Creating a Baseball Fantasy League
by Jay Moncliff
(9/15/05) The last decade has seen many changes, one of them
being the amazing involvement of individuals in baseball fantasy
leagues as well as other fantasy sports. There are no specific
rules for baseball fantasy involvement; however an unspoken rule
for you to be successful at baseball fantasy games is for you
to have a real appreciation and interest in real baseball. These
simple steps will help you start a baseball fantasy league that
you will really enjoy playing with the whole season.
Baseball Fantasy Step #1 Calling all Teams The first baseball
fantasy step to creating a league is getting your teams together.
This basically means you need to get 8-12 friends together to
create teams. Remember, if you have less than 8 teams or more
than 12 your season will not be as enjoyable. The suggested 8-12
baseball fantasy teams mean you will be able to have a competitive
season.
Baseball Fantasy Step #2 Elections Every baseball fantasy
league needs a commissioner, or someone who is in charge. This
person will be responsible for compiling each team’s statistics
on a weekly basis and distributing them to all of the players.
Be sure you elect a commissioner who is responsible and takes
the position seriously.
Baseball Fantasy Step #3 One League or Two This can be a tough
decision, but it must be made. This is the decision of whether
or not to use only one league or both the American and National
Leagues.
Baseball Fantasy Step #4 The Draft Acquiring players can be
done in many different ways, and the best way for your baseball
fantasy league to do this is what works best for all teams. Sometimes
a draft works, other times an auction, decide what works best
and then stick with it.
Baseball Fantasy Step #5 Rules Each league has rules so far
as statistics and how points are accumulated. Whatever rules
apply to your league make sure all teams are aware and follow
the rules.
Baseball Fantasy Step #6 Have Fun Remember to have fun and
enjoy your baseball fantasy league. This has been going on for
years and millions of Americans really enjoy this activity. Some
play for money, some play for trophies, and others simply play
to win. Whatever you choose to play for, make sure all teams
are in favor.
About the Author:
Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.baseballcenter.info
a blog focusing on the Baseball, resources and articles. This
site provides detailed information on Baseball. For more info
on Baseball visit: http://www.baseballcenter.info
Jay Moncliff is the founder of http://www.1-online-pharmacy.info
a blog focusing on the Medical, resources and articles. This
site provides detailed information on medicines. For more info
on Pharmacy visit: http://www.1-online-pharmacy.info
Jay Moncliff may be contacted at http://www.1-online-pharmacy.info/
O'nan's Baseball notebook for July
11th
by john onan
(7/11/05) Don’t look now, but here comes the old reliables’
(The Yankees and The Braves). In New York, after all the talk
of Torre and the coaching staff being on the hot seat, and the
team needing to makes this move or that one (this is an all star
lineup already, right?), it is now becoming a two team race again
in the AL East. It’ll come down to the Yankees and the Boston
Red Sox, like it always does.
In Atlanta, the Braves limped into the break, losing their
last two vs. Milwaukee. But, help is on the way. Look for Tim
Hudson and Mike Hampton to be back in the fold by the end of
the month. I’ve gotta favor the Braves if they get into
a “heads up” with Washington in September.
Well, in case you guys didn’t know before, David Wells
is STILL a jerk. Anyone who compares a guy holding a TV camera
within a ten foot vicinity of a Major League ballplayer to sexual
assault of a woman is badly out of bounds. Kenny Rogers was no
victim in this case, glad he decided to apologize. Hopefully,
he will get the anger management help he needs.
The Florida Marlins continue to underachieve and disappoint.
Good timing for the Cubs, who go into the All Star Break on a
high notes. Now that the whispers for Dusty Baker’s job
have lowered, I’m starting to hear the calls for Jack McKeon
to step down. Considering his age and the fact that he has already
accomplished what he set out to do (a World Series Title in 2003),
he will probably step aside at the end of the year, or sooner.
With the news that Toronto Ace Roy Halladay will be out for
at least a month with a fractured tibia, coupled with the fact
that the Red Sox and Yankees are both red hot, look for the Blue
Jays to consider becoming a seller towards the trade deadline.
I don’t see them holding a fire sale, but Miguel Batista
and Ted Lilly could be had for the right asking price
John Onan (ego74) is a sports writer and handicapper. He runs
Ego Sports Consulting, where he offers winning sports picks for
a very reasonable price.
His website is http://ego42420.tripod.com and he can be reached
at nay7201@mail.com
john onan may be contacted at or nay7201@mail.com
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Baseball in Shanghai? Another American Sport Exported
to China
by Richard Robbins
(7/2/05) As an athlete (or at least having been an athlete
in the past) and a sports fan, one of the difficult things about
finding myself on an extended stay in Shanghai, China (setting
up sporting goods manufacturing and other business contacts)
is the near isolation from most American sports. Although basketball,
over the past ten or so years, has become popular among the Chinese
people, baseball has yet to find its way into the sports culture
here. While at every school or playground it's likely you'll
find some kid aspiring to become the next Yao Ming, mention the
term "baseball" to most Chinese, even ones who speak
pretty good English, and you'll likely find yourself having to
search through a phrasebook to find the Chinese phrase for baseball:
"bangqiu" (pronounced bong chi-o).
I had heard from some of the expatriates living in Shanghai
that there was some sort of baseball team playing in the city,
so I did some Google searches to see whether I could find information
about the team. I found a few articles on the Internet about
the Shanghai Eagles' spring trip to the U.S. to compete against
junior college teams. The game summaries, published by the news
people at a few of the U.S. schools against which the Eagles
played, described a team that had decent pitching, but not much
hitting. As can happen with that kind of team chemistry, the
Shanghai club lost all seven of its exhibition games in the U.S.
I didn't expect much when I went to watch the team play, but
I was excited to actually see a baseball field again, having
been in China for awhile, and I wanted to experience the baseball
environment here. A Chinese friend of mine hunted down information
about where the Shanghai Eagles played and at what time, so I
took my wife out for a Friday afternoon at the baseball field.
The old ball game didn't have any peanuts or Cracker-Jacks,
or hot dogs, or drinks, or very many spectators. There was a
mascot dressed in a chicken suit, and, although we had to search
behind some buildings to find it, surprisingly the field looked
pretty standard. There was a total of probably fifty people in
attendance when the game began. People came and went as the game
progressed. Something that struck me was the feeling that many
there were obviously hard-core baseball fans, the kind you would
expect to find catching foul balls at a MLB park. After quickly
being spotted as one of the only white guys in attendance, I
was approached by Dan Washburn, a news consultant doing a story
for Baseball America. During my conversation with him, he told
me that he met some older Chinese men at one of the games he'd
attended. He mentioned that when he asked them what brought them
out to the event, they told him they played ball when they were
much younger, being forced to leave the game behind when Mao
Zedong did away with the American influence during the Cultural
Revolution. As for the group of boisterous, college-aged enthusiasts,
I was told that a group of them attended the local baseball college,
and they were being trained to later become professionals. (In
China, many children who express a particular athletic skill
are guided down a specialized path devoted largely to the ultimate
fulfillment of their athletic capabilities.) There were some
younger T-ball aged kids at the game who were introduced to me
by the uncle of one of the boys. He wanted them to practice English
with me and my wife, and later the two boys asked me to play
catch with them using the homemade-looking, well-used baseball
one of the boys brought to the game.
The area we used to play catch was the same grass area outside
the stadium used by the professional teams to warm up their bullpen
pitchers. I used the opportunity to get a feel for how well a
professional pitcher in China throws. The one I saw was probably
throwing in the high-70's to low 80's. I watched him throw curve
balls with some good movement and change ups as well. His control
was comparable to an average to good college pitcher.
The particular game we watched went into extra innings as
the Eagles dropped a large lead late in the game. Being distracted
by people attempting to practice English during the tenth and
eleventh innings, it wasn't until the twelfth that I noticed
a strange twist to baseball as the Chinese play it. Probably
for the sake of ending the game as soon as possible, they allow
both teams to start extra innings with a runner on second base.
One problem I saw with this approach is that it made the game
boring, as the apparent lack of confidence in hitting on the
part of both teams turned the extra innings into a bunt-fest.
Finally Tianjin broke open and went on to win 9-5 in 12 innings.
During the game, I met some college baseball players who had
become interested in baseball when they came to college. They
don't attend the designated baseball college, so their educational
involvement baseball is only extra-curricular. They invited me
to play with them, and I have participated in some of their practices
and scrimmages.
On a Wednesday afternoon in May I followed the directions
given to me to meet the team at the Shanghai Teacher's University
on Guilin Road. The field where the team practiced wasn't actually
a baseball field. It was a general-purpose field used mainly
for soccer and track exercises. I have quickly come to understand
that the space limitations in Shanghai, similar to most parts
of China, make it so that facilities have to double up on their
usage. It was amusing to me to watch as we set up for a scrimmage.
The areas where right and center field should be was filled with
a mix of people, including a few of our people playing those
positions, and soccer players who were not in the least interested
in what we were doing, especially since they were fully engaged
in their own game. As fly balls dropped among them, some of the
soccer players would pick the balls up and toss them back, while
others would, with a demonstration of irritation, kick them out
of the way. Fortunately for the soccer players, none of them
were hit.
Many of the baseball players were not so lucky. A healthy
fear of hard baseballs traveling at high speeds seems to be second
nature for most Americans, as if we are born with an understanding
that if a ball is fouled off into someone's face, it's going
to hurt like heck at best. Although most of them didn't understand
what I was saying, I attempted many times to tell those watching
the action to back away from the batter and catcher. During one
ten-minute interval, I saw three people get hit hard in the face
or head by baseballs. Throughout the whole practice there were
constant near-misses as well.
On-deck hitters kept with the Chinese custom for preserving
one's place in line by crowding behind the person in front. That
approach is okay for the local McDonald's. In fact, if you don't
push your way up in line, you will find yourself standing in
the same place for a long time, with person after person jumping
in front of you. However, when the person at the front of the
line is swinging a bat, a different set of rules should apply.
During the first practice with the college players, I was
invited to pitch to the team as they scrimmaged. It soon became
apparent that there were various skill levels represented at
the plate. I was reminded of something I saw in Little League
(where kids are usually just beginning to learn how to react
to balls thrown towards them) when a particularly nervous batter
accidentally stepped in front of the plate, opening up towards
the ball so that it hit him directly in the stomach. Fortunately
I was only throwing about 70 mph, so no major damage was done,
except that the player was likely quickly cured of any interest
he had in the new American sport. After that incident the other
players warned me when I was pitching to someone who was new,
so I could slow it down enough for them to take some solid cuts.
In a country where the sport hasn't really caught on yet,
it amazes me that these players respond so well to the difficulties
of learning baseball. It is obvious that many of these people,
girls and guys alike, have developed a love and even a passion
for the game. Before their season started in June, they practiced
on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Most practice sessions last five
hours or longer. During the time I have participated with them,
I have seen their skills improve, with arm strength increasing
and fielding and batting capabilities doing the same.
So when the Olympics come to Beijing in 2008, what can we
expect from the Chinese team? Will it be somewhat of an embarrassment,
like the Greek team's performance in 2004? Or will the home team
have a chance to compete? My personal opinion is that the competition
level doesn't exist in China now for the national team to compete
with the likes of Japan, Taiwan, the U.S., or Cuba. However,
if they can get enough exposure by playing outside of China,
they might just pull off a medal. As for the long-term outlook
on baseball in China, comments made by someone who has more experience
with the system, as an investor and active baseball supporter
in China, give a pretty good take on the subject. When I mentioned
to him that I was considering opening a baseball retail store
or batting cage in Shanghai, one of the founders of the CBL told
me that it wouldn't be a bad idea if I didn't mind starving for
a couple of years. A few years from now however, he said, a much
different scenario is likely to exist, with baseball possibly
becoming what it is in Taiwan.
Richard Robbins is an entrepreneur specializing in online
retailing and international business. He is an owner of RobbinsSports.com,
and online retailer of sporting goods and athletic equipment
as well as Robbins
International, an importing/exporting company focused on business
between China and the U.S.
Richard Robbins may be contacted at http://www.robbinssports.com
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The Legends of Baseball keep on Swinging…With
a Little Help from Their Fans
by Nina Nocciolino
(1/25/06) Over the years, sports fans have witnessed foul
trades, foul play and foul balls with some of baseball’s
greatest players. When ESPN.com’s “The List” catalogued
the most beloved ballplayers of all time, fans sounded off about
their own major league favorites of the past and present with
the possibility that Sinatra was right, and the best is yet to
come.
ESPN’s list included infield favorites like Derek Jeter,
Ernie Banks, Cal Ripken Jr, and Mark McGwire. Minnesota
Twins center fielder Kirby Puckett made the list with fellow
outfielders Ichiro Suzuki, Willie Stargell and Sammy Sosa. Of
course, the number one spot was reserved for who else, but the
“Sultan of Swat,” Babe Ruth.
While ESPN’s compilation covered its bases, ( pun intended)
some fans missed their favorites on the field, and had their
say. From an overwhelming amount of letters, ESPN formulated
another list by the fans, for the fans. Red Sox Nation wrote
114 letters to put Nomar Garciaparra in the lineup with pleads
of “Nomah! How can you not love this guy?” Fans wrote
in for Boston’s Teddy Ballgame too, claiming that the reason
there was never a movie made about Ted Williams is, “because
no one would believe it.” Of course, Red Sox fans were walking
around with an 86-year old chip on their shoulder from a mildly
poor judgment call back in 1920, until the fall of 2004. But,
team loyalty in Beantown is far from fair weather, and despite
player trades (Village Idiot, Johnny Damon as New York’s
newest lead-off hitter) and player errors, (Buckner in ’86),
fan loyalty to Boston’s boys of summer rarely wavers for
the Fenway faithful.
At the other end of the spectrum, Yankee fans put Donny Baseball
and Mickey Mantle on the list for the Bronx Bombers with fans
begging “How could you forget Mickey Mantle? A mixture of
power, speed, grace and personality.” The Mick replaced
fan favorite Joe DiMaggio in centerfield, and it wasn’t
until the summer of 1961, during a hunt for the homerun title
against Roger Maris, did Mantle finally gain the acceptance of
fans as the underdog. Now, he’s a legend.
Rookies strive to become them, and fans refuse to let go of
them. Legends never die. Fans buy jerseys of players past from
Mitchell
& Ness Nostalgia Co., one of the better known manufacturers
of authentic, vintage throwback jerseys, just to relive the glory
days. It doesn’t matter if you were alive to see them, or
raised to remember them. Mitchell & Ness sales reflect player popularity
from both lists, with players like Mantle, Ruth, Stargell, and Sosa lining the shelves along with heroes like
Jackie Robinson and Joe DiMaggio.
Eventually, America’s favorite past time will produce
more legends for new fans, as young talent like Ryan Howard,
Scott Kazmir and Bobby Jenks climb the baseball ranks and make
names for themselves among the legends of the past. The players
will retire, and new names will come forth. But, that is what
it’s all about isn’t it? The birth of the champion,
the heartache of October and remembering that there’s always
next year.
Nina Nocciolino is a writer for DMI Partners a full-service, interactive marketing
and e-business technology firm specializing in higher education,
real estate, finance and retail.
Nina Nocciolino may be contacted at http://www.dmipartners.com
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