AnotherHotCornerHasBeen

I have never played any fantasy sports, mostly because there was a fee and an element of gambling, that I have made a personal decision to avoid in my life. But I recently saw that there was a free league that anyone could join at ESPN.com. I went to check it out and decided to get involved.

I chose a league that did an auto-draft rather than a live draft, where I had no experience. There are ten teams in the league. My roster looks pretty good to me, but I guess I will learn a lot in the next few weeks. The name of my team is Belarus Bombers.

Here is my roster:

Brian McCann, Atl C
Jimmy Rollins, Phi SS
Alexei Ramirez, CWS 2B
Jermaine Dye, CWS OF
Mark DeRosa, Cle 2B, 3B, OF
Brad Hawpe, Col OF DTD
Todd Helton, Col 1B
Chris Young, Ari OF
Chase Utley, Phi 2B
Alex Rios, Tor OF
Alex Gordon, KC 3B
Shane Victorino, Phi OF
Bobby Abreu, LAA OF
B.J. Upton, TB OF
Mike Napoli, LAA C
Shin-Soo Choo, Cle OF

Chris Volstad, Fla SP
Brandon Lyon, Det RP
Justin Verlander, Det SP
Brad Lidge, Phi RP
Erik Bedard, Sea SP
Jair Jurrjens, Atl SP
Carlos Zambrano, ChC SP
Ricky Nolasco, Fla SP
Roy Halladay, Tor SP

What do you think?

(first posted at qassia)

I am one of a group of six that split a pair of season tickets for the Houston Astros baseball games at Minute Maid Park. Four of the guys take ten games each while two of us have twenty games each. Each season we have a draft to determine which games we will get.

We had our draft last night and I had the number one pick, so I will be at Opening Day against the Chicago Cubs next Monday. I expect to see Roy Oswalt as the starting pitcher for Houston and Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs. It will be a wonderful day as the new season opens with all the promise and the excitement!

Miguel Tejada’s immediate playing future was cleared up today when he received probation for having lied to Congress. He was liable for up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine for his crime, but was given leniency because he plead guilty. He will also have to pay $5000 as his fine, but now he can get on with his preparations for the season without an ax hanging over his head. Let’s hope that translates into a good season for him and the Astros!

I don’t know how things will turn out for the rest of the NCAA tournament, but my bracket for the first round still looks pretty good. I was correct on 25 of the 32 games, picking a few upsets along the way. The worst miss I made was in picking Butler over LSU, and I missed on Dayton over West Virginia.

But I got the Cleveland State upset over Wake Forest and the Arizona win over Utah. I have CSU beating ‘Zona in the second round but losing to Louisville in the Sweet 16.

How’s Your bracket looking?

I have watched the Houston Astros throughout their history. The one position for which they have never raised a star player is catcher (I know Biggio began as a catcher). The best catchers have been Brad Ausmus and Alan Ashby. Neither was much of an offensive threat. I am in hopes that the young man the ‘Stros drafted last year out of Stanford, Jason Castro, will be that star catcher we have been waiting for for all these years.
Today it was announced that the Astros have reached an agreement for a one-year contract with Ivan Rodriguez.

He is one of the top catchers of all time. And I believe he will add more offense to the lineup than the departed Ausmus, even though I-rod is well past his prime. Perhaps it was a marketing move based on the horrendous record of the team in Spring Training. I hope Ivan can stay healthy for the season and have a renaissance season that makes the move a remarkable one.

If you were going to build a seafood processing business or water treatment plant, you would certainly want to make sure that every part used was of the highest quality and that each one meets FDA requirements. Using a highly regarded company like Plastic Machining Company to create  every bearing and plastic insert to your custom specifications would make great sense and assure that your business would succeed.

Right now there is extreme competition going on in at least a couple of realms. One is the NCAA basketball world. March Madness is just beginning and will infect the country for the next three weeks. The jockeying for a place in the 65-team tournament field is important to the athletes and to the institutions for which they play. The players will gain fame, and in many cases, fortune based on their performance in the pressure games against the best talent.  And, of course, the colleges and universities that play in the tournament get to share in the revenues generated by the spectacle. Talk about competition!

And in the spring training camps for the major league baseball teams there is a lot on the line for the young players and the marginal players trying to make a roster. The money for a major league player is substantial, but for a minor leaguer, it is much more difficult to make ends meet. And for the younger guys, there is the worry that their talents may not allow them to fulfill the dream they have had for as long as they can remember.

In the past decade or so with the economy strong and both my wife and I working, there were very few days when we did not have enough money to make it from one pay check to the next without difficulty. But now, with the economy taking such a down turn, and with my wife having retired. I anticipate that we will have weeks when the money runs out and an emergency arise. A Payday Loan would be very helpful. Not only would it lighten a load, it is very easy to acquire online. You don’t have to leave home or ask a loved one for assistance.

My nephew called today and said he had been given tickets for the game between the Houston Rockets and Cleveland Cavaliers. I had not been to a Rockets’ game in a long time and I thought it would be fun to see LeBron James. The seats were 17
 row from the floor at mid-court. They cost $175 per seat, which gives you a chance to see why it has been so long since I have attended a game.

The Rockets won 93-74 and LeBron had one of his worst games as a professional. He scored 19, but shot only 33% and had no assists, for the first time in his career. It was a quality win for the Rockets, to say the least.

There probably will never be a movie about it, but it was the kind of game that a young man will reflect on for a lifetime. Last Friday I went to watch my 16-year-old grandson play in a sub varsity basketball game. His team plays very hard, but they have not won many games. The first half of the game was hard to get excited about, because our team couldn’t seem to find the basket with a shot. At the intermission they were trailing 29 to 16.

But the second half is a completely different story. The boys came out with the same high intensity on defense, but now they began to make some shots. One of the boys on our team got hit with an elbow just above his left eye and it began to bleed. He had to come off and get some treatment. To keep the bandage in place, his head was wrapped in a medical tape that made it look like he was wearing a sweat band. But his wound didn’t keep him out of the game or cause him to be bashful. He and my grandson are the primary ball handlers for the team, so it was important for him to be on the court. In the third quarter shots began to fall for everyone, including my grandson who hit three three-pointers in that frame. Our team held the visitors to only six points in the quarter, and the score at the end of three quarters was 35-34.

The game was intense in the fourth quarter, but our defense was up to the task again and only allowed nine points in the quarter. In the midst of the battle, I was thrilled, and afterwards found out my grandson had heard and was also thrilled, to hear the opposing coach shot several times in the frame, “Beware of number 5, beware of number 5!” He didn’t want number 5 to get any good looks at the basket because he was really on fire. Number 5 ended up leading scorer in the game with 25 points and his team won 55-44. Of course you know who wore number 5 for our team, don’t you?