For me, boredom of the Super Bowl and a believing wife had a large role in me joining the NFBC.
2005.
The Super Bowl was on. I can't even remember who was playing. The game was close enough, but just dull to me. I surfed the internet.
I saw an advertisement about how I can win $100,000 playing fantasy baseball and took a closer look to see what 'the catch' was.
I was surprised in that it was set up in a league form with a draft, not the pay for each player mode and keep under a budget style.
I was interested.
2005 was our 30th anniversary year. Before even bringing up fantasy baseball, I asked my wife if she would like to take a trip west in March. You know, hit some tourist places in California, the beach, and yeah, Las Vegas. She was interested.
At the end of the game, I explained that I had an ulterior motive, that I wanted to play fantasy baseball while in Vegas.
I got a quick ok.
Only because she believed that fantasy baseball was a game that can be played anywhere, much like poker.
So, I told her about the cost....
I turned my head for fear of schrapnel...
"$1,250 to play?!?" "A game!?!"
I was ready for it. "I know it's expensive. Heck, I've never paid more than $100 for a league. But, I think I am good. I've won just about every league I've been in. Lets try it one year, see how I do, and then decide next year. Whaddya say?"
She gave me the ok.
I got my study on. That year I decided my study would consist of just one fantasy magazine and vigorous looks at 'real' baseball sites. I wanted to know more how a team felt about each player more than his 'fantasy' abilities.
This course of study worked well. Most players I drafted were near the top of most teams batting orders shortly after the season began.
I was ready for Vegas.
I was awe struck by the size of the draft room at the Rio. Looking around the room, I saw 200 mirror images of myself. True, they were younger, slighter versions of myself......
But, Man, all these 'nerds' were like me!
Nirvana.
I took a seat where my name card was, my wife next to me. We introduced ourselves to Brian (Bjoak) sitting on one side of us and Dave (Dyv) on the other side. We don't drink, so we offered Brian our drink tickets (A friend for life ).
I went into that draft targeting three players, the rest were best player available mode. I had the eighth pick and wanted to zag while others zigged. I wanted Johan Santana with the first pick. A pitcher was risky, but I felt he had the best chance to pitch well enough to be an eighth pick.
I wanted David Ortiz in the second and a speedster who had been hurt the year before, Jose Reyes in the fourth round.
All of my targeted players came home to roost, but the zagging, wasn't zagging . I am writing this mostly from memory, but I think there were four pitchers taken in the first round of our draft.
All in all, I was happy with our team. Clemens, Lugo, Reggie Sanders, and Hidecki Matsui were all players that could play above their heads for a year and all did.
We also drafted Brady Clark, a guy that would have a career year. He hit around .300, went 10-10 and scored close to 100 runs. Dumb luck for me. Then guru, Peter Gammons, had a story on him right before the draft and it stuck in my mind.
That team won overall honors for the first week. We won a signed photo of Roger Clemens, only fitting since he was on the team.
We used to get an NFBC Weekly Newsletter and the Overall winner would get written up along with any free agent bids over $50.
I miss those Newsletters.
That team just got stronger, picking up John Patterson, Brian Fuentes, and Dan Johnson during the season. The team was out of first place, overall, only a couple days leading up to September.
I was a Message Board reader, but never contributed (believe it or not
). I was still a rookie and I never have been much for trash talking. I thought it best to sit on the sidelines. I think it was August of that year when I made my first post.The Message Boards, back then, were dominated by Gordon Gekko. A little different than now, he was more combative and would not let any debate go by without his input. Back then, he was not afraid to get personal in winning an argument. Some 'gunslingers' even signed on to the Boards, just to have a pisssing match with Gekko. Greg would quickly dispatch them.
My team started losing steam come September. A few injuries, a few second half collapses, and all of a sudden, there were four other teams on my heels. My frontrunning days were numbered and there wasn't much I could do about it.
Jimmy Rollins went on a spectacular hitting streak that September and carried 'Moneymaker'.
Moneymaker was a friend of Gordon Gekko and had a helluva team. Since then, he has played in the NFBC very little.
By the last week of the season, Moneymaker had solidified his hold on first place. A hold, that he would maintain. Second through fifth places were still to be determined. CC's Desperados, Marty Bedell's team (I can't remember the name), Appleton Hays, and our team were in .
When the last day came around, CC's had dropped to fifth place, Appleton Hays had fourth secured, and Marty's team led mine by 10 points for second.
I had an ace up my sleeve in that Santana was pitching the last game of the year. There was talk that they would forego his start, so it was a gamble putting him in the starting lineup.
The gamble paid off. Santana won his game easily, and I would wait till the next morning to see if it was enough to garner second place. There was no live scoring in 2005.
Second place was ours. That team ended up beating Marty's team by one skinny point.
At the end of the year, I thought our team was the worst of the top 5, but the stats accumulated leading up to September kept the team in the running and our eventual second place finish.
$15,000 for finishing second, then, and $5000 for winning our league guaranteed a return trip to Las Vegas.
And we've been coming back ever since.
