In which the Chicago Sports Review playfully chides Bill Simmons

August 2nd, 2006 | Posted by PostmanR

We like Bill Simmons. We really, really like the Chicago Sports Review. (Seriously, if you’ve never heard of this publication check it out – good writing abound.) But what happens when the two intertwine?

A create your own Sports Guy column!

Yup, just fill in some (actually, a lot of) blanks (full of sports and pop culture-y goodness, of course) on their form and bang! there it is for you.

After the jump, you can peep my Sports Guy Column. It’s a real doozy!

(And yes, we know this is on Deadspin today as well. Just went up like 10-15 minutes ago. As I typed this up, PostmanE informed me they threw up a post about it. Will Leitch is a true master of the Interweb.)

(The Big Lead also had this up earlier today.) 

The Sports Guy Goes to an Auction

So I’m sitting there the other day watching ESPN2 and I see that Alex Rodriguez had a great game. There is nobody, with the possible exception of Grady Little, that I dislike more than Alex Rodriguez. In the pantheon of people that ‘Make the Sports Guy mad,’ these two are a nail-biter.

The phone rings. It’s my friend Bish. sweet! Bish is always willing to discuss our mutual distaste for Alex Rodriguez. Don’t get me wrong–we respect his abilities. But he’s the Screech of sports. Totally annoying, yet on TV all the time. Bish mentions that it would be nice if Alex Rodriguez caught a case of dysentary at the beginning of September, opening a Clinton Portis on HGH-sized hole for the Red Sox to cruise to the playoffs.

Bish points out that the chances that Alex Rodriguez will come down with dysentary in September are minimal, but that if we expanded the possibilities, there would be a greater chance for debilitation of some sort. As usual, Bish is a crazy genius.

Here is what we came up with:

4. Alex Rodriguez receives a vicious full nelson from David Ortiz in front of 40,000 fans jammed into Fenway Park.

(On a side note, has there ever been a greater moment in sports than when Hulk Hogan winning? That and when Mighty Ducks are the winners of the ‘Most sweet Non-Real-Life Sports Moment Competition 2006.’)

3. Alex Rodriguez is informed by his wife that their child was not fathered by him but rather by either Brad Lidge or Dayton Moore.

2. Alex Rodriguez hangs a homemade collage featuring scrabook-style clippings of Brandon Walsh and Mr. Miyagi in his locker. He is immediately placed on the DL with ‘flu-like symptoms.’

1. Alex Rodriguez meets Trichelle from The Hills, falls in love, and leaves team to begin filming ‘My Fair Yankee.’

After we finish with the conversation about Alex Rodriguez we turn ourselves to the real topic of conversation, the upcoming draft of the Erin Andrews is Sexy Memorial Baseball Association, a new fantasy league that Bish and I will be joining this year.

Ordinarily, I’m never an advocate of partnering up to own a fantasy baseball team. That’s like getting picked up by Mia Hamm and going back to her place, only to find out that Sean Kemp is already there. If the best you get is to share, sometimes it’s not worth it at all, right?

However, this league only had one slot open, so Bish and I agreed to partner up, in the hope that one of us could switch over and manage the next vacancy. After much debate, and eliminating the excellent possibilities of ‘Naked Clue with cookies’ and ‘The Fridge’s Shiny hooker as potential team names, we settle on ‘Boston All-Stars.’

The thing that’s exciting about this league is that it is an auction format league, which is totally different than a draft league. I mean, it seems as though it would be the same as a draft league, but it’s not. It’s like the difference between NHL ‘93 and NHL ‘94-you take out fighting and add one-timers, you’ve got a whole different game, even if they are both hockey. Any good sports fan knows that Frank Thomas has 500 home runs, but not everyone knows how to conduct an auction.

Pre-Auction preparation is important. First, it is important to choose a date when the auction will take place. This is easy. Choose the date when the whipped guy in the league does not have to cry, and that’s your date. Finding the whipped-guy-can-make-it date is a crucial part of auction success. (Speaking of which, what is with all these girlfriends who think that ‘fantasy draft’ is code for ‘I’m going to have my buddies over to watch Jose Canseco perform Motley Crue while massage?’ Don’t they realize we’d rather play fantasy baseball? Though that would be cool.)

Next, and more difficult, is the auction location selection. Many times people will choose to have auctions in bar. This is a bad idea. Nothing good can come of this; every person in the room is going to be pissed and have an extremely sore arm after four hours. No, the auction must be held in someone’s house-best furnished basement wins. The coolness of the wife/significant other can be a deciding factor if two people have similar options-say, if owner A has a Grand Theft Auto arcade game, but owner B has a case of Natural Light. Nothing will kill a fun evening faster than the host’s wife emasculating him with a ‘Will you stop that’ We have selected next Tuesday night, at 8 pm, at a guy’s house where his wife will be washing hair, and therefore unable to disrupt the festivities.

I will not be sharing with you my player ratings for this coming season-after all, Phil Helmuth doesn’t play poker with the hand face up-but I will give you some insight into my auction strategy. The thing is, an auction has so much more of an influence on your season than a draft does. In an auction, every player in the league is at your disposal. Everyone starts out equal. It’s the liberal of fantasy sports.

It’s also like a marathon. It requires endurance, it requires stamina, it requires concentration and planning. Without further ado, here is my ‘Sports Guy Auction Strategy Guide’:

Round One-protect your face

Once the auction starts, timing and strategy are much more important than they are in a traditional draft. The first hour or so of the auction has to be spent feeling out your opponents. Are they particularly loyal to the Kansas City Royals? Do they have a tendency toward loud? You are looking for weaknesses that you can exploit later on. Store these like rubber bands.

Here is a good place to test people by chucking out a few names of guys you’d never want on your team-aging, oft-injured players, like Nomar Garciaparra, or over-hyped rookies that never panned out, like Kerry Wood.

Everyone is going to get some good players at this point, so make sure you don’t overpay and find yourself begging for money like Johny Drama asking for Vinny Chase’s AMEX Black.

Round Two-Have a Sense of economics

In round two, there will be one moment that defines your draft. Things will be going along smoothly, and all of a sudden you’ll get involved in a bidding war on a player. It’s not unlike a big pot in a no-limit hold-em tournament-you’ll have your The Joker-Batman in Batman Returns moment, and you need to decide what to do.

Oftentimes, this will come down to a single dollar, here or there-if you bid giving up your No. 1 pick for Daryl Strawberry, you know you’ll get him, but you’re facing a bid with the clock ticking. Are you going to be a hero, carried off the field like David Ortiz? Or are you Dave Wannstedt, skulking off the field into the jeering history of your team’s fans, with only your family still willing to speak with you. Now is your moment. Set the tone.

Round Three-Moving Day

Phase three of the draft is moving day, like day three of The Western Open. You need to shoot a 70. This is where you’ll fill out a lot of the players that, while less provacative, make up the core of your team. Do not discount the importance of moving day. If you wait until the next phase to build the core of your team, you’ll find yourself as lonely as Lindsay Lohan in a room full of Mormons.

Moving day is the time to make things happen for your team. This is where you are going to define the season that you have. If you end up moving day by taking an accurate mix of future stars, injury-risk players, and Mark Loretta, you’ll be okay.

Round Four-The Game of Trivial Pursuit

By the end of the fantasy auction, the endeavor has become lengthy. The only thing it can be compared to is a game of Trivial Pursuit, played among friends. Something that, at the beginning of the day, seemed like such fun, but by the end of it, is just a group of people banging their heads against the wall, adamantly trying to finish what they started, the joy of competing against your friends replaced with a desire to prove that you are The Duke of All Trivia and that is that.

In this phase of the auction, you must be careful. This is the ‘Sure, mom, I settle down with a nice girl every night, then I’m free the next morning. ‘ moment of the draft. People will be exploding like dynamite, screaming incomprehensible things like Flava Flave and threatening to break a chair if they do not get their way.

Just bite your lip, set your jaw, and try and endure. It’s a long season coming forward.

‘Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!’

Tags: Bill-Simmons, Chicago-Sports-Review //