Ah, a sure sign that spring is around the corner. I participated in a live fantasy baseball draft last night in Evanston.

It was an interesting night, to be honest. A bit strange. Not exactly what one would expect out of a "hard-core" group of baseball guys that I was promised when agreeing to join the league.

First, we're in a supposed 12-team league, and we had two teams already drop out (but another joined), so we're at 11. That sucks. Next, I show up last night, armed with what any true baseball fan would expect: A folder full of baseball analysis, two ink pens, tobacco to share and a 12-pack of beer. Pretty pedestrian, right?

No, Sir. I walked up to this four-bedroom college apartment, not in much better shape than the projects I visited earlier that day, and was greeted by a whopping 3 dudes. THREE guys. I'm stewing a that point, thinking of possible ways I could 'off' the leader of this sad gang, who invited me 30 minutes North at 8 p.m. on a Wednesday.

I showed up about 5 minutes early, and we've now got four of eleven teams represented, with one more available via phone, and four others reporting remotely in an online chatroom. One guy turned in a list early, and another was expected to show up later. Here, I'm thinking it's going to be an all-out fantasy baseball party, where off-color jokes are slung around the room like sunflower seeds in the dugout and beer is swilled at a frantic pace. Instead, I'm the only one drinking. Oh -- I take that back, one dude was actually drinking a PROTEIN SHAKE. Are you kidding me? A PROTEIN SHAKE.

At this point I was scanning the apartment for a medicine cabinet and making sure there were locks on the bathroom door, just in case I had the ambition to pour myself a warm bath and take a few pills. It was awful.

The upside is, I polished off a few beers in 4 hours (non-existant to mild buzz range), drafted a decent team and had fun with these Fun Haters anyway -- a good group of guys, just clueless to protocal of fantasy draft parties.


Other notes from the draft:

Giambi (18th round), Sheffield (6th round), and Palmeiro (21st round) all slipped drastically because of the perceived devaluation of their stats based on steriod testing.

Carl effing Crawford went in the second round as the 12th overall pick. Yeah, Carl Crawford.

Jason Schmidt went before Pedro Martinez, who surprisingly slipped to the third round.

Matt Morris, where art thou? Second to last pick in the 25th and final round. Wow, how the mighty have fallen...

Woody Williams? A player who went as early as the 6th round in some drafts last year didn't get chosen (and we're talking about 275 picks here.)

Steals of the draft?

Steve Finley (17th round)
Kevin Brown (24th round)
Kevin Mench (18th round)

Here are the mighty Chico's Bail Bonds players, listed by round chosen. Let me know if you see any holes in my lineup. I think it's pretty solid at this point...

Chico's Bail Bonds

1 Albert Pujols
2 Scott Rolen
3 Derek Jeter
4 Carlos Zambrano
5 Gary Sheffield
6 Joe Nathan
7 Bret Boone
8 Sammy Sosa
9 Adam Dunn
10 Bartolo Colon
11 Armando Benitez
12 greg maddux
13 jeff bagwell
14 Brian Lawrence
15 Mike Lieberthal
16 Bengie Molina
17 Steve Finley
18 Russ Ortiz
19 Khalil Greene
20 Joe Borowski
21 Shannon Stewart
22 Placido Polanco
23 Ted Lilly
24 Orlando Hernandez
25 Jason LaRue

This is a rotisserie league, with offensive categories R, HR, RBI, OBP, R, SB. and Defensive categories W, SV, SO, ERA, WHIP.

Hopefully these guys can redeem themselves throughout the summer with action on the message board and an active transaction wire. I have confidence in them, though, as they're in that 20-22 age range, and really have nothing better to do. Plus, they all really like baseball.