Compiled by the co-Founders and typewritten on two different typewriters, it was photocopied and hand-delivered to league members. For the previous couple years, bits of league news had been published in the weekly Roster Change report, but Rich felt there was room for something more and suggested this additional weekly publication.
The inaugural issue included a team profile for one of the Original Six teams, Paul’s Penguins, which combined some basic information submitted by the Penguins’ owner and supplemented with some creative writing from Rich and me to fill it out (stay tuned for an update from the Penguins' owner later this week). There’s also a page league notes (check out the rather un-PC open trade proposal from the Ruffins!), and an “anonymous” letter that had been submitted by Bob Monroe, the owner of the Bald Eagles, along with a reply from the Co-Commissioners.
Click the link below to see the full issue:
One other item mentioned in that first newsletter was the "Head to Head League". This was an extra in-season competion that we ran for a few years, matching up CFCL teams in a daily head to head competion. We'll cover that feature in a future post.
Before too long (I believe, starting with the next issue), Rich took over full operation of the newsletter, with only periodic contributions from me and the other owners in the league. But one on-going presence in the newsletter was that of Bob Monroe. Not as a contributor, but as the main recipient of Rich’s barbed humor.
Within a few issues, the newsletter grew to include images - photos Rich clipped from the newspaper and taped onto the page along with entertaining, CFCL-specific captions. Gary Larson, served as the official cartoonist of the CFCL Newsletter, making an appearance whenever he published a Far Side cartoon that featured someone named Bob (which happened more often than you'd expect).
Rich continued publishing the CFCL Newsletter on pretty much a weekly basis for the next several seasons, and continued pummeling Bob on an equally regular basis - even after Bob's departure from the CFCL. Early in 1993, Rich gave the newsletter an official title – The Monroe Doctrine – in recognition of his favorite whipping boy.
Publication of the newsletter trailed off in 1994 and finally ceased in 1995. The Monroe Doctrine came roaring back at the end of 2006, making its cyberspace debut in a blog that Rich continues to publish to this day.
We’ll reprint additional excerpts from the newsletter’s early paper-based years in future posts.
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