2002 Draft History

The 2002 CFCL Draft was held at the Oakbrook office of Rich Bentel's company on Saturday, March 23, starting at 8:00 AM. The Draft had originally been scheduled for Sunday March 31, until someone pointed out that the 31st was Easter Sunday. That sent us scrambling to reschedule and we eventually had to settle on the 23rd, which was over a week before Opening Day. This presented a new set of challenges, since National League rosters were far from settled by that point.

Another result of having to reschedule was that Dave Holian, owner of David's Ruffins, was again unable to attend the Draft. It originally looked as though he might be able to travel in from Greensboro, NC, but when we had to reschedule the Draft he was unable to make it. In the end, we fell back on the same technical set-up we had used in the 2001 Draft to communicate with Dave in Greensboro.

Following the 2001 season, Tim Leen of Tim's Maulers decided that one year was enough and announced he would not be returning to the CFCL for a second season. Harry Witzke, one of the co-owners of Bruce's Witzke a Go-Go, decided that two years were enough for him and announced his immediate withdrawal from the league. There were also rumblings that Eric Lamb, long-time owner of Eric's Lambchops, might not return for his 14th season because of increasing work demands were making it difficult to compete.

The Go-Go situation was resolved fairly quickly with Go-Go co-owner Bruce Ellman deciding to stay on and take full control of the team. His first act as sole owner of the franchise was to rename it to Tenacious B.

The Lambchops addressed their challenges by bringing on an assistant GM in the person of sports writer John Lemon. Early indications were that Eric would retain full ownership of the team, while John would assist in the day-to-day operations.

Finding a new owner for the Maulers proved slightly more difficult however, and we finally decided to post information about our opening on several fantasy baseball message boards. There were a handful of responses, and for various reasons the most promising applicant was fantasy baseball guru Jason Grey, of Mastersball.com. Jason named his team the Reservoir Dogs.

From left to right: Steve Olson (Stones), Eric Lamb (Lambchops), Paul Zeledon (Da Paul Meisters), David Mahlan (Copperfields, Co-Commissioner), Matt Grage (Hard Hats), Jason Grey (Reservoir Dogs), Kelly Barone (Six Packs), Rich Bentel (Dem Rebels, Co-Commissioner), David Holian - via speaker in Rich's hand (Ruffins), Nick Hansen (Picts), Matt Bentel (DoorMatts), Bruce Ellman (Tenacious B).

Note the boom mike in the background which was used to capture each bid and, more importantly, all our witty Draft Day repartee for the documentary.

During the off-season, we had been contacted by a group of filmmakers who were planning a documentary about fantasy baseball. They were looking for a long-standing league that they could use to illustrate various concepts related to the fantasy baseball phenomenon. The producers originally contacted new CFCLer Jason Grey via his website and asked if he knew of any leagues that fit the bill, and he referred them to us.

We met with the producers a couple times, and they seemed very impressed with the CFCL - particularly with our long history. In the end, they chose us as the "sample league" for their film.

In addition to filming interviews with various owners prior to the season and filming much of our Draft Day research and prep, the producers brought their cameras to our Draft and filmed pretty much the whole thing.

The original plan called for the filmmakers to follow us only up through Draft Day, but they eventually decided that they just couldn't get enough of us and ended up following us through the entire season.

The Bid Tracking spreadsheet that we used to keep Dave Holian informed about the current state of bidding on each player also kept a record of each player acquired. Click here to view the 2002 Auction Draft Record.

Coming Soon! Well, eventually... The documentary producers have promised us a copy of the Draft Day footage. Once we get it, we'll use that as the source for our audio samples.

David Mahlan (11 votes), Rich Bentel (11), Kelly Barone (10), Jason Grey (2), Matt Bentel (1), Bruce Ellman (1).

Draft Summary

First Player Purchased	Jason Isringhausen DoorMatts .40
Highest-Priced Batter	Todd Helton Tenacious B .49
Highest-Priced Pitcher	Curt Schilling David's Ruffins .44
First "Penny Player"	Tom Gordon Steve's Stones 7th round
Last Player Purchased	Josias Manzanillo Reservoir Dogs .01
First Minor League Pick	Dennis Tankersley Reservoir Dogs .15