Draft Weekend 2017!

Nice view from our room, digging the Crown Plaza hotel!

Wow, a great Draft Weekend for sure, March in the "D" was a fantastic time, was great to see everyone again!.  Special thanks to Dave for hooking us up in a super hotel for fleabag motel prices, to Steve Tufte for his great work as Commissioner and his preparation for the weekend, and to Jimmy for coming back from 'retirement' and helping the league out greatly! 

  

Friday Night Fights (the new rules debate and voting)

Jimmy's Corner is always interesting!  This year
brought Mr T. (in a sombrero!)



2017 Friendship League Draft is underway!




The Big Board!

Still able to watch some NCAA action during the draft

PJ's first in-person Draft experience since 1993!

Big thanks also to the Mallon girls for their highly entertaining and enjoyable video edition of "The Gerbil Show".  We all have to raise our logo game, especially that one that is "just a guy with a mustache"! 






The hotel was very nice, and I hope we get to go back to experience the penthouse meeting room next year!  There were a few awkward moments as the pairs of hotel roommates realized there was only 1 king-size bed in our rooms and not two beds.  The pullout couch beds were OK, so we avoided some potentially unpleasant sleeping arrangements  :-)     We even had a cameo appearance from new Commissioner-elect Mike Schmidt, who played Roger Goodell in announcing the first draft pick. 



1st overall pick Alex Bregman,
the pride of the Butchers

It is always amazing to have league 'firsts' 30 some years into this thing   Here are just a few of the groundbreaking things from the weekend.....

-Rules being passed and then immediately voted out by even better proposals (rule debates were intense this year, don't remember anything like that!)
-A proposed "my team for your team" trade offer!
-"Division Dinners" Saturday night where you could only sit with your new division foes
-Steam Room trade talks (a trade was NOT finalized there, so something to shoot for next year!)

We did scare away a few people lounging in the hot tub, but that is standard league activity. 

The Divisions Names were a vote between "Lesser Known Simpsons Characters" and "Beloved Dead Pets".  The Dead Pets (sounds like a punk rock band) prevailed, so we have the Sammy (Bob's cat)Division, the Licker (the league's nickname for our dog Callie) Division, and the Finnegan (Scott's dog) Division.

The new league file is available on this site to be downloaded, please do so and verify that your team is correct.  We do have a couple of important rule changes that we will have to be aware of, like all injuries are rest of game only, brawl is now only a HBP following a homer, and I think you can change your 'minor league' player each game rather than just a series.  Will update the online rules soon.

Now it's time to see if Minnesota can three-peat.  Will David Ortiz power Boston to another title in his farewell season? Did Kansas City select the right rookie out of the strong crop that was available?  Can Las Vegas and Michigan live up to HAL's pre-season simulation?  Good luck to all, should be another great season!

Let's "Play Ball"!!!!