The 1985 CFCL Draft was held at the home of reigning CFCL champion Dave Goetz.
The CFCL expanded in 1985, adding one team, the Ghostbusters (David "Ghost" Gross), to raise our total to 7. Perhaps a bit unfairly, we didn't have any plan in place for an expansion draft, so Dave was forced to start from scratch and draft his entire roster on Draft Day.
The Jeff Stone Incident
One of the more famous incidents from the CFCL's early days, it was one of
the first times the Co-Commissioners (Rich Bentel and David Mahlan) squared
off against each other in a D-Day bidding confrontation. It's also
a classic illustration of the phenomenon of Hyper-Inflation resulting from
Pre-Draft Obssession.
No CFCL team owned Jeff Stone in 1984, when he hit .362 and stole 27 bases in 51 games for the Phillies. This is surprising in retrospect, until you consider the following: 1) with only 6 CFCL teams, we only used a maximum of 36 OFs; 2) most of the 36 OFs we owned were players who started the 1984 season in a starting role -- Stone did not -- and the only way to pick up a free agent was if you had an injured player to replace; and 3) hey, it was our first year and we were all novices -- since Stone wasn't a starter for much of the year, we just didn't notice what he was doing.
As the 1985 season approached, it's hard to say if any of us had noticed what Stone had done the previous year. It's a moot point, anyway, because Bill Mazeroski took care of it for at least two of us. In 1985, Bill Mazeroski's Baseball magazine was the ultimate draft prep tool. Even so, only a few of our owners used it. But when it comes to Hyper-Inflation resulting from Pre-Draft Obsession, a few owners is all it takes.
The 1985 edition of Bill Mazeroski's Baseball had this to say about Jeff Stone: "In left field, get ready for one of the best running, best hitting and all-around hysteria-creating shows in baseball when 24-year old Jeff Stone eases into the blocks. He's still raw as a green apple and innocent as Barney Fife. But, man, this guy can play. He was only around last year for 51 games (45 as a starter). But he got four hits in five of them, three hits in one, and two hits in 13. He stole 27 bases, including 19 in a row ... If Jeff Stone doesn't win a batting title someday, then Astro Turf isn't green." That sounded like a pretty ringing endorsement.
It was fairly easy to "backdoor" a player in the early days. For the majority of the owners, Draft Day research consisted of browsing the previous year's stats the day before the Draft. Co-Commissioners Mahlan and Bentel, however, had both read the comment about Jeff Stone in early March. As Draft Day drew nearer and they spoke to each other, they dropped heavily veiled hints about a "sleeper", little realizing that they had the same player in mind. Meanwhile, in their own minds, both Co-Commissioners spent the weeks before the Draft visualizing the moment late in the Draft when they would say, "Jeff Stone for a penny," and then watch as the other owners all dropped out of the bidding on this unknown quantity. They both knew they would come out of the Draft with Jeff Stone -- and therein laid the danger. The obsession grew so deep and so frenzied in the days before the Draft that both the Copperfields and Rebels were willing pay any price to own Jeff Stone.
When the day arrived, almost four rounds of the Draft went by before Stone was nominated. The bidding started innocently enough, with most reasonable owners dropping out early on. Things began to seem fishy as the bidding went over ten and into the low teens. The Co-Commissioners grinned at each other as they realized they both had same thing in mind. When the Copperfields and Rebels were the only two left bidding in the high teens, the grins were gone and it became clear where things were headed. The rest of the league looked on in shocked silence as the founding fathers and the leaders of the CFCL batted bids for a reserve Philadelphia outfielder back and forth into the high .20s.
Finally, the Rebels bid .32 and the Copperfields dropped out. Jeff Stone was the highest-priced player in the 1985 Draft. To illustrate just how far out of hand things got, Andre Dawson was the player drafted immeditately before Stone and he went for all of .22.
What did the Rebels get for their .32? A .265 batting average and 5 stolen bases, stats that would have easily garnered Stone the Nick Esasky Award if we had been giving that award in 1985. The Rebels released Stone before the 1986 season and he went undrafted in the 1986 Draft.
POSTSCRIPT: For another example of Hyper-Inflation resulting from Pre-Draft Obssession, see The Will Clark Incident in the 1986 Draft.
The Ruffin Recommendation
Incident
The Rebel front office was doubly-cursed by the Phillies on Draft Day, 1985.
Not only did they wind up with Phillie super-flop Jeff Stone at .32,
but used the #1 overall minor league draft pick on Phillie prospect Tony
Ghelfi. Who??? That's what most of the CFCL asked when Rich announced
his name. It turned out that Ghelfi was a pitcher for the Phillies
AA team, and actually had pitched in a couple September games for the Phillies
back in 1983. Rich proudly declared that he had been tipped off about
Ghelfi by good friend David Holian, who ran a fantasy league of his own.
Well, Tony Ghelfi never panned out as a prospect -- in fact he never made it back to the majors. Rich was man enough not to hold the worthless recommendation against Dave Holian, and the following year brought him into the CFCL as the owner of David's Ruffins.
Draft Summary
| First Player Purchased | Dan Driessen Dem Rebels .12 |
| Highest-Priced Batter | Jeff Stone Dem Rebels .32 |
| Highest-Priced Pitcher | Lamarr Hoyt Ghostbusters .30 |
| First "Penny Player" | Dave Anderson Mudville Sluggers 3rd round |
| Last Player Purchased | Jim Gott Ghostbusters .01 |
| First Minor League Pick | Tony Ghelfi Dem Rebels |