CFCL Owners of 1986

Not pictured [from left]:  Paul Mahlan (Paul's Penguin's), Chuck Hindricks (Spherechuckers), David Mahlan (and eventual CFCL Champion, David's Copperfields), Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels), Fred Mahlan (Fred's Friars), Dave Zirzow (Z-28's), Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles), Dave Holian (David's Ruffins).

1986 was perhaps the most crazy season in CFCL history.  First, we had FOUR new owners!  We should have had five but during the off-season, well here's the story.

At the end of the 1985 season the Mudville Sluggers resigned.  So during the off-season we invited Bob Monroe (Bald Eagles), Dave Holian (David's Ruffins) and Dan Harder (no team name) to join.  All accepted.  We arranged for there to be an auxiliary draft among the three new owners to draft from the Sluggers players.  Bob and Dave showed up, Dan didn't.  So Bob and Dave drafted their teams and we assigned the remaining players to Harder's team.  Dan proceeded to make a few trades during the off-season and then dropped out.  His players were released to the Free Agent Pool and available to draft on Draft Day.

Then ON DRAFT DAY, last year's owners Dave Goetz (Original 6 member and 1st CFCL Champion) and Dave Gross chose to drop out.  On Draft Day.

Still trying to figure things out, we left their rosters in tact and the other six owners drafted on Draft Day.  Shortly after the season began, I approached a guy I worked with at the bank (Dave Zirzow) and asked if he would like to join the league.  To be fair, at the time Dave was a huge Sox fan (which was okay with us since he was a baseball fan) and I thought this would be a good fit.  I mentioned that we had two owners quit and he said he had a friend (Chuck) who would be interested in the other team.  So far so good.  Things turned south when a rift developed between Dave and myself and Dave and Chuck quit middle of the season, refused to pay their fees and threatened physical retribution if any attempt to collect the fees were made.  So in the blink of an eye the CFCL had four Vile-despicable-scum as former owners.  Surprisingly we allowed the ForGoetzMeNots to return in 1994 for seven years.  Due to that he worked his way out of VDS status.

1986 was also the first time we used the Big Board (pictures of it are in other League Photo posts.  We also developed our first Master Draft List so we all had the same pool of names to select from.

Paul Mahlan felt the key to success was, in part, renaming his team.  So the Bunyans went out the door and the Penguins returned.

Even though it was Bob Monroe's first year in the league, he graciously opened his doors and allowed us to draft in his basement on Sunday, April 13th at 11am.  And it was there that we had the infamous Steve Carlton and Will Clark Incidents.  (Will Clark Incident in an upcoming post.)