The Copperfield Gets Married

Twenty-two years ago today, the love of my life, Michelle, stood up before friends, family, and God and became my wife.

Nearly the entire membership of the CFCL was on hand to help us celebrate (only Mr P’s Swordfish were missing). Pictured below are: Kelly Barone (Six Packs),groomsman Eric Lamb (Lambchops), groom David Mahlan (David’s Copperfields), best man Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels), groomsman Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles), and David Holian (David’s Ruffins).

Of course we also had to take part in that “dudes at a wedding” staple, the Thumbs Up:

The untold story behind all the smiles is the intense pennant race that three of the guests were engaged in. Kelly, Eric, and Bob were running neck-and-neck heading into the final week of the season. The standings report published prior to the wedding had the Six Packs and Eagles were tied for first with 67 points, the Lambchops sat just behind them at 66 points. I’m sure it made for some interesting conversation at the reception.

The thing to remember about the CFCL in 1991 is that I was still manually compiling the stats and standings at the time and we didn’t have a back-up in place. So I took off for my honeymoon with the tightest pennant race in CFCL history hanging in the balance with a week’s worth of games still to play (the season ended on October 6).

The CFCL had to wait until I returned from my honeymoon in mid-October to find out that the Eagles finished on top, while the Six Packs and Lambhops were tied just a point behind. In the end, it may have been a transaction involving Chico Walker that cost the Six Packs the pennant (see the post on The Chico Incident).

I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring this post back around to Michelle. She was always incredibly understanding about my roto addiction and never played the role of the neglected “Roto Widow.” She never complained about the late nights pounding stats into the computer and compiling roster change reports, and never made me feel guilty about leaving her alone with a houseful of kids for a 12 hour day when we drafted each spring.

On the contrary, she actually was quite supportive on Draft Day, often sneaking a card like the one below into my draft prep materials for me to discover mid-Draft. In fact, she even played a key role in a Draft Day Incident (stay tuned for a later post about The Snookie Incident). Even now – a couple years after I retired from active participation in the CFCL, she’s willing to let me spend half an hour on our wedding anniversary to write this post. What a woman!