8 Team Fictional Baseball Tournament Is Coming to a Computer Near You
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The 1st Annual(and probably last) 8 Team Fictional Baseball Tournament is coming to a computer near you. Not to worry it's nothing dangerous. No malware, no computer viruses, no spam, and maybe no fun either. But it's free, I do most of the leg work, and there will be a prize for the victor. What more could you ask for? Besides money, power, a 68 inch plasma TV, a world full of peace, love, and puppies, or just an end to this off-topic rant. So what is it? 1. An 8 team tournament featuring 8 fictional teams, drawn from baseball movies, TV, and books, that we have all loved and cherished our whole lives. Unless you grew up in an orphanage, deep inside an abandoned Scranton coal mine, with nothing to eat but coal dust, and nothing to drink but the tears of your fellow orphans. Screams at night echoing down the dark endless coal-scarred chasms, consumed in despair and misery. Why won't somebody help me?.........sorry. 2. The 8 team names have been chosen by me. Before the tournament starts there is room for discussion on changing your team name, but the 8 I have chosen are awesome, so why would you want to change any of them. 3. The 8 stadiums have also been decided, although naming rights can be bought. (cash only) 4. Each team will have a 25 man roster. 2-c, 2-1B, 2-2B, 2-SS, 2-3B, 5-OF, 4-SP, 5-RP, 1-DH. There will be only 200 players available for drafting. All players will be fictional in nature, consisting of many fictional baseball players(Roy Hobbs, Scotty Smalls, Kelly Leak, etc) as well as many other non-baseball fictional characters. (Homer Simpson, Huck Finn, James T. Kirk, Macbeth, and yes, even Santa Claus) 5. You will draft your 25 man roster via email, to fill the line-up needs only. 2-catchers, 2-1st basemen, 4-Starting pitchers, not 1, not 3, not 5, no more, no less, no negotiation. Why can't you just do what I tell you to do? Get your ass in that coal car young man!.................sorry. 6. 8 teams will compete in a best of 7 tournament. 4 teams in each bracket. Last team standing wins the prize. 7. The stadiums are just renamed stadiums from the ATG database, that is currently being used in the RAMBLE. I threw out the modern stadiums, and then randomly picked 8 stadiums, and randomly assigned new names to them. 8. I randomly selected 200 players from the same database. 16 catchers, 16 shortstops, 40 OFers, etc, until I got to 200. There was an eclectic mix of players chosen. Not many HOFers,(maybe 10), and a lot of insignificant nobody's. 9. I then randomly renamed each player as a fictional character. The Random Number Generator got a workout. Thus giving me 200 randomly fictionalized players to be drafted. 10. When you are drafting your players you will have no idea of the talent you are drafting. All that will be supplied will be a name, and the primary position. After the draft is complete you will then get your players stats. I initially wanted the stats to remain anonymous, but that would give me a distinct advantage since I would know what my players were capable of doing, while you would not. 11. Don't draft based on a fictional characters reputation. Pedro Cerrano might not be a power hitter. Kelly Leak might not be the all around ball player that played for the Bad News Bears. Ron Burgundy might be one of the few Hall of Famers in the draft. All selections were made randomly. Draft Al Bundy because you liked the character. Draft Shakespearean characters because you love the Bard. Go Star Trek or Star Wars, go Bad News Bears, or Major League. Whatever you want. No strategy needed, just luck. 12. I will not be drafting a team, I'll get the last 25 players left in the draft. I will be taking the team name of the NY Knights, because I have a NY Knights jersey, and it's my tournament. The other 7 team names will be assigned by a 1st come 1st served choice. The 1st GM to enter gets the 1st choice of a team name. Another team name can be used if you'd like. But it must be from a book, movie or TV fictional team. After I get 7 fiction loving, baseball jonesing GMs on board, we can start the process of drafting. No real rush, just something to do that might be fun. Show off your writing skills, and your sense of humor, while bragging on your team, and your players, or just making fun of me. It's all good, except no coal mining jokes, it just brings up too many bad memories. The inky darkness, the smell, the coal-roughened hands of the orphanage's head-master. OK, that last part wasn't too bad, but the rest of it was horrible. THE TEAMS: New York Knights-The Natural, Roy Hobbs and Wilford Brimley. What more do you need to say? Stadium- Knight's Field Hoboken Zephyrs- From a 1960 Twilight Zone episode called, “The Mighty Casey” Rod Serling and a robot named Casey. No Wilford Brimley, but Jack Warden does kind of look like him. Stadium- Windy Breeze Park Mudville Nine- From “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Thayer. We've all read it, a truly iconic baseball poem. Too bad there's no joy in Mudville, or in the Scranton coal mines for that matter. Stadium- Mudville Memorial Park Springfield Isotopes- The Minor league team featured on the Simpsons. Homer Simpson was the Isotopes mascot. I don't believe Wilford Brimley ever appeared on the Simpsons, but it wouldn't surprise me if Homer had diabeetahs. (That's how Wilford Brimley said “diabetes” on those commercials. Did you see what I did there?) Stadium- Atomic Field Gotham Goliaths- A DC Universe baseball team. I believe this was Ron Cey's 1st team. (Because he was called the Penguin, and the Penguin was a Batman villian...........and I shouldn't have to explain the jokes for you guys.) Stadium- Gotham Cave Park Myrtle Beach Mermen- Eastbound And Down with Kenny Powers. “If at first you don’t succeed then maybe you just suck” Stadium- Mermen Aquarium Field Bad News Bears- Kelly Leak, Engelberg, Amanda Wurlitzer, Tanner Boyle, Coach Buttermaker and many more. “Maybe if you wiped your nose once in a while, people wouldn't give you so much crud all the time.” words to live by Tanner, words to live by. Stadium- Bail Bonds Park Hackensack Bulls- Richard Pryor as Monty Brewster, has to spend a lot of money in Brewster's Millions, and John Candy gets to help out. “Monty, this is Hackensack, NJ. No scout comes here, you understand that. Trains are going through the outfield right now. But you strike this guy out, I'll take you with me tonight and get you drunk, that's a promise.” -Spike Nolan (John Candy) Stadium- Bull's Stadium THE PLAYERS: Catchers: Mike Engleberg- If he's not the 1st catcher picked, then this tournament is just a waste of my time. Hamlet- Harry Callahan- “ Do you feel lucky punk? Then pick me 1st.” Crash Davis- Jimmy Dugan- Napoleon Dynamite- J.R Ewing- Who wants to take a shot at JR? Axel Foley- Dottie Hinson- John McLane- Jack Parkman- Bruce Pearson- A very young Robert DeNiro, in a pretty good baseball flick. Bang The Drum Slowly Ham Porter- Jake Taylor- Darth Vader- How do you get this guy out? Ace Ventura- 1st Base: Mighty Casey- JamesBond- The best of the Bonds hands down. Frasier Crane- Commander Data- Moby Dick- Jack Elliot- Gordon Gekko- Clu Haywood- Navin Johnson- Clubber Lang- Why Mr T didn't win an Oscar is beyond me. Hannibal Lecter- You know you want this guy on your team. Oscar Madison- Homer Simpson- Looks like a hitter. Andy Sipowicz- Zachary Smith- I hated this guy when I was a kid. Felix Unger- 2nd Base: Othello- My favorite Shakespeare play. Ernst Blofeld- Tanner Boyle- My favorite Bad News Bear. Louie DePalma Taxi was a great TV show. Chico Escuela- Huck Finn- Marla Hooch- James T. Kirk- Need a team Captain? Look no more. Miguelito Loveless- Wild Wild West is an underrated TV masterpiece. Marty McFly- Yeah Yeah McLennan- Hawkeye Pierce- Mickey Rawlings- Mickey Rawlings is a journeymen 2nd baseman solving baseball murders in the early 20th century. A great series of books by Troy Soos. Tony Soprano- I never watched this show. Peter Venkman- Bruce Wayne- The best Bruce Wayne of the bunch. 3rd Base- Macbeth- Rocky Balboa- Holden Caulfield- Personally, I think Catcher in the Rye is overrated. Daryl Dixon- For my money, this is the best player to have in the event of a zombie apocolypse. Roger Dorn- Sherlock Holmes- Jim Ignatowski- Ralph Kramden- The Honeymooners rarely made me laugh. Freddie Kreuger- Nightmare On Elm Street made me laugh. Dude Lebowski- Herman Munster- Snake Plisken- FYI: Kurt Russell played 3 years of minor league baseball, and was a pretty good hitter. Monty Python- OK, technically not really a fictional character, but the Holy Grail and Life of Brian, are 2 really funny movies. Joe Shlabotnik- Charlie Brown's favorite player. Maxwell Smart- Mister Spock- Shortstop: Snoopy- Bruce Banner- Ferris Beuller- Auric Goldfinger- Rick Grimes- Max Headroom- Could somebody please explain this show to me? Uriah Heep- Not the rock band, but the greedy malformed clerk from David Copperfield.