COPPERFIELDS reserve S Stewart, activate D Veres from the Reserve List.

STONES trade J Edmonds and B Banks to LAMBCHOPS for C Patterson and D Kelton.

STONES reserve C Patterson, activate M Cepicky from the Reserve List.

DOORMATTS trade M Kotsay to LAMBCHOPS for C Burke and C Duran.

LAMBCHOPS reserve T Hubbard.

DOORMATTS activate M Sweeney, waive S Strickland (waive period ends 7-25).

PICTS reserve R Olmedo, activate J Kent from the Reserve List.

COPPERFIELDS trade R Klesko to LAMBCHOPS for O Dotel.

COPPERFIELDS reserve S Sullivan, activate J Cabrera from the Reserve List.

LAMBCHOPS reserve K Griffey, activate M Mantei from the Reserve List.

STONES call U Urbina (.21) from the Free Agent Pool, reserve E Gonzalez, waive C Guerrero (waive period ends 7-25).

STONES call J Duncan (.13) from the Free Agent Pool, reserve A Kearns, waive J Clement (waive period ends 7-25).

RUFFINS reserve A Fox, activate S Chacon from the Reserve List.

RUFFINS claim S Torres on waviers, reserve him.

RUFFINS call L Estrella (.12) from the Free Agent Pool, reserve T Wendell.

DA PAUL MEISTERS reserve G Matthews, activate C Floyd from the Reserve List.

DA PAUL MEISTERS call D Ross (.07) from the Free Agent Pool, reserve J Franco, waive C Leskanic (waive period ends 7-25).

DA PAUL MEISTERS call R Henderson (.18) from the Free Agent Pool, reserve Q McCracken, waive D Mendez (waive period ends 7-25).

HARD HATS reserve J Reboulet, activate R Alomar from the Reserve List.

HARD HATS reserve R Barajas, activate M Ojeda from the Reserve List.

HARD HATS reserve R Cormier, activate K Brown from the Reserve List.

TENACIOUS B reserve G Vaughn, activate J Michaels from the Reserve List.

PICTS reserve R Ledee, activate B Clark from the Reserve List.

RESERVOIR DOGS reserve M Kinney, activate R Johnson from the Reserve List.

RESERVOIR DOGS reserve A Almanza, activate G Rusch from the Reserve List.

Click here for updated rosters in Excel format.
Click here for the 2004 Rotation Draft Pick Tracker

Salary Cap

The in-season salary cap increased to $3.50 this week and a few teams have already taken advantage and pumped up their salaries. The cap will stay at $3.50 until September 1 when it increases to $3.60.

Trading the Gator Premiere

Last Sunday saw the World Premiere of "Trading the Gator", the fantasy baseball documentary that features the CFCL, and the event seemed to be a huge success.

The film played to a packed house -- the producers estimated over 250 people were there -- and it appeared to be standing room only. Seven CFCL owners were there, along with some of their friends and family. The film got a very good reaction from the crowd and all four producers received an extended ovation when they took the stage following the screening.

After they said a few words and thanked folks who had helped with the production of the film, they called the seven CFCL owners present up on stage and the crowd greeted US with a standing ovation. I’m not sure I understood why, since the producers were the ones who did all the work, but it sure was nice to experience. We each got to mumble a few words into the microphone (often sounding much like Bevis and Butthead – "Uhhh, like, that was cool. Heh-heh.") Someone in the crowed asked how things were going this year, so Eric, Bruce, Matt, and Paul got to take bows for being among the contenders.

Comments heard in the crowd afterwards were unanimously enthusiastic. Fantasy baseball participants, regular fans, and those who are indifferent toward baseball all found the film interesting and entertaining. I talked to several people who don’t play fantasy baseball who said the finally "got it" as a result of the film.

The film now has its own website, http://www.tradingthegator.com, which includes a place to sign up to receive information about future screenings of the film. It sounds like a screening at the Chicago Historical Society in October is close to being finalized.

IFAB Day in Two Weeks

Here's an early reminder that the Interleague Free Agent Bidding (IFAB) Day is just around the corner. Specifically, it will be Friday August 1, the day after MLB's July 31 trading deadline.

This is a new wrinkle we added to address some issues concerning players who came to the NL on the date of the MLB interleague trading deadline, as well as to increase the excitement that goes along with that day.

NOTE: This year, IFAB Day just happens to fall on a Friday, our normal transaction day. Because of this, there will really be no difference between IFAB Day bids and normal free agent bidding. However, I thought it would still be helpful to go over how IFAB Day works so the concept remains "fresh" for next year. So read this over, but keep in mind that for this year there won’t be a separate IFAB Day.

Each week (or close to it) I feature the web page of a fantasy baseball league that I’ve surfed across. Note that this is NOT intended to be a "review" of each site, nor is it intended to be a competition. It’s simply a way of exploring the fantasy baseball community beyond the CFCL and a way of recognizing those leagues with a presence on the Internet.

As I wrote last week, after the initial glut of very well-done web sites, I’ve been hard pressed to find another league site worth featuring. There are other sites for Rotisserie baseball leagues out there, but I haven’t found any yet that come close to those that were featured previously.

So this week, I’m changing gears a little bit and will feature the web site for a different kind of fantasy league. This week’s Featured League Web page belongs to the Diamond Mind Baseball League:

http://www.dmbl.net

The DMBL is a simulation league run, as the name indicates, using the Diamond Mind Baseball (www.diamond-mind.com) computer baseball simulation software. I’ll assume everyone is familiar with the way a sim league works (many CFCLers participated in the Winter Pastime Baseball League, which I ran using Diamond Mind a few years ago), so I won’t get into a lengthy explanation here.

The web site for the DMBL hits a homer on every one of the criteria – tons of information, both current and historical, all presented with wit and humor. I love the columns "written" by players from the early 90s (when the DMBL was formed). There’s "This Week in the DMBL" with Zane Smith; "Rookie Watch" with Phil Plantier; "Trade Talk" with Chris Nabholtz; and "Number Crunch" with Cecil Fielder. The names of Plantier and Fielder are probably better known, but it was the names Zane Smith and Chris Nabholtz that brought back a flood of memories from the CFCL’s first decade.

There’s more to the columns than just the celebrity authors, though – they’re chock full of content, all describing events in the current DMBL season and peppered with player pictures that are touched-up so the players are wearing the uniforms of their DMBL teams.

Along with the columns, the site includes numerous other features such as a scrolling newsline at the top which reports the results of the day’s games, league news, trivia, individual pages for each team, and, of course, stats, stats, and more stats. The team pages are especially nice – they include a logo, diagram of the team’s stadium, and highlights from the team’s history.

All in all, a very well-done site that clearly takes a lot of time and dedication to keep running. It really made me long for the days when I had the time to play in a sim league.

Record Book

Week Ending 7/18: With the shortened week caused by the All-Star Break, no new records were set last week.