The problem that I had going into this year's baseball draft was that two of the relief pitchers that I had counted on for my returning team had been carded in the extra (XB) card set which we don't actually play with under the current rules. This is what happens when you draft a lefty specialist apparently, even if he appeared in a great many games.
( Damage control pitching... )

It's time for our annual APBA baseball draft tomorrow and I think I've finally finished my research, since tomorrow is now today. We're shifting format so that those of us with less time can play the entire season on the computer, which should make it possible for me to keep this up.

Now I just have to see what I end up with. As it turns out, I (barely) qualified for last year's playoffs and I'm drafting fifth out of eight teams. I wonder what I'll have a shot at by the time it gets to me...

We're holding the annual draft on Sunday and one of our managers is trying to finish up the computer season run. It's being entertaining out there, as I'm not sure that all the options are quite set up correctly in the computer.

Maybe I'll invite him to swing by with the laptop. :)

I'm off to Milwaukee this evening to watch the Cubs play the Brewers. And from my point of view as a Cardinals fan first and a Cubs fan second, I'm happy to root for the Brewers to lose this game.

Since CC Sabathia, the Brewers' starter, is on my fantasy team though, I'm reduced to hoping that the damage to him is minimized.

It's a sad thing. :)

We had our annual APBA baseball draft today. I missed last year's draft and sat out the season, as things were being a bit complex. After talking this over with daisy_knotwise, we agreed that it was reasonable for me to take a shot at it this year again.

I took Katie to the draft so Gretchen could get some things done. One of the other managers had thoughtfully brought a huge tub of stuffed animals that had once belonged to his kids. This delighted Katie.

Frighteningly, the tub appears to have come home with us. :)

One of the guys from the paper baseball league is coming by tomorrow night so I can look at the cards and discuss things with him. We'll see how it goes. :)

Guth will be over later this evening and I'll show him how to set up the Micro Managers for the APBA computer season. They'll play that while I'm down in Columbus this weekend, all automatically.

In the meantime, if you're interested in any of the Cubs tickets that I posted the other day, let me know.

Actually, it's baseball season. I managed to torch the entirety of last season in my cards-and-dice baseball league by getting too busy (and eventually, too busy with a knee injury) to play, but we've decided to have me go one more round in the draft and see what happens.

Unfortunately, the draft is on Sunday, when I'll be in Orlando in the middle of an all-day meeting with some of our product's best customers. Fortunately, Guth was good enough to come by with the cards on Wednesday so I could study them. Today, I gave him my instructions so that he can draft for me (when he's not drafting for himself).

We'll see how it goes.

And our annual baseball draft was finished in record time today, taking less than four hours for the actual draft phase. By the time we'd assembled rosters and run the computer-based half of the season, it was a bit longer, but all in all a good time.
( And I got... )

Today is Draft Day! Yes, I know that there was quite a draft at Wrigley Field yesterday, but I'm talking about today's annual draft for our APBA baseball league where we play an 84-game season face-to-face rolling dice and looking up numbers on player cards based on their 2005 statistics.
( Strategy? What's that? )

I'm running through games of APBA baseball, trying to finish the 2004 season. Rich Hernandez came by and we played eight games today, where I won 6 games to 2, punctuated by a game seven where I removed my ace reliever with a seven run lead going into the ninth inning and watched Rich score eight runs in the top of the ninth to take a one run lead. I felt really stupid until I scored two in the bottom of the ninth to win.

In a minute, daisy_knotwise and I will be heading off to alymid and greenmansgrove's house for the Riverfolk concert. But first we have to print the directions...

daisy_knotwise and I had fun this weekend. Yesterday, I played APBA baseball with Lanny and knocked off my last six games with him. Then we headed up to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant at the corner of Dundee and Arlington Hts. Roads, and had an enjoyable four hour dinner with mgucciard and marniegucciard where Gooch prepared an enormous quantity of stuffed mushrooms. The staff there is certifiably insane, but definitely fun.

Today, we got up late, had lunch, prepped the house for the cleaning lady on Monday, and headed off to the cheap theater to see Ocean's Twelve. Gretchen is repotting the peace lily while I catch up on e-mail and sleep is scheduled soon.

But the best news is that we get a bonus day, because we both have President's Day off tomorrow. If only the cleaning lady wasn't coming at 8 AM...

Playing APBA baseball with cards and dice means that you can play in almost any weather, although you don't get nearly the amount of exercise that you do at the real game. Given that it was 30 degrees and snowy here today, APBA looked pretty good, exercise or no.

I played six consecutive one-run games and went 2-1 in each 3 game series, scoring a total of 14 runs, 7 runs in the last four games.

It was the land that offense forgot. The final game was 1-0, with Clemens and Gagne combining on the shutout. (And this wasn't Cy Young winner Clemens from 2004; this was his mediocre final season with the Yankees.)

Had a bad day at my fantasy baseball league today, losing 5 out of 6 games. But I'm still over .500 and guaranteed a playoff spot because I won the computer half of the season, so things could be much worse.

Gretchen will be up in just a minute and we're going to try to finish writing the last bit for the ConClave show. Then we just need to memorize all of the lines...

I played 10 games of APBA baseball today and went 9-1, pushing my record to 13-5 and moving me into first place.

Apparently, the team has been taking lessons from the St. Louis Cardinals...

I've been playing APBA baseball for more than 20 years and the league will be over at my place today to try to get some games in. This is a cards-and-dice game where you draft players from the major leagues, construct lineups, and roll the dice to see what happens based on the previous year's statistics. Because this is a continuous ownership league, you get to keep your players and there's a lot of jockeying around for young, developing talent.
( So who's on your team? )
Anyway, I'm at 4-4, so I've got a bunch of games left to play. Today's a good time to start. (We play 84 face-to-face following a 78 game computer season -- which I won! So I'll be in the playoffs one way or another...)