The Darryl Strawberry Incident

You have been very loyal readers.  You have been patient.  You deserve to be rewarded.  And so we bring you "The Darryl Strawberry Incident".  1992 may have been the best draft ever for humor and entertainment, and here is the Piece de Resistance (French for "good stuff").

Some background.  For eight years the CFCL owners enjoyed the Draft Day Bidding Process.  We would typically nominate every player for ".01" and then go around the table increasing the bid by a penny.  Ridiculous to bid .01 on a superstar?  Well, sure.  But it was quaint and fun.  It was also amusing to watch the momentum build as the bids got higher.  I still recall the exuberance of The Professor when the bidding went around the table on some forgotten player some forgotten year with each owner bidding and each owner only increasing the bid by .01.  There were ten owners in the league and when the bidding got back to The Professor for a second trip around the table, the bid was a perfect ".10".

There were times (as you will see in the video below) when an owner would begin the bidding a little higher than .01.  And occasionally an owner would increase the bidding by more than a penny, but usually it was no more than two or three cents.

Enter Pat McGuire of the Twin Picks.  Pat had been in the league previously from 1988-1990, stepped away in 1991 and returned for a two year run beginning in 1992.  Apparently three years of this "quaint and fun" bidding style crap was enough.  It appeared that he thought he could singlehandedly shave hours off the draft by getting the bidding to an appropriate price as quickly as possible.

What you are about to see is, in my opinion, the quintessential moment of the CFCL.  The reaction of two owners (Tom Clark and Dave Holian) to McGuire's efforts to get the bidding going has been retold around the CFCL Draft Table a million times.  Fortunately for all of us it was captured on video and it is yours to see here.