2000 Draft History

The CFCL added four new teams for the 2000 season, raising our total to 12. Welsch's FlatFeet and Steve's Slackers had decided to call it quits following the 1999 season, so the expansion was really just a net increase of two teams.

The entire remaining rosters of the FlatFeet and Slackers were made available to the four new teams, Bruce's Witzke a Go-Go (Bruce Ellman and Harry Witzke), Matt's Hard Hats (Matt Grage), Nick's Picts (Nick Hansen, and Steve's Stones (Steve Olson). In addition, each existing CFCL team protected 14 of the players on their Winter Roster and the rest were made available in the Expansion Draft. The new owners were free to choose as many ex-FlatFeet and ex-Slackers as they wished, but were limited to a total of four players from the rosters of existing teams.

The Expansion Draft was held on February 16, 2000 in the chatroom on the CFCL website. Bruce Ellman, of the Go-Go was unable to attend, so they were represented by the other half of the ownership team, Harry Witzke.

The draft order was determined by having each team select a number between 1 and 200. Then, Co-Comissioner Mahlan selected a baseball book off his shelf at random. Using the numbers selected by the four new teams, Mahlan looked up the first work on the corresponding page. These words were then alphabetized, and the team that had the first word in the list got first choice of draft position.

Steve's Stones elected to take the first pick overall and they were followed in order by Nick's Picts, Matt's Hard Hats, and Bruce's Witzke a Go-Go. The Go-Go then received the first pick in the second round.

The Stones started things off by selecting Randy Johnson (FlatFeet). Nick's Picts chose controversial John Rocker (Ruffins), the Hard Hats followed and selected shortstop Alex Gonzalez (DoorMatts), and the Go-Go finished out the first round by claiming reliever Dave Veres (Slackers).

The four new owners carried themselves well, trading quips, puns, and insults that made it clear they'd fit right into the CFCL. After the Hard Hats selected David Dellucci, Steve Olson punned "I Love da Lucy", which got things off on a television-related tangent that was reminiscent of the CFCL Drafts of 1993 and 1994.

By the end, a total of 72 players had been selected. The only players left from the Slacker/FlatFeet draft pool were the high-priced Dante Bichette (.41), Tony Gwynn (.28), and long-term contractor Mark Gardner. The initial rosters for the four new teams looked like this (players are listed in the order selected):

The 2000 CFCL Draft was held Sunday, April 3 in a conference room in Rich's Naperville office. With two more teams than we had ever had before, we knew we'd need to get an early start, so we kicked things off at 8:00 AM.

From left to right, Eric Lamb (Lambchops), Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels, Co-Commissioner), Matt Bentel (DoorMatts), Steve Olson (Stones), Dave Goetz (ForGoetz Me Nots), Kelly Barone (Six Packs), David Mahlan (Copperfields, Co-Commissioner), Nick Hansen (Picts), Bruce Ellman (Go-Go), Paul Zeledon (Meisters), David Holian (Ruffins), Matt Grage (Hard Hats), Tim (Hard Hats assistant).

Since there were four new teams joining us, we started off by going around the draft table and having each owner introduce himself. After the introductions, we moved on to the official business of the Executive Committee elections.

NOTE on 2000 Audio Samples: There were serious technical difficulties with audio this year, which caused an incredible hum over the first hour or so of the Draft video. The hum rendered many of the early verbal stingers unintelligible. This included the Executive Committee election and the nomination of the first player. Since it's short, I included an audio clip from the owner introductions below, but beware that there will be a loud hum on that clip.

The election for the 2000 Executive Committee resulted in the re-election of the members of the 1999 Committee: Rich Bentel (8 votes), David Holian (10), and David Mahlan (12). While the results were unremarkable, the vote totals were interesting -- 6 different owners received votes (Kelly Barone, Eric Lamb, and Paul Zeledon joined the three winners in getting votes).

We were in the middle of bidding on pitcher Andy Ashby, and for some unknown reason, Dave Holian broke into song, treating us all to his rendition of Moon River. David Mahlan made a remark about the Andy Williams recording of the song, but Paul Zeledon didn't hear it that way.

2000 was the first fantasy baseball experience for Bruce Ellman, co-owner of Bruce's Witzke a Go-Go co-owner. Bruce's partner, Harry Witzke, had extensive experience, but couldn't be present at the Draft. He kept in regular contact with Bruce via cell phone, however. Overall, Bruce handled himself very well in his first Draft, except for when he nominated Lee Stevens for bidding. Not accustomed to the CFCL of bidding in pennies rather than the Rotisserie-standard dollars, Bruce made perhaps the CFCL's all-time highest opening bid for a player.

By the fifth round of the Draft, we were reaching that point where money was growing scarce and those teams that had the least money left to spend were trying to avoid nominating players they really wanted. It was only a matter of time before someone got stuck: in this case it was Paul Zeledon of Da Paul Meisters, who nominated Walt Weiss for a penny then watched helplessly as every other owner passed. Paul's reaction was rather extreme because he realized, as Dave Holian points out "You know, you overpaid for him."

Draft Summary

First Player Purchased	Ken Griffey, Jr. ForGoetz Me Nots .50
Highest-Priced Batter	Ken Griffey, Jr. ForGoetz Me Nots .50
Highest-Priced Pitcher	Trevor Hoffman David's Copperfields .46
First "Penny Player"	Walt Weiss Da Paul Meisters 5th round
Last Player Purchased	Gregg Olson ForGoetz Me Nots .01
First Minor League Pick	Eric Gagne Matt's Hard Hats 2nd round Rotation Draft