CRL News

February 7, 2011

“If it’s the ultimate game, how come they’re playing it again next year?”

--- Duane Thomas

Guys,

I spent “Super Sunday” doing what I usually do every year – at least, every year in which I don’t have a rooting interest (beyond what the score is at the end of each quarter). I started planning for the season.

It took a few hours, since I was obviously watching the game and having an adult beverage or few while updating the rosters. (BTW, updating the rosters is a time-consuming process – after I paste them into a spreadsheet, I’ve got remove all the hyperlinks and format it the way we need it – so it is the perfect thing to do between plays in a four-hour game. Besides, I don’t need to listen to Troy Aikman belabor a point. (At least he’s not as bad as Joe Morgan.)) Wow, nested, double parenthetical statements – I’ve achieved a new low.

Not much news this time, mainly important dates.

Of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t report a couple of things.

Ken, our founder and Commissioner for life, almost divorced the CRL. But on one of his trips to LA (his daughter is attending USC), Glenn talked sweet nothings into Ken’s ear and the Commish is back in for another season. Ken initially seemed distraught that his players sucked, went on the DL, went to the minors, or got traded to the AL. Ken, one word of advice (one I need to heed myself) – study. People are starting to wonder if the brain trust behind all those championships was Greg Fisher and, later, Mike Look. OK, scratch the Look thought.

Not that I can talk much – I only kept two players last year. And I finished like I only had two players – in last place. As John Nance Garner once said about the Vice Presidency, that position is not even worth a bucket of warm spit – I pick way down the line in the minor-league draft.

Our only other news of note is that Pray for Milk co-owner Steve Hutcheson has been relocated by IBM (I’ll Be Moving) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His new email address is: stephenh@my.ibm.com. On a related note, Otis will be joining us in Vegas this year.

That’s all the nuggets I’ve got. Gee, you guys are boring.

Anyway, now to the reason you’re reading this – it’s calendaring time.

Tuesday, March 15 – Everyone needs to have their initial $250 to Glenn. His address is:

8561 Lasalle St # 53

Cypress, CA 90630

Thursday, March 24 – Roster Freeze Day. Please email me your keepers by midnight (CST). That way, I can update the keepers on Friday and give everyone a full weekend to figure out who’s available.

Thursday, March 31 – Will somebody take the lead on golf? I’m in this year (I get in Wed night), even though I haven’t picked up my clubs in months.

Also on Thursday, for all those that are in town by then, how about we get together for dinner? The pizza place is gone, the sushi bar is gone … I know Terry, et.al, have been doing Ruth Chris’ for several years. I told a few of you a couple of years ago about a great place my brother and sister in Law took Pat and me to the Sunday after our wedding – Henry’s Grotto in the Horseshoe. It was an “Old-Style” Vegas steakhouse – you could imagine the Rat Pack walking in – they tossed your salad at the table in front of you and put whatever condiments you wanted in it. Unfortunately, a quick Google search doesn’t turn it up any more. If one of you wants to take point on this, be my guest. One thought – how about Bautista’s Hole in the Wall? It’s good food, reasonable, and is in the same location as our old pizza place. I’ll defer to whoever wants to set this up, but count me in.

Finally on Thursday (finally?) – it’s Opening Day. MLB threw us a curveball this year by starting the season on a Thursday. On the bright side, we will have Opening-Day rosters – provided someone wants to get up early enough, go to the business center, look them up and print them out (if you are eager enough to do this, the league will reimburse your cost of surfing and printing).

Friday, April 1 (No fooling) – Draft. 10 AM, Imperial Palace Koko room. (OK, so we had a little drama over this, but no need to duplicate it in the “News” part of these ramblings.) As usual, no outside food or drinks or they charge us.

Finally, I’ve updated all rosters. This update includes guys playing out their contracts and the results of the severed links (from last fall) between players on the reserve and active rosters. If you kept a guy on your reserve roster, and subsequently keep him on Roster Freeze Day, you will owe the pot $5. As usual, I have not removed players who have been traded to the AL, as they might get traded back to the NL before Roster Freeze Day. I have also designated the maximum number of players each team may protect. Keeping farm payers costs you $5 each and does not count against your keeper limit – unless, of course, your farm keeper makes the Opening Day roster. If that happens, your keeper farm guy will be added to your protected roster with a salary of $5. If you kept the maximum number of players you could keep, you will have to make a declaration before the draft of who you are waiving – your farm guy(s) or (a) players(s) from your protected roster to make room for the farm guy.

One note on the linked rosters - any player with a contract of “O” is entering his option year and may be signed to a Long-Term Contract. For a refresher on the rules surrounding a Long-Term Contract, go here: http://www.c-r-l.org/rules/crlconst.htm#XVI

A list of current rosters can be found here: http://www.c-r-l.org/OSrosters11.htm.

Call or email with questions.

Jim