the team and be wonderful in 1986. But to the passive eye, he wasn't that well known. 

DAVID
It wasn't until March 1986 that stories of "The Natural" came drifting Chicago-way. Tales told of an intense young slugger with only 65 minor league games under his belt who was the hit of the Giants' spring camp. There were rumors that he hit a ball through the outfield fence in a spring training game. 

RICH
Clark had a pretty solid spring. This was when the Cubs played the Giants about 450 times during the Cactus League, so now he was becoming less unknown. But one could still be hopeful that the other owners would attribute it to a young kid having a good spring against lesser pitchers (kind of like being Gary Scott before Gary Scott).

DAVID
Still, Rich and I both hoped -- no, believed -- that each of us was the only one to be hearing this info. We were both certain we would be able to sneak Clark though at the end of the Draft. Of course, this was another textbook case of Hyper-Inflation resulting from Pre-Draft Obsession.

RICH
We were both disappointed on Opening Day. Any chance we had of trying to sneak Clark through at a low price ended on April 8, 1986. Keep in mind, back in the early days, we drafted after Opening Day so we knew who was on an NL roster. By the time we drafted there were some games already played and emotions affected (see Brian Littlefield effect in the original Rotisserie Book).

On April 8th, Will Clark came to the plate for the first time EVER in a major league game. And he homered. Homered in the first inning against the Astros. Homered to straightaway center field in the Astrodome. Homered off of . . . Nolan Ryan in his first at bat ever. And the legend exploded.

No more sneaking him through. Now it’s good ol’ country hardball ala 1985 and Jeff Stone.

DAVID

Flash forward, to Draft Day 1986 -- Our new owner, Dave Holian, received the honor of nominating the first player of the Draft. This ended up being the unofficial institution of what would come to be known as The Ruffin Privilege, which wasn't formally recognized until 1992.  

Of course, it's obvious who he chose to make the first player up for bid in 1986 -- Will the Thrill.

Bidding quickly escalated, with the Bald Eagles, Copperfields, and Dem Rebels the main participants. Bob Monroe, owner of the Eagles, called a conference with Head Copperfield in a side room. The Bald One offered to drop out of the bidding on Clark if In would promise not to bid up another player later in the Draft. I refused, and we returned to the draft table where the bidding continued. Monroe remained in a little while longer, then dropped out, leaving me and Rich as the only two active bidders. Another showdown between the Co-Founders/Co-Commissioners. As the bidding reached the upper 30s, memories of the Jeff Stone Incident crept into both our heads.

RICH
I was probably feeling the pain of Stone still so at some point I blinked and the Copperfields got Will Clark for .40.

DAVID
Perhaps it was the memory of what Jeff Stone did to his team, but whatever the reason, after I said ".40", Rich said "Pass", and I brought his head crashing to the table at the realization of what I had done.

Clark's stats for the year: .287-11-41-4. Respectable, but not worthy of .40.

RICH
Clark would go on to hit only 10 more home runs and drive in only 40 more runs all season. So I finally won a showdown against the Copperfields, right?

1985 – Rebels outbid the Copperfields on Jeff Stone for .32 and finish 4th out of seven teams.

1986 – Copperfields outlast the Rebels on Will Clark for .40 and win their first championship (first of three in a row and first of eleven overall).

And that right there in a nutshell is the Rebel/Copperfield rivalry.

Draft Day Cat Nap

NFL Countdown analyst Mike Ditka recently took some good-natured ribbing for falling asleep while on live television:



This brought to mind one of the more notorious incidents in CFCL History:  the time ForGoetz Me Nots owner, Dave Goetz, actually dozed off during the 1999 CFCL Draft.

Draft Day is legendary for being a grueling marathon requiring super-human endurance and a consistent focus beyond the realm of normal human ability. That said, in the CFCL’s first 30 years, this was the only time an owner actually fell asleep mid-Draft.

The incident occurred only 2 hours into the auction. Da Paul Meisters had just acquired Jerry DiPoto, and after recording the transaction on his draft sheet, Dave – either by choice or from sheer exhaustion - closed his eyes and zoned out.

In all likelihood, Dave probably would have snapped out of it without anyone noticing once Rich started reviewing the players needed/money left for each team. However, before Rich began the recap I passed Jerry DipPoto’s Draft Day Poker card down the table toward the Meisters’ owner. Six Packs’ owner Kelly took the card and held it out toward Dave Goetz expecting him to grab it and pass it on down. When Dave didn’t respond, Kelly called his name and startled him awake.

To Dave’s credit, he made a quick, nonchalant recovery, but Kelly had noticed his nap and was quick to make sure the rest of the table knew about it as well. Let’s go to the video…

To top things off, Kelly was also running the Draft Day Kangaroo Court that year. Kelly was sure to levy a hefty fine against Dave for his breech of Draft Day etiquette.

The Rebel Puberty Incident

Ok, this has nothing to do with baseball, but it seems fitting that today, on the anniversary of Rich’s birth, we celebrate the time he seemingly went through puberty right in the middle of the Draft.

First, a little background … after the 1991 season, Bald Eagle owner and defending CFCL Champion Bob Monroe announced he was withdrawing from the CFCL. Bob’s job had taken him out of town, and in 1992 the CFCL hadn’t yet made the transition to the Internet. Long-distance ownership was a non-starter.

Bob’s departure led to two new features at the 1992 Draft:

• We knew we’d miss having Bob around, so to take his place at the Draft, we placed a helium-filled balloon at the corner of the draft table. To ensure everyone recognized him, Rich used a marker to draw a fringe of hair around the bare top, glasses, and a beard … the splitting image of Bob.
• Bob made it clear he was going to miss being at the Draft too. After hearing him bemoan the fact that he’d miss out on the fun of Draft Day, we decided to video tape the whole Draft and send it to him. It was the first Draft we recorded, something we did for the next 15 years or so.

 So what does this have to do with Rich’s puberty?

At one point in the Draft, I got up to fill in an acquisition on the big Draft Tracker on the wall. Since Bob’s head was nearby, I gave it a vigorous spin on its string. At the same time I was doing this, Rich was finishing up a pretzel rod, stuffing the last half of it in his mouth at once.

He noticed Bob’s Linda Blair act and – showing great restraint and respect for the owners sitting across the table from him – tried to laugh without spewing half chewed pretzel across the room. What emanated from him wasn’t a laugh so much as on odd squeak.

This caught the attention of David’s Ruffins owner, Dave Holian, who wondered if Rich was “going through that change thing”. That comment set us off on what would prove to be the first of many digressions into 1970s television that we enjoyed over the years.

Before we go to the film, just one quick note about 1992. Between the Ramon Martinez Incident, the Bret Barberie Incident (listen for him being nominated at the end of this clip), the Origin of the Ruffin Privilege, light hearted moments such as this, plus a number of others to be shared later, 1992 is far and away the most entertaining Draft we recorded.

Draft Day Locations

We have mentioned numerous times the excitement of Draft Day.  Not only is it exciting, it is extremely important because to build a successful team you need to have a successful draft.  To have a successful draft you need to draft in a place of comfort and quiet.

Many leagues will hold their drafts at a sports bar if they’re not drafting on-line.  Makes sense since you could multi-task by picking your players, watching whatever sports happen to be on the television and enjoy a few refreshments with your friends.  I would imagine it’s kind of tough to concentrate at a sports bar, however.

The CFCL has experienced 30 drafts.  I can put my finger on fifteen different locations.  There were a few years we had to scramble to find a location when our “Go-To” place didn’t materialize.  Here’s a list of the locations we’ve drafted – as best as I could do it in chronological order.

1984 First Draft Ever – The Mahlan home in Oak Park.  Made the commute pretty easy for the Copperfields, Friars and Penguins.

1985 – The ForGoetzMeNots offered up their apartment in Forest Park for the festivities.

1986 – The Bald Eagles made their basement available in Brookfield.  Being the ever gracious host, Bob even overpaid for Steve Carlton.

[I’ve officially lost track of where we drafted in ’87 and ’88, so I’ll just move on to locations and give up on the specific years.]

I do know that in 1989 and 1990 we drafted at Mount Olympus.  No, we didn’t fly to Greece.  Mount Olympus was what David and I called our third floor apartment in Forest Park.

After that, when David thought it would be more beneficial to hang out with his future wife, rather than the guy he started the league with, he and Michelle moved to Oak Park.  They graciously opened their doors to the CFCL at both their Oak Park apartments.

Dave Holian (owner of David’s Ruffins) let us use his basement in his Oak Park home at least once.  That was the year we didn’t start drafting until after 8pm and didn’t finish until around 2am.

One year we were in a bind for a location and Kim and I had everyone over to our home in Aurora.  It wasn’t a favorite location since we had owners that lived in the city, the near west suburbs and the north suburbs.  But it must have been a comfortable atmosphere because that was the year that the ForGoetzMeNots fell asleep at the draft.

I began my career as a Financial Advisor back in 1995 and for a string of close to thirteen years we were able to draft in the training room at my office.  We drafted in two Oak Brook office locations, Lombard and one Naperville office.  This began the tradition of the DoorMatts and Rebels arriving an hour or two early each year to move tables and chairs and set the room up for the draft.  And EVERY YEAR virtually EVERY OWNER would offer their help to tear the room down after the draft and set it up in its original state, so that no one would know we were there and help ensure that we would be granted access the following year.  That amazing sense of community among the owners is what makes the CFCL so special.

In 2010 I changed broker/dealers and for a couple of years we didn’t have access to a room that was large enough for ten guys, their snacks and their laptops.  So in 2010, Bob Boryca (owner of Mo’s Red Hots) was able to secure us a spare room at Plainfield North High School, where he teaches.  We had to wait to start the draft until most of athletic activities for the day were over.  Truthfully, I think they wanted to make sure all of the co-eds were off campus before ten wonky stat geeks showed up.

2011 we had to scramble.  Plainfield North didn’t want us back.  (In reality we didn’t want to put Bob in a spot of using the school for non-school purposes, in case that would put a mark against his name.)  The Ruffins came to the rescue by offering a basement room in his step-father’s building in downtown Naperville.  The Ruffins jumped on the home field advantage and built themselves a champion team that year.

For 2012 and 2013 we went back to the corporate setting.  My office moved to Lisle and we now have access to a beautiful conference room with floor to ceiling windows and a table large enough to seat at least ten owners.

Over the years we’ve had to make slight accommodations to some of the locations, but overall all 30 drafts have been an awesome experience.  As time goes on it’s obvious that, while the locations have been comfortable, it’s the camaraderie and friendship we share that makes the draft as special as it is.

Tie Goes To The Runner

A few days ago, Rich posted about some of the Challenges faced on Draft Day.

One of the challenges he mentioned had to do with the reaction of one new owner to the format and pacing of the CFCL’s draft. Traditionally, the CFCL has conducted our auctions in a very structured manner -- an owner nominates a player and an opening bid. The bid then goes clockwise around the table, with each owner either increasing the bid or dropping out when it is his turn. Once an owner drops out, he is out for good -- he cannot pass and stay in the bidding.

This differs from the bidding method used in the vast majority of leagues – a true free-for-all auction format in which a player is nominated at an opening bid and any owner can raise the bid at any time.

In a comment to Rich’s post, Kenn Ruby wrote: “I don't know if the CFCL greybeards have ever done an auction the "real" way, but it would be a shock to the system.”

The CFCL did try the “real” auction format … for two rounds in the 1997 Draft … or at least something close to it. A number of owners were concerned that they would not have time to fully consider their bids in the frenzied pace of a true auction, so while we allowed owners to call out bids in any order, any owner could halt the auctioneer’s call at any point for additional “think time.”

Because of this concession, the two auction rounds didn’t go a whole lot faster than the regular rounds, though they did lead to some pretty interesting situations. One of these was determining how to resolve ties that occurred when two owners called out the same bid at the same time. In most cases, one owner was willing to break the tie by raising the bid by a penny.

The video below depicts the beginning of the true auction rounds and illustrates the trepidation Dave Holian had about the free-for-all bidding format. It then transitions to the bidding on Pedro Martinez, is which Six Packs owner Kelly Barone and I both call out “seventeen” at the same time. Kelly makes a clever observation about how ties are handled in baseball, which inspires Dave Holian to suggest a clever way of breaking future ties.

The Challenges We Face At The Draft

I may have mentioned this before.  Draft. . . Day . . . Is . . . Awesome!!!  It is something every owner looks forward to from essentially the last out of the World Series.  It’s an opportunity to rebuild your team.  Or it’s an opportunity to tweak your team.  It’s certainly an opportunity to see and catch up with fellow owners whom you may not have seen since last year’s draft or possibly since the End of the Year Banquet.

One of the complaints I’ve always had about our Draft Day is that we are not afforded a lot of time to just hang with each other.  Usually the draft and the picks for the Reserve List will run about six-seven hours start to finish.  Eight of our owners have wives.  Five have young children.  Three travel in from out of state.  For most of us, when the draft ends it’s time to head back home and engage in “normal” life.  We don’t have the time (or take the time) to sit around for an hour or two and re-live the draft.  That’s not really a challenge of the draft, more of a reality.  But we do face challenges in running a smooth and effective draft.  Here are some of those challenges:

Keeping a healthy pace:  I would say we have just about mastered the right pace for our drafts.  As I mentioned above, the draft runs about six to seven hours.  When you consider we have ten teams needing to draft about a third of their roster AND fill seventeen reserve slots, that’s a lot of action that needs to be completed.  Here’s an example for 2013’s draft.  Ten teams used the Auction Draft to acquire 112 players.  After the Auction Draft we fill out our Reserve Roster and we needed to fill 141 slots.  In 2013 the whole day took about 6 and a half hours (390 minutes).  In 390 minutes we filled 253 positions or one player every one minute and 30 seconds.  That’s a pretty healthy pace when you consider we do have to stop and take a break and stretch and use the facilities every so often.  If we don’t want to be drafting for ten hours (oh yeah, years ago we did that) then we have to avoid distractions like . . . 

Reminiscing:  Not so much about other drafts in CFCL history, although that certainly gets brought up.  But more about having really weird conversations about childhood memories, like Gigglesnort Hotel.  Which led to remembrances of other childhood weekend TV shows which led one owner to admit to his childhood crush of Henrietta Hippo.  I swear to the baseball gods I am not making this up.  Hilarious conversation?  Certainly.  Killer of the draft pace?  Absolutely.

Losing Track:  It is inevitable that over the course of six plus hours a man’s mind will wander.  All of us have been guilty of asking “What’s the bid at?”  “Who’s turn is it?” or perhaps the most embarrassing question “Who are we bidding on?”  It happens.  We have been able to police ourselves pretty well to make sure no one is spacing out.  There have been  years with certain owners where almost every time around the table there would be that look in their eyes where you just knew they didn’t realize the bid was on them or they didn’t know what the bid was.  For a few years we developed a Kangaroo Court to assess fines for owners that lost track of the draft.  We figured even if that wouldn’t make them pay closer attention then at least we could profit off of them.

Cat Napping:  This one hurts.  Yes, we have had one owner actually fall asleep during the draft.  Oh I don’t mean he pulled out a pillow, grabbed his binky and climbed up on the table to go to sleep.  He just leaned back in his chair, waiting for the bid to come around to him. . . . there was a lull as some owner gave extra consideration to raising the bid by a penny and by the time the action came around to the relaxing owner it was evident by the way he jerked forward and OPENED HIS EYES that he had dozed off.  At least he had the consideration to simply drop out of the bidding rather than ask to be updated on the status of the bid.

Avoiding Homicide:  Having owners space out or simply not pay attention to what’s going on is maddening.  But nothing comes close to having a new owner sit in his first CFCL draft and comment that “this is like watching paint dry.”  David and I have explained the nuances of the CFCL.  We are an “around the table auction league.”  We take turns bidding on players.  We don’t yell out bids like a true auction.  It takes a little longer, it’s a more measured approach but it’s something we do and *most* of our owners have come to appreciate it.  The Reservoir Dogs – not so much.  Jason Grey came to us with tremendous experience in fantasy baseball drafts.  His other leagues could draft entire teams in the space of an hour or two.  They would nominate Albert Pujols for .44 and go from there.  That cuts down on the time – and the fun in my opinion.  When Jason sat in on his first CFCL draft it was basically like having a speeding car slam into a brick wall.  He was massively frustrated when an owner would nominate Greg Maddux for a penny.  He couldn’t wait until the bid got to him so he could raise the bid to the appropriate value for Maddux.  Draft strategy and approach is fine.  But when a new owner says that the thing we wait every year for is “like watching paint dry”, well you can’t help but want to defend your league.

Setting the alarm:  One last challenge we face is trying to get everyone to show up on time.  The way we run things on Draft Day is that we conduct league business first (collect fees, elect the Executive Committee, sign the trophy ball, take the League Photo, go over new rules, hand out draft sheets, etc) and then move on to the Ruffin Privilege.  All of that takes time and is not factored into the six to seven hours of actual drafting.  Throughout the winter there are multiple, multiple e-mails and posts to our main information blog we call the Front Office that lays out what date the draft is and when it will start.  Inevitably there are the owners that will show up after the designated time because they didn’t think Starbucks would be that busy.  Or they thought they remembered where to turn to get to the right parking lot.  Or they didn’t think on a Sunday morning there would be much traffic.

None of these things are huge deals.  Actually they add to the history and enjoyment of being in a league such as the CFCL.  But they are challenges we face in running an efficient draft.

Deeper Dive: DunKenn

Earlier this week, Rich posted about Draft Day rituals, including mascots at the Draft.

The most consistenly-present Draft Day mascot has been the "corn cob figurine" that has accompanied Kenndoza Line at the annual auction.

In a comment to Rich's original post, Kenndoa owner Kenn Ruby provided some additional detail on his Draft Day Buddy:

DunKenn is actually a basketball-playing ear of corn I got in a Happy Meal in 1993. I have no idea why. Last year he was missing on draft day, which was just devastating for me. He was miraculous "found" months later, but by then the damage had been done.
Here's a close-up of DunKenn from the 2013 Draft Day photo Rich posted:

Draft Day Rituals

You have heard over many of the previous posts just how important and exciting Draft Day is in the life of a CFCL owner.  I think to a man we would say it is the first of two Christmases each year.  There is the initial build up as pitchers and catchers report, trying to cull together a team and a draft strategy.  Then there is the week before the Draft when everyone submits their Keeper List.  At this point we know who is available to be drafted and what everyone’s budget looks like.

But over the 30 years there has been a by-product of the Draft.  There are certain rituals that take place each year.  Some are subtle and largely go unnoticed.  Others are thrust forward for all to see.

The Driving Ritual:  Okay, this one is on the personal side.  Each year I leave my home in Aurora and drive to Naperville to pick up the DoorMatts.  This has been going on for twenty years.  The only modification to it has been in the last three years when the Twin Killers have been added to the car pool.  I usually pick them up about two hours before the draft (this is an old habit because in some of the conference rooms we used we had to rearrange a lot of furniture and we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.  Now we arrive early just so we can talk off some nervous energy.)  On the way in to the draft we’ll talk about baseball in general or observations about some of the players that were kept or cut.  We’re careful not to fall into a Jeff Stone type of situation, however.  http://cfclrebelcopperfield.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-jeff-stone-incident.html

The Mascot Ritual:  Some owners will bring along items that they believe will bring them good luck (or it could be a more sinister intent wherein the mascots are meant to distract fellow owners or bring them bad luck.)

The two that stand out to me the most are:

Kenndoza Line:  Kenn brings along a corn cob figurine that’s about two inches high.  Check out the League Photo for proof.  Kenn is standing front and center with Kenn-dunkin or a name close to that. 

For years I thought it was a figurine of Bert, from Bert and Ernie.  Kenn usually sits at the opposite end of the drafting table from me and with the figurine being so small, I never paid attention to its detail.  The color and shape reminded me of Bert, so I would always ask Kenn about his Bert doll.

Da Paul Meisters:  Paul actually brought a Bert doll to the draft for good luck.  Sure, go ahead and poke fun.  The Meisters did win a championship.  So has Kenn, come to think of it.  Maybe there’s something to this.

The Food Ritual:  There also are some food rituals that have evolved over the years.  The oldest one is Twizzlers and Pretzels.  This dates back to 1984 when the CFCL Draft was held at Mount Olympus (nickname for the apartment that David and I shared in Forest Park for two years).  David was creative with our outgoing phone message and one time included a line something like “You’ve reached Mount Olympus where licorice and pretzels are the ambrosia and iced tea flows like nectar.”  So David started the tradition of providing bags of Twizzlers strawberry licorice and pretzel rods for all the owners.  A tradition that has carried on every year . . . .except this year when I boneheadedly (yes, it’s a word) forgot to bring them.  I think the gods from Mount Olympus are exacting their revenge as Dem Rebels are currently taking up space in 9^th place.

Many years while David was in the league running the Copperfields, he would, like clock work, break out a breaded chicken patty.  He would then construct the breaded chicken patty sandwich during the draft.  It always took place at noon (plus or minus fifteen minutes).  Obsessive?  Dude won eleven championships.  I think we could all use a little more chicken in our diets.

The DoorMatts quietly have maintained a food ritual of their own.  Each year at some point they will break out either a box of Good N’ Plenty (original) or a bag of licorice snaps.  There definitely seems to be a consistent licorice theme in the CFCL.

The Six Packs (and you will see this be discussed when we post clips of Trading the Gator, the documentary we starred in) received help from Mrs. Six Pack with their ritual.  One year Kelly’s wife made him a batch of pastry bars.  Turns out that was the year that the Six Packs took the title.  The next year, no pastry bars and no title.  So Kelly made sure that for his remaining stay he always had those bars at the draft.  Turns out, the bars were not the cause of the championship as the Six Pack never regained the trophy.