Quick Shots

Working
I've been helping out 32 Hundred Lighting for a few weeks now. It's a bit of casual temping on the side. It's really interesting to see the events/promotions world from the other side of the producing ledger. The place is filled with great people so stay tuned for fun stories.

On The Court
I'm back to having regular hits on the tennis court. I think I've got my movement back and my strokes are pretty clean. My backhand comes and goes depending on my footwork but my forehand is in a groove. It's good to feel healthy.

Jack Kerouac Memorial League Season Starts!
My goodness it's taken me a fortnight to get to mention it but the MLB season is on for young and old again. The only thing that kept me sane through the Northern winter this yar was watching cricket and Tennis, which is no substitute for the joys of reading the box scores on Yahoo.

My draft this year was very rookie heavy:
1. (1) Johan Santana SP
2. (20) David Wright 3B
3. (21) Derek Jeter SS
4. (40) Mariano Rivera RP
5. (41) Huston Street RP
6. (60) Jered Weaver SP
7. (61) Takashi Saito RP
8. (80) Brian McCann C
9. (81) "King" Félix Hernández SP
10. (100) Cole Hamels SP
11. (101) Adam Dunn LF
12. (120) Delmon Young RF
13. (121) Todd Helton 1B
14. (140) Ryan Freel 2B,3B,LF,CF,RF
15. (141) Tadahito Iguchi 2B
16. (160) Akinori Otsuka RP
17. (161) Dennys Reyes RP
18. (180) Kei Igawa SP
19. (181) Reed Johnson LF,CF,RF
20. (200) Bobby Crosby SS
21. (201) B.J. Upton 2B,3B
22. (220) Austin Kearns RF
23. (221) Alex Gordon 3B
24. (240) Matt Murton LF
25. (241) J.D. Drew

Since then I've traded Santana for Dice-K (which raised eyebrows); cast aside Matt Murton for a 5th starter to fill in for a DL-ed Jared Weaver; looked for a pitcher for holds, but at the end of 2 weeks, I'm on top. Which promises absolutely nothing, but we'll see. Adam Dunn has been a revelation, but his friend Austin Kearns has been pretty slow to start. Nick Johnson (a.k.a OBP Jesus) was out injured for the season while Todd Helton has simply been grizzly.

I'm high on all these rookies, and so far BJ Upton, Delmon Young, Dice-K have been as advertised. Helton, Jeter and Mo are old on this squad!
Plus, I have King Felix, Cole Hamels and Jared Weaver. If only I could find a good 5th starter out of John Maine, Kei Igawa and Zach Greinke, I am Mr. Pitching Depth.

Alex Gordon has been slow, having had 3 hits in 29 ABs or so. One of those was a homerun - I'm going to be patient. After all, he was he most likely to be star prospect in just about everybody's forecast. He may supersede David Wright as the Combat Wombat 3B of the future.
On a related note, I'm really excited BJ Upton has finally arrived for the Devil Rays, and he's done so as a 2B. I foolishly parted with Chase Utley (I'm still trying to remember the reasoning as it was clearly stupid in retrospect). Upton hits like Jeter in the 2B hole, I'm a happy lad.

Question: Why is Orlando Hudson hitting in the 3 hole for the Arizona Diamondbacks? And why is he producing so much thus far? Very spooky, but I've decided to imbibe the Kool-aid to see what it's about. I've dropped Iguchi in favor of Hudson.

AFL Fantasy League
Encouraged by my 7th/16 place finish in the AFL last year, I have signed on again to take on the Jennings boys.
Here's my team for the year:

1. BIRCHALL, Grant (HAW)
2. CORNES, Chad (PTA)
3. BOYLE, Tim (HAW)
4. RICHARDS, Ted (SYD)
5. MILLER, Brad J. (MEL)
6. GLASS, Darren (WCE)
7. EGAN, Matthew (GEE)
8. CROSS, Daniel (WBD)
9. JUDD, Chris (WCE)
10. BRUCE, Cameron (MEL)
11. HODGE, Luke (HAW)
12. GOODES, Adam (SYD)
13. THOMAS, Lindsay (KAN)
14. EVERITT, Peter (SYD)
15. MOONEY, Cameron (GEE)
16. LUCAS, Scott (ESS)
17. O'KEEFE, Ryan (SYD)
18. THOMAS, Dale (COL)
19. HALE, David (KAN)
20. HALL, Barry (SYD)
21. JETTA, Leroy (ESS)
22. MCGRATH, Ashley (BRL)

Bench:
Torney, Jason
Mackenzie, Eric
Hurn, Shannon
Collins, Brett
Wood, Cameron
Taylor, Simon
MacDougall, Andrew
Phillips, Simon

It's a salary-capped league so you have to choose your stars wisely.
This year my tack is no longer "Stars & Scrubs", but depth. Because you can only have 20 trades in a 20 round season, you just can't afford to have a roster with holes where people don't play.
The guys who fluctuate do fluctuate wildly, but nothing hurts the bottomline as a guy who is on your roster who does not play. Last year, I didn't value the contribution of my scrubs enough and so spent most of my 20 trades looking for people to fill my holes. That was bad.

This all meant I had to fill in the likes of Shannon Hurn and Leroy Jetta before choosing my stars. In turn, it meant I had to forego Kane Cornes, Dean Cox, Dane Swan and so on - a real Bummer. Fortunately I retained Luke Hodge who I think is primed for a good year. I also managed to pick up Peter Everitt again, which amuses me in as much as he's moved to Sydney and I think he's under-valued. he's only 1 year out from a monster season and he's still very capable.

I also have familiar names from last year's squad in Barry Hall, Matthew Egan, Dale Thomas, Grant Birchall and Scott Lucas.
Who knows? It might work this year.