In order to increase readership (from 20 readers to 30) I'm going to blog about fantasy baseball on occasion, once a week, or so. Fantasy Baseball posts will receive the same attention to detail, and unbiased accuracy as I display in my NABA pots.
This league is composed of my childhood friends from NJ and the commissioner's family, including his dad, who may or may not have forgiven me for encouraging his impressionable son, Dave, to smoke cigarettes, and do other bad things as a 14 year old.
We take our fantasy baseball pretty seriously.
I co-manage BreakfastofChampions with Pease, the third Duck ever.
My prediction: Domination.
Vonnegut lives.
Commissioner Johnson made this video about our fantasy league, Gotham Fantasy Baseball.
(profanity warning)
I think he make youtube movies for a living, or something.
Based on last season's results the league basically breaks up into three classes. While the middle class is still USA 1950's strong, the distance between good and great is growing.
"G"
There are over 60 players in the free agent pool this season, I imagine there will be a few new teams, and possibly the merge of the Phantoms and Hurricanes. The Confederacy will try to hand pick two more guys to fill out their basketball team sized roster. With all the new talent, any team, even the Confederacy, has a chance to be greatly improved.
New additions I don't know about not withstanding, the classes of the Pittsburgh NABA seen through my, biased eyes.
Eating out of a trash can:
Rebels Hurricanes Phantoms
Eating at Arby's: Eagles Matadors Rakers (very little separation here) Eating at TJI Friday's Gray Bats Bulldogs Oilers
Eating at your mom's
Ducks
Eating at Mortons
Black Sox Warriors OwlzZzzzzz
***
Not much separates the middle seven teams. Sometimes the match-ups just work well and you catch the Black Sox on an early Saturday morning game. The Rakers swept the Black Sox last season, The Ducks went 2-1 against the Rakers The Black Sox went 2-1 against the Ducks, with two blowout wins. Here is your grain of salt, take it.
Now we are getting to the TJI Friday's section of the league previews.
The Bulldogs: Haven't won a playoff game ever.
The Bulldogs made the playoffs by a half game last season despite the Matadors attempts to sabotage their season.
Mike Martin and Wino have been training hard.
Bulldogs' catcher Joe Graff and pitcher BJ Rankin enjoying desert in Manassas. Rankin's slider is filthy.
The Bulldogs are the epitome of team work
This man is a finely tuned athlete
Viny Gala is the best all around firstbaseman in the league. Defensivly he had a beast of a tournament for the Blues in VA. He can hit the ball a long way. I remeber our time on the Ghostbusters fondly, he hit a triple.
Brian Strom will unveil his Bulldogs blog in the enar future. Sure to be a must read.
Strom Managed the O.C. fall ball team. they will probably add a few players from that squad.
The Bulldogs have another Ghostbuster on their roster
Dr. Dan Venkman is competitor and a top tier pitcher. Not afraid of Ghosts.
The Bulldogs will continue to be competitive.
The Gray Bats will not beat the Ducks this season. Take that to the bank, Sorosky. woooooooooooooooooo.
Manager Larry Zalewski sent up a signal for pitching help and Jeremy Barchie answered the call.
By my estimation, If Larry hadn't formed this team Pitchers, Jeremy Barchie and Ben Sorosky would be Ducks. They are a formidable 1-2 punch, one of the best in the league. Too bad in the 4th inning of every game, Larry will insert the elder statesmen of the team, and when their arthritic knees give out while in pursuit of a fly ball, Barchie and Sorosky will wind up being the victims of many unearned runs.
Apparently, "I want to be a Duck" really means, "I don't want to play for the Rakers"
This is what happens, Larry. (profanity)
Here are links to two other Gray Bats Blogs.Check them out and quack away in the comments section. This blog contains player profiles, which I recommend opposing catchers browse before playing this team in order to better know what to say to distract these guys while up at bat. The over 28 league is calling, Larry.
This is the Gray Bats coach
This is a link to Ben "sit on the change-up" Sorosky's blog, which contains a Gray Bats season preview. (In this preview Sorosky claims Galvanek has a gun. If that's the case we'd better take cover. Sorosky predicts a championship for the Gray Hairs.)
Solid blog work, by one of the Pittsburgh NABA's elite pitching talents. One of the best gifts the NABA has given me is the chance to compete against pitchers of Sorosky's caliber, and take them yard, as I did on 7/26/06 when Sorosky was a Knight. full disclosure, I was 1-5 against Sorksoy last season. 3-8 lifetime, with 1HR and 3 rbi.
In all seriousness, this team will be better than some expect. The big Question: Will Larry's desire to play everyone, and have a team with players of all skill levels ultimatly undermine the talent and the W-L record of the Gray Bats? I smell 4th place in the Monongahela in 2009.
***
The Rakers might not exist anymore, I don't even know what's going on with this team. I do know there is a set of sweet uniforms with "Cyrilla Landscaping" written across them. I would imagine those uniforms will return, and the rest of the players form this team will reappear somewhere.
There will probably be two more new teams, one of them will probably be solid, and the other team will be a joke.
I wonder which team the commissioner will put in his conference?
Here are the Ducks 2008 team awards as chosen by Manager of the Year, TC Jones, who also wrote the summaries.
Team MVP: Nick Homa.
Without a doubt Nick deserves the MVP award. Not only was he arguably the leagues best pitcher, but he put up pretty good offensive numbers too. Without Homa we would have been an under .500 team.
Offensive Player of the Year: Ben Gwin.
This may have been the hardest award to pick. I think this award could have easily gone to Chris Wojoton or Jesse smith, but I chose Ben Gwin because of his clutch and timely hitting. Any time we needed to drive in important runs, Gwin was the one to do it. The +20 RBIs on the season prove it.
Defensive Player of the Year: Coby Kolaja.
Can we argue with the diving catches, the flowing hair, and the absolute cannon of an arm? I don't think so. Coby Kolaja surprised everyone on the Ducks with his good reads and surprisingly accurate outfield arm.
Quack Talker of the year: Jim Spagnola.
I give this award to the Duck who made his presence felt with his verbal antics. It was a close call between Jim and Rick Whalen (both had particularly disgusting topics to ponder on the bench), but my decision was made after Spagnola called out an "F--- You" to an opposing pitcher after getting a hit.
Duck of the year: KT Murphy.
I give this award to the Duck who best accepted his position on the team as a role-player. KT was at every game and never complained. He was also our most timely pinch hitter and made the most out of every opportunity he got.
Most Improved Player of the Year: Garret Moore.
To be honest, at the beginning of the season I wasn’t sure how much time I would be able to get this man. But his hustle and ability to put the baseball in play during at bats gained him the starting role as the DH.
