Mastersball

I have had pretty good success in my Scoresheet League since I joined the Murphy configuration four years ago. My first season I had the best record in the 24-team head-to-head set up, and just missed the playoffs year two (thanks to my making a dumb trade and a dumb freeze) and year three we made it to the league World Series, though lost.

Part of this has been good drafting taking those dull sensible everyday players like Jason Kubel over potential young stars like Jesus Montero. Part of it has been in gambling on guys like Alex Gordon and Carl Pavano at the right time. And, part of the success has been when I inherited my team two of the freezes I got were Albert Pujols and Roy Halladay.

Albert and Doc certainly are capable of carrying a team--or at least they have been over the past decade--although, as I thought about assembling my freeze list in March, I started thinking about moving one or both, hoping to exchange them for some up-and-comers before the 35-year old pitcher and 32-year old hitter started to hit the slide inevetible in professional sports as players age.

Still, good players--say Derek Jeter, or even Lance Berkman--can reach deep and seriously produce as they get older, and the reality is there is nothing in the resume of either Pujols or Halladay to suggest they were ready to struggle for the first time, or, well, ever.

However, there are a couple of corollaries I like to follow when drafting--and trading in keeper leagues--while playing the season out.

First is the old Branch Rickey trading maxim of swap a guy a year before he goes bad.

There were a couple of reasons for this in Rickey's view. First, when swapping, you get top value in exchange for your commodity. Second, if the player gives a good season in his new venue, the team will not necessarily associate you with taking advantage. They will remember you traded them a guy who hit .295-32-101 when they got him from you, and not that he hit .256-17-63 a year later, .234-12-43 the next, and was swapped for Jamie Wright the following year. Which means the same team will likely be willing to trade again in the future.

But, I also have this rule within the fantasy universe and that is if a player has put together a pair of stellar years, try to avoid him, at least in throw-back leagues.

For example, players can have breakout years, like Matt Kemp last year, or Carlos Gonzalez..

The reality is those guys cost (or make high draft picks) the following year, with the expectation that they will meet or exceed the previous season. Matt Kemp might equal his 2011 line of .324-39-126, but the odds he will exceed it are slim. True, he might exceed those numbers one season over his career, but it is a hard game.

Same with Cargo a couple of years back, when .336-34-114, and while he might, like Kemp, exceed that total, perhaps even this year, expecting such steady production over a prolonged period is simply unreasonable in a game with such a fine margin of success and error, not to mention the potential for injury.

So, with Halladay and Pujols essentially putting up 10 straight years of exceptional statistics, and bearing in mind each player is moving to the final third of their respective careers, it was reasonable to expect an off-year sooner rather than later.

Hence, as the freeze date approached, I had to consider swapping both players because after three good years in a row, let alone ten, the odds were telling me think about moving them.

The problem, however, in the Murphy Scoresheet League is we as can only freeze eight players (that rule has since been expanded to allow us to each keep a soft eight, and up to three minor leaguers who take the 19th-21st draft slots), the question becomes what can I get for them, and how many of those spoils, in addition to the rest of my freeze list, can I actually keep.

So, I chickened out and froze them both.

I do have a good feeling that Halladay will rebound to close to his dominant form, at least for another year or two, and Pujols seems to have regained the bulk of his groove, although I am not sure if that means my team makes it to the post-season this time (we currently sit at 25-26, nine games out of first in out division, but with 111 games to go), and that also means some hard decisions next year.

But, since this year might be a loss leader anyway, though, I do wish I had swapped and begun revamping my squad now, while I could get the market maximum.

Like I generally say: "listen to those instincts." They are telling you things for a reason.

In fairness to the Angels, they are playing in a division with arguably the best team in baseball: The Texas Rangers.

However, this is a team with C.J. Wilson, Jered Weaver, Dan Haren, Howard  Kendrick, Erick Aybar, Mark Trumbo, Kendrys Morales, and oh yeah, that Albert Pujols guy. Plus Torii Hunter, Vernon Wells, Chris Iannetta who have been hurt, Peter Bourjos who has been ineffective, and Mike Trout, the youngest player in the American League who has been terrific.

So, why are the Angels in last place in the A.L. West, seven games behind the Rangers, but also behind the rebuilding Mariners and the interesting but erratic Athletics?

It is not like the Los Angeles American League franchise has been problematic over the years, in fact especially since skipper Mike Scioscia has a .546 W/L percentage (1086-903), with five division crowns, and a World Series title in 2002, when they were a Wild Card participant.

But, after a six-year run, when Sciocia's team won those five titles with a second place finish between 2004-09, the Angels have not really been threatening since, landing third in 2010, second last year, while holding down fourth place this year.

Surely, to kick things up a notch and keep pace with, if not exceed Ron Washington and his Rangers, the Angels signed two of the most intriguing free agents this past off-season with Pujols and Rangers defector Wilson, but the Rangers replaced Wilson with Yu Darvish, and have enough spare parts who would be starters elsewhere that well, they are dominating once again.

In fact, I expect the Rangers will win the AL West, and I even think the third time will be the charm for Ron Washington and he will get his World Series title.

But, if I had to pick a dark horse, it would be the Angels, who really have all the pieces, and like our roto teams that take half the season to get healthy and coalesce, but then gain some steam and put themselves in the position of being hot at the right time. Like maybe the Cardinals of last year, or the Giants of the year before, since neither was the best team on paper, yet both beat the Rangers, the squad that arguably was the best.

So, I think betting on Pujols, Trout, Kendrick, Weaver, et al is really a pretty good bet over the course of the season. And one most people will dismiss at this juncture. Because over the course of the season, all those Angels players have pretty good career averages.

OK, I will do my best to not be political here, but, well, this week's topic sort was handed to me on a silver home plate.

A few years back, while I was ferrying back and forth between Chicago and Berkeley I read David Halberstam's wonderful book, "Summer of '49," which documents the amazing pennant race between the Yankees and the Red Sox, punctuated by great seasons by each team's offensive star. That would be Joe DiMaggio--who was injured the first chunk of the season as the Yanks struggled--and Ted Williams for the Red Sox as the great right fielder was producing at his peak.

Though Joltin' Joe managed to play in just 76 games that season, he put up a line of .346-14-67, good for a 1.055 OPS, while Teddy Ballgame led the league in just about every offensive category, hitting .343-43-159, leading in homers, RBI, runs (150), doubles (39), OBP (.490), Slugging (.556), games (155), at-bats (730) and total bases (368). By the way, that also mean and OPS of 1.141.

Within that great narrative we are introduced to the Yankees back-up catcher of those days, Charlie Silvera.

And, as it turns out, Charlie is a Bay Area resident, and a gentleman who likes to attend Giants games on Sundays. Charlie backed up Yogi Berra back then, functioning as the bench support  between 1948-1957, and to give an idea how durable Yogi was, Silvera managed a career line of .282-1-52 over 227 games and 541 at-bats during that ten-year span.

Since I frequently work Sunday games at ATT, I have gotten to know Charlie, who indeed is a character, and at age 87 is still a pretty sharp tack. In fact, one of Charlie's best tales deals with his squatting in the on-deck circle, taking a foul ball off the cup, and being carried off the field on a stretcher post contact. "That," Charlie says with a twinkle, "was the only standing ovation I ever got in baseball, when they carried me off from that."

Of course it is so much fun talking with--and mining the experience of--Charlie, hearing what it was like to play with Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle, not to mention Yogi, and playing under Casey Stengel. Along with being on so many Championship teams, for during his tenure, the Yankees made the World Series eight times, and won six, including a ridiculous five in a row between 1949-53. In fact, Charlie refers to his home in the city as "The house that Berra built," for Silvera's World Series checks essentially made the purchase possible.

Well, David Halberstam, who sadly died in a freak auto accident in Menlo Park--also in the Bay Area--in 2007 also wrote another baseball book, "October 1964," which covers the final Series appearance of that mighty Yankee juggernaut before an eleven year post-season drought that lasted from 1965 to 1976.

Halberstam's book actually focuses on that last year, and the writing on the wall, and as I began reading the book, I was seriously struck by the opening quote, before the Prologue.

"There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success"--George Romney

That would be George Romney, father to current Republican Presidential nominee-in-waiting Willard Mitt Romney, and the quote was made to Halberstam when speaking about the fate of General Motors in the 1980's.

Now Romney the Elder, was not only Governor of Michigan, but also CEO of American Motors, the car company that outlasted the bulk of Detroit wannabes, but never made it to the "Big Three."  American Motors, if you are old enough, gave us the Rambler and the Pacer and the Gremlin, and my favorite, the Metropolitan Nash (if you ever saw the film "The Big Picture," that is the tiny little car Kevin Bacon drives after he loses his Porsche and Hollywood prestige).

And, if you look at what Romney Senior said, he is right. Think of companies like Sony, or IBM, or Xerox, not to mention Ford, GM and Chrysler, all of which over-confidently sat at the top of the corporate heap, and all of which fell from grace and had to either seriously reinvent themselves or become extinct. And, actually Sony is in the process of trying to do that, having lost their edge to the likes of LG, Lenovo, and Apple.

But, aside from the irony of Romney the Younger claiming credit for the resurgence of the American automotive industry, which is beyond specious, Romney the Elder's advice is pretty good when applying to business, or god forbid, even fantasy baseball.

The quote is apropos the book for that 1964 year, the signs were clear that the aging Yankees--brittle Mantle, moody Maris, aging Ford and Berra et al--and with a diminished minor league footprint had run out their championship string.

In the fantasy world, this always seems tantamount to having that team that is out of the blocks strong, building maybe even a 20-point lead this early in the year: a distance that seems insurmountable to the other teams.

In fact, I had this "problem" last year as my American League LABR team was rocking and rolling like no other. The problem is that made it hard to make moves, for the proverbial notion of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" prevailed.

However, the problem is once a free fall begins, it is very difficult to put on the stops. That is largely because the free agent pool has been long picked clean, and the slumps and injuries that may have evaded a leading team, and haunted the lower squads in the same ranks, tend to reverse themselves over the course of the year.

So, I think, as we move towards Memorial Day, and that first real benchmark of the quality of our seasons--be your league keeper or throw back--heed the advice of Romney the Elder.

Don't sit on your laurels, but rather stay active and vibrant for success--and related championships--don't just happen.

They are made.

What has happened to the once mighty and steady Minnesota Twins?

As a fantasy owner, I was always one to purchase and draft members of the Twinkies for a myriad of reasons.

For one thing, they were perennial contenders. Over the past ten seasons Minnesota made the playoff six times, and only twice over that spread did they finish under .500. Once was in 2007 when the team went 79-83--dangerously close to the water line--and then last year, their second full season at Target Field, and away from that cushy indoor Metrodome that I think was a lot friendlier to their team than anyone wants to admit.

But, that is a second reason, for I liked taking players from the Twin Cities because they always had players like Randy Bush and Greg Gagne who hit in the .270's and knocked 10-plus homers, and swiped 10-plus bases, and best of all, were generally dismissed by the rest of the league, making them cheap and solid sleepers.

My first team had Bush, and Tim Laudner, along with Kent Hrbek and Tom Brunansky (who was brutally traded to St. Louis right after the start of the 1988 season, leaving me a hole) and I finished third. But, with Bush, and Kevin Tapani, I developed a strategy that allowed me to really focus hard on players of their ilk: Undervalued. And that led to more than a few local titles.

That trend continued for me into 2010, when I won the AL Tout Wars title largely on the backs of Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, and Carl Pavano, all of whom were bargains and big producers for my team.

So, what has happened since, as Minnesota had their worst season last year since 1982, winning just 66 games?

Surely a lot of it is the money tied into their two stars, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, both of whom are tied to big contracts, as well as extended stints on the DL over the past few years.

There is something else going on with a team that used to do the basics so well. Under former manager Tom Kelly, who managed the team for 15 years starting in 1987, the team always seemed competitive, and more important, they always were able to replace players lost without any fuss or muss. I always thought this a combination of solid consistant drafting, coupled with then really aclimated their young players into that system so they became interchangable puzzle pieces of the highest order.

Something has even happened with that, where the team seemed to think that Nick Blackburn and Nick Punto, along with Jamey Carroll were the answer to much? And, while I am a big Eric Komatsu fan (I thought the guy had sleeper written all over him), I cannot understand why Minnesota simply does not give an everyday chance to Ben Revere? I mean, how much worse could the team be?

And, though the Twins did indeed make the playoffs in 2010, their first at Target Field, since then they are an abyssmal 71-122, and it does not look like the bloodletting will be over in the next few years, because that once never-ending stream of well drafted and disciplined players seems to have dried up.

Which is kind of sad, especially since current manager, Ron Gardenhire has really picked up the Kelly guantlet, managing the team over the past 10-plus seasons.

In fact, I am not sure if the move to Target is the thing, and Minnesota is simply trying to figure out how to build a team to be successful in their new home, as they did at the Metrodome, or somehow management, their approach, and decisions have just turned everything to the crapper.

But, I do hope the Twins figure it out and make a return, for I like Gardenhire. And, well, I always loved mining their underated yet successful teams as they always helped my teams be both the same: underrated and successful.

Wednesday night I looked forward to scoring the Giants/Marlins game for a couple of reasons.

The first was I simply liked the match-up for sentimental reasons as Giants starter Barry Zito and Marlins hurler Carlos Zambrano have long been favorites of mine.

I have spoken with Zito from time-to-time since his Oakland debut on July 22, 2000, when the then 22-year old took the pill for the first time, and Zambrano was my #1 on my top prospect list in both 2000 and 2001, being just 19 the first time he topped that list (The Big Z, as he is known, had his first game a little more than a year after Zito, on August 20, 2001).

It does seem funny now that both guys were--or at least seemed--so young back then, for when I think about it, I was more than twice the age of each pitcher when they made their first major league appearance (scary that I am getting that old), but since they were both favorites back when I have always had a fondness for them (you know how we get those mancrushes on prospects we champion and follow).

So, on Wednesday Zito brought his then 1-0, 1.63 ERA to ATT and Zambrano his 0-2, 3.24 mark in what, according to "Beyond the Boxscore" author Bill Arnold the fifth time pitchers whose surnames begin with the letter "Z" have squared against one another. In fact Zito and Zambrano have not only had one of those starts against one another, but Zambrano even faced Zito once as a pinch hitter!

 Surely there has been attention to both pitchers early this season. Zito has received press because of his hot start, including thoughts on our site by Greg Morgan on the Masters of the NFBC last Tuesday. Of course I have my Zito fears, largely based upon his history. I  mean, remember in 2010 he was 4-0, 1.53 for the month of April and finished the year 9-14. 4.15 and was not even on the post-season roster.

As for Carlos, his melt-downs are well documented, although now that both hurlers are in their early 30's, ideally some maturity has set in.

So, we did we get on Wednesday?

Well, to say Zito was all over the place, he threw 33 pitches over the first inning, 27 more in the second, and though just 12 in the third another 19 when pulled in the fourth, meaning 91 pitches, with just 50 for strikes, is an understatement. Zambrano was actually better controlled, though he basically tossed 18 pitches per inning over the first three, although when pulled after seven innings, had thrown 108 (61 for strikes) though Heath Bell let Carlos and a potential win down.

In essence that was 125 pitches through the first three innings, and that is an ungodly amount and largely why the game--though it did go ten innings--took three hours and twenty seven minutes.

Zito and his lack of control walked seven hitters, while Zambrano three more, and the Marlins prevailed despite just five hits, one of which was Giancarlo Stanton's homer in the tenth that basically was the game winner.

The Giants, on the other hand, collected ten hits--five in the ninth inning when they tied things up--but both teams left 11 runners stranded with the Marlins going 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

So, the deceiving box score suggests strong pitching and really, the end result was a frustrating game that presented some pretty bad hitting.

I can say that I think Zambrano will be ok in Miami, while Zito continues to be an enigma.

I have, however, written so many times before that if any pitcher ever should be able to become the new Jamie Moyer, it should be Zito. He has four pitches, and though his fastball is 88 MPH at best, with a good curve and change and slider, that should be plenty fast enough (just ask Moyer). Furthermore, he is a smart guy.

So, while I hold little hope that Zito will ever return to his Cy Young form, I have every hope that he can be 9-14, 4.15 for another 15 years or so.

OK, forgive the shameless plug for the Draftstreet game my mate Lord Zola is driving. And, I will get back to that.

A bunch of years ago--when I was first starting to get a reputation at playing fantasy ball--my brother suggested that if I applied my player prediction skills to the stock market, I could be rich.

Maybe, for some odd reason making a fortune as suggested was never as much of a driving force in my existence as wanting to figure out if Matt Moore is really going to be as good as the numbers suggest. Or more important, when?

Anyway, there are pretty good parallels between player prediction and the market, in fact for a while many years back I wrote once a week for Wall Street Sports, which had the basic premise of picking slumping or unproven players on the cheap, and building a portfolio by buying those players on the rise and dumping before they slump.

Well, the Draftstreet setup is pretty similar in principle, allowing us a $100,000 salary cap to assemble a team with eight position players, a pair of utility guys, two starters, a reliever, and an extra arm.

As my mate Todd has probably explained, in the point-based system, you get points for the good stuff, like homers and walks acrued, and lose them for allowing homers and walks.

Anyway, to facilitate some player interaction, Draftstreet is giving all of us a freebie, and well, to me this seems kind of fun.

It means you can sign up and play against Todd, Ryan Carey, and me (and perhaps a few more Mastersballers and friends) for not just fun, but those all important bragging rights.

Ultimately, what I am hoping is even a little dialogue--though I know Todd and Ryan are working this on our Platinum Board--where we can indeed discuss what works, what doesn't, and how we come to the choices we make.

As for my squad, I used up all but $186 of my 100 grand. And, for fun, here is who I picked this time through the cycle (note we will be playing every couple of weeks in the same format), and my logic (if any).

• Buster Posey Giants are heating up, coming home, and the LOVE Buster at ATT.
• Albert Pujols  He will never get cheaper, and is due to bust out. Once he does, a few multi homer games abound.
• Ian Kinsler Does everything on a team that hits everything.
• David Freese Won't be a sleeper too much longer.
• Cliff Pennington Steady, plays every day, and cheap.
• Ben Zobrist Another guy who is cheap based upon a slow start. Calculated gamble.
• Jose Tabata When players are hitting around the Mendoza line three weeks into the year, it suggests multi hit games are looming. Steals, too.
• Josh Reddick Keep an eye on Reddick. He is a steady young star on the move.
• Matt Kemp Gotta spend the big bucks somewhere. Matty K. is red hot.
• John Mayberry Under the radar but has some power (if they would let him play).
• C.C. Sabathia Mr. Steady, and slowly gaining his command. Not to mention he is a Yankee, and they tend to win.
• Cory Luebke Another young star on the rise. If you don't know his name, you should.
• Santiago Casilla Part of the Giants closer mix, Casilla was cheap, and pairs nicely with...
• Sergio Romo Romo, who is undoubtedly the best set-up man in the National League (and also cheap for now).

Remember, baseball, and fantasy baseball as well, are supposed to be fun, and this looks like it.

In July of 1957, when I was four years old, Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" was released as a single on Coral Records. I am not sure how old I was when I actually first heard the song on the radio, but I do remember a couple of years later--on May 15, 1959, although thanks to Google and the Net I know the date with certainty--seeing Dave Baby Cortez play his hit tune "The Happy Organ" on Dick Clark's American Bandstand.

That means I was six years old, not to be seven until late that October. But, clearly, music, and rock'n'roll, were already in my young bones.

Bandstand became a daily staple, for during the week Dick Clark and his show were broadcast from Philadelphia, and on Saturday, from New York.

Since I loved music as much as baseball--in fact Holly and "Peggy Sue" got into my bloodstream before baseball by about a year--suddenly Bandstand was a regimen for my brother Peter and me.

That is where we first saw Little Eva (who sang "The Locomotion," written by Carole King) and Simon and Garfunkle. We saw Bobby Rydell and Bobby Darin and Fabian and the Four Seasons. The Castaways. The Supremes (which is what they were before the were Diana Ross and...) and Marvin Gaye and The Miracles and the wonderful Motown groups.

In fact though it never occurred to me then, music and Clark, and his show had as much a part in the integration of the Boomer generation as did Jackie Robinson, for there were always African American teens dancing in the studio and sitting in the audience when Clark would introduce bands and singers. And, they also participated in Clark's now iconic, "Rate a Record."

Now, that last part might be lost on you, but if you have ever heard anyone comment on a home run, for example, saying, "I give it an 87," that is a direct reference to "Rate a Record," just as surely as "I like the words, but you cannot dance to it" is.

Bandstand was a daily staple, just like The Ed Sullivan Show was a Sunday one: one worth sitting through dancing bears and jugglers and opera singers to watch The Stones or comedians we liked.

But, in 1965, Clark added another afternoon show called "Where the Action is."

So, Peter and I watched that one every day after school too. "Action" was cooler and newer and had hipper acts, like The Byrds and The Kinks and especially Del Shannon, who sang "Runaway," which would remain an all-time favorite for years.

Of course by the late 60's Peter and I were grown up, living in the Bay Area, not much interested in watching much on TV any more. And, Bandstand sort of fell by the wayside for us, much like Casey Kasem had on the radio (the latter being replaced by free form FM radio, pioneered in San Francisco at KMPX, which then became KSAN).

By that time, too, I was old enough to go to concerts, and again by that time, the idea of a rock concert had changed a lot, largely thanks to Bill Graham, although Graham took his original cue from Clark and others who had indeed promoted tours of the groups who performed on their shows.

So, I lost as much touch with Bandstand as I did with Ed Sullivan and Where the Action is and another later comer to the party, Lloyd Thaxton.

I have to admit I never watched Clark's year-end Times Square broadcasts, though I never minded his doing them, for thinking of Clark always brought me back to Dave Baby Cortez, and then the mental tape that ran from there.

And, that was good.

As we all know, Clark passed away on Wednesday, which interestingly is my brother Peter's birthday.

As with so many folks, all I can do is thank Dick Clark for doing what he did. For, that allowed me to actually see many of the idols of my youth, something I probably could not have imagined, along with playing the music of my youth that I loved so much.

*     *     *     *     *

While I am at it, on Thursday, Band drummer Levon Helm passed away, and again, it is impossible to stress the influence and joy the great percussionist and singer had.

The Band were simply that: THE BAND.

They played, and when we talk about roots music, their merger of folk and blues and rock and bluegrass and country was arguably the best synthesis of the genre.

Any musician will tell you a drummer is everything in a band, for a steady beat takes care of so many things, and Levon was timely and smooth, and had a great voice. He also followed up his time with The Band his ever changing ensemble The Midnight Ramble.

As I have written many times, one of my great regrets in life was deciding not to attend The Last Waltz, the Thanksgiving final performance of The Band that became a Martin Scorcese film of the same name.

So much wonderful music Clark and Helm provided. All I can do is thank them in awe.

I always enjoy watching my friends offspring play softball and little league every spring.

And, I have seen my nieces Kelly and Lindsay Hedgecock play soccer and swim, but yesterday Diane and I journeyed to Walnut Creek where Lindsay and her mates at Los Lomas High School in Walnut Creek did lacrosse battle with Dublin High School and I witnessed my first match.

As with any new sport it takes a little getting used to in understanding the ebb and flow of the game.

In some ways seeing a new sport (to me) always takes me back first to the roller derby, which I did not really follow, but occasionally would catch a few minutes while flipping through the channels. Roller Derby is oddly hypnotic in a strange professional wrestling kind of way, but one of the things I could never figure out was exactly what the rules were. Skaters would be "jamming" one another, but how the points were tallied is as elusive to me today as ever.

Many years later, when I first got cable,  ESPN was new and I spent more than a few evenings watching Australian Rules Football. I never could quite get the hang of how points or winners or losers were amassed in that environ either, although the circular field and scampering all over made it tough to change the channel.

In the same way, it was like watching Iron Chef, when that show was new. Originally, I saw it on Saturday nights on San Francisco's Japanese local television network and it was on in Japanese without subtitles. Somehow, I was never sure what the chefs were cooking, or what they were saying, but I could still get the gist and as with Australian Rules Football and Roller Derby, part of the fun of viewing ws indeed being in the dark about half of what was going on.

Such it was as I saw Lindsay and her friends Tate and Anne and their teammates and opponents running back and forth and back and forth over a football field plus (the layout is 110 yards by 60 yards) over two 25 minute halves that proved a pretty impressive as a testimony to their cardio vascular skills.

The young women not only had a lot of stamina with all that galloping around, but were pretty adept at passing and catching with their lacrosse sticks, setting up plays and scores, defending, and even checking one another displaying more than impressive athleticism and endurance (most of the participants--ten per team--played the entire game).

And, well, at least the scoring was pretty self-explanatory: shoot the ball past the goalie, and score a point, and on this particular Friday evening, Lindsay--who scored one goal, as did her friend Tate, while Anne bagged a pair--Los Lomas beat Dublin by a nice football score of 16-7.

I have to say that Diane and I both thought the game looked like a lot of fun to play, and though again we were not so clear on the rules. However Lindsay surely was for a couple of times she was in a dialogue with the referee (her mom, Jill told us Lindsay not only plays, but she umpires games for younger girls teams). So, Linds, as I call her, not only represented the physical at the contest, but the intellectual as well, representing the family well on all accounts.

In the end the game was sort of baseball and sort of soccer and sort of hockey and sort of football and yet not really any of these. Kind of like Roller Derby and Australian Rules Football and Iron Chef, for even though I was not totally clear what was going on, it was captivating.

And fun.

Yeah, I know baseball season sort of started last week with Oakland and Seattle duking it out in Tokyo, and then with the Fish on Wednesday in their new stadium, but the Athletics and Giants started their seasons yesterday.

Yesterday also was not only Good Friday--which historically was the evening of the last supper--but it was the first night of Passover. And, well, the last supper was indeed a Sedar.

Since it is Easter, that means Ben Hur will be on TCM this weekend, and probably The Ten Commandments will as well. Both are great and silly epic movies of the late 50's, but I always get sucked into them when they are on.

In addition, for the last 34 years I have attended Passover at the home of my friends Mark and Debbi Berenberg. Back in the 70's, when we gathered for the first time, and rather informally, there were just eight of us: four couples.

We were all in our 20's at the time, living in the bay area, so we celebrated accordingly, smoking four joints instead of drinking the traditional four glasses of wine.

And, at the first Sedar, Lynn Schuzitt, then married to David, was pregnant. Lynn was the first of that group to be expecting, and part of the evening's festivities included a baby naming contest for the future Schuzitt. And, I won with the name "Tennis" (say Tennis Schuzitt to yourself, quickly).

Over the years the joints went away for real wine, and instead of my recalling the story of Charlton Heston as Moses with Anne Baxter and Yul Brynner and the Ten Commandments, we got actual haggadahs. And, then children started to arrive beyond Tennis, who actually was named Jesse.

After a few years the eight multiplied into 30 among friends and family and we all read parts in the Haggadah and Debbi and Barbara Kweller made killer brisket and matzoh ball soup.

Which is pretty much how things have been for the past 20 years.

Of course now the next generation of kids are in their 20's, and a handful of the guys play fantasy baseball, so half the meal discussion consists of hearing Zach and Seth and Mike all tell me who they drafted and why. And, last night the Iphones were ominpresent checking scores, playing Words With Friends, and texting Mark and Debbi's daughter Annie, who was not present. That is because Annie is in Mozambique teaching with the Peace Corps.

It is all wonderful stuff: Passover and food and tradition, and baseball and its tradition.

And, actually, this year was indeed extra cool as Tennis, aka Jesse, is now expecting with her husband Mike. So again, the new generation is pushing forward, continuing the cycle on the planet.

As they say, life does indeed go on.

Twelve years ago, at my first AFL First Pitch, I met Jason Grey and Todd Zola and Trace Wood--among others--for the first time.

It was all good fun, in fact we still all note back to that time when we (along with John Mosey and Rob Leibowitz) usurped Ron Shandler's Arizona Challenge. Ron had a lot to do running the conclave, so he actually asked us to act as Auctioneers. The twist was we got to nominate players in the auction which allowed participants the chance to bid against one another and see who could assemble the best roto roster.

Well, I cannot stress the fun we had, jerking around the contestants with runs of players at positions and teams, teasing and occsionally tossing out a nugget, but at the same time holding out the likes of Frank Thomas, who if memory serves went for $5 at the end when wallets had been exhasuted.

Six months later, I was invited to join the American League Tout Wars competition, and my flight from San Francisco to Allentown (for back then we drafted in Steve Moyer's basement in Bath, Pennsylvania) had a layover in Chicago.

As I boarded the plane I ran into Jim Callis, whom I knew from SABR, and Jason as well, and the three of us babbled on and on about baseball and fantasy and drafts while the flight shot by.

I remember bits and pieces of the first Tout auction. In particular, giddily selecting Derek Lowe and Keith Foulke for under $50 as my first two purchases (I had thought they would cost around $62), closing the deal on Miguel Tejada for $25, and hearing crickets when I got stuck with a third catcher--Chris Widger--at DH.

I also drafted against Jason for the first time. along with my good friend by then Tony Blengino, among others.

Now, I need to say now that Jason and Tony are the best fantasy baseball players I know. Period.

And, to show how strong their baseball acumen is, a couple of years later Tony left Tout because he had been hired as a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers (he is now Asst. to the G.M. for the Mariners). And, during the 2011 off-season, Jason followed, being hired on as a scout for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Meaning this was the first time I have not drafted against Jason in Tout, nor in LABR (where I played for my sixth year this March).

And I missed him. Actually, I think we all did, as his name was invoked a number of times, particularly when Howard Kendrick was nominated.

Jason always sat on one side of me or the other, with Jeff Erickson occupying north of Jason were I south, east were I west, and so on.

The thing is it often felt like Jason and I were having our own private draft, sometimes against one another, and sometimes against the rest of the league, and sometimes both.

Because we both tend to approach the auction similarly, throwing out names and while not avoiding bargains in the early rounds, saving our money for the middle when we could load up on less expensive everyday players and crap shoots.

I cannot count the number of times during the auctions when one of us would elbow the other two-thirds of the way through noting we had each drafted the same number of players, and both spent exactly the same amount of money.

Knowing what a fine player Jason was, this was always reassuring to me: that even if I did follow my own Zen path (and it was Jason indeed who dubbed me the Zen Master after I took that 2001 crown with Tejada and Widger on my roster), that I was onto something if such a good player was essentially approaching the game the same way (actually, between us, we had five of the AL Tout Wars titles over a ten-year spread).

Jason could also egg me on, however, unlike anyone else has ever been able to. In 2002 when I defended my Tout crown, I remember him bidding me up on Jose Valentin, noting Jose was the only real third baseman of value left so I bought him for something like $17. And, then Jason turned around and got Robin Ventura for $11.

I remember him bidding me up on Casey Kotchman, back when Kotchman was a viable prospect such that I got so into it against Jas that I forgot I really wanted this Red Sox up-and-comer, Kevin Youkilis. Even last year, somehow I wound up with Hank Conger and Justin Morneau because Jason got his bid hooks in me (don't ask me how, for this is incredibly unconscious for someone deemed the Zen Master).

Well, Jason was gone this year. In LABR, I moved to the National League, and in Tout, Chris Liss--himself a formidable opponent, and one who also seems to view the draft with the same skewed success as Jason and I--took Jason's spot. And, well, I like Chris a lot and I like playing against him (and sharing restaurant ideas, which oddly we both do with Jason as well).

But, without Jason there I did find that middle draft a lot easier, and felt a lot less gullible.

But, the truth is, I missed him. I missed pointing at the dollar values with him. Or him putting on noise cancelling head phones during the Austin Kearns bidding so as not to suck in. Finally.

I missed the Tout banter and two or three pretty good one-liners building, with Jason putting in that coup de grace final line that stopped the clock and put us all in paroxysms.

Still, life goes on and change is inevitable. And people come and people go.

But, friends are indeed forever. Fortunately, that does include both Jas and Tony in my universe.

Lucky me.