Auction memories

[hacko]

Long time league since 1986.

We had one owner who party all night - came to the draft still drunk & after about 5 rounds passed out in his chair (still holding a beer). We screamed in his ear, shook him nothing would awake him . So we continued the draft . He woke up 3 hours later during dollar days with 120 dollars left.

2. One owner who is a texas ranger fan . WHEN IT CAME TIME TO THROW OUT A PLAYER LATE IN THE DRAFT - Blurted out Monty Fariss ( Tex prospect) 20 bucks. We all sat there stunned. Monty did not pay off that year for him. But every year since when things get a little quiet. Some one will scream out MONTY FARISS 20 BUCKS.

In the past we would hold the draft after the season started. Ray Knight ( yes I am old) started out the first week hitting 500 with 5 hr & 15 rbi. He went for 39 dollars. I think he ended up with 12 hr & 40 rbi for the year.

[The Dane]

A decade or so ago, we were discussing the fact that there were two pitchers named Bobby Jones: Bobby J. Jones and Bobby M. Jones, and how confusing it was to remember which one was worth rostering and which one wasn't.

Andy: I can never remember which one is which.
Me: I just think of it like this: a BJ is better than a BM.
Andy: That's true. (long pause) Not to demean a good BJ... but... sometimes, you know, when you REALLY gotta go...

[Judge Jude]

"We had the same thing with Hal Morris!"

Late 1980s, owner who now ironically is one of the writers for my beloved factcheck.org, and he's got that extra $15 to $20.
"Tim Wallach," he called out solemnly and confidently.
"He was frozen," someone says.
Boy, that's gotta suck.

I've brought the latest Topps cards to several auctions. I swear as the auction gets later, someone will bid the extra buck after seeing that there's a special variation card of the player on the table....

[GwynnInTheHall]

Judgef**ker!!!!

Tied between "here comes the Judge" and Byron, Hoyos and I trapped in the rental car as Byron's vomit filled the inside of my windshield as we drove up to the draft site..... Oh and Kohm driving like **** as we rushed off to get hammered at the Irish bar in Dallas.

[Erik]

Best one-liner:

2005, Adam Eaton is rostered for much more than he should be. Everyone chuckles.

Eaton owner: "C'mon, he's only bad at one category."
My buddy: "Yeah, `baseball'."

[mjl]

There is a guy in my main league who is usually nice but when he gets upset, he is super pissed and it is definitely somebody else's fault. A couple years ago, we submitted freeze rosters a day or two before the auction, they were sent out to be reviewed, and then at the auction he said that he definitely froze Smoltz and didn't know why he wasn't on the list. We told him that he had a chance to review the list and anyway Smoltz wasn't on his list and we couldn't say anything about what he meant to do. So he's super pissed already.

Auction starts, after a break Smoltz gets nominated and we decide to let him go to the original guy for $19 (which I think is what he'd been frozen at) in an attempt to keep the peace. However, we didn't count on the one guy who was teleconferenced in and who didn't know we were starting up again, so in an attempt to be fair we reopened the bidding as a formality. "$20" from the phone, original guy turns bright red and refuses to go $21, and that was that.

[Element]

Early 2000's. There's a bidding war for Andruw Jones. Beers had been getting slammed.

Losing owner - You would've blown all your money on him, huh?

Winning owner - Yeah. I'd blow him.

[Fresno Bob]

We had an owner win the auction for ken Griffey jr for $40, 8 minutes later griffey was out for the season with some catastrophic leg injury, this same owner the year before when the bidding for Craig Biggio got to $3 declared "$40" thinking we were auctioning Bagwell....

[Sour Masher]

Quicker, funnier story: Many years ago, one of our leaguemates, who at the time was pre gastro biapass and weighed in at around 500 lbs was sitting quietly broke in dollar days when another owner nominated one of his sleepers and he suddenly jumped up and in a large bellowing voice screamed, "Why don'y you just **** me in the ass!" This was followed by stunned silence, then a loud, long air out of the baloon fart by him, and then about 5 minutes of uncontrollable laughter from everyone in the room. Not a live auction went buy after that without someone saying his now famous catch phrase, and often with an attempt at clearing out some space for the act to occur.

A you had to be there story: A year before we went to an auction, and our last year in High School together, 1996, we did our keeper league draft with a big board in the one rich kid in our league's house. I'd lived in small apartments all my life and this house was the biggest I'd ever been in. The guy set up drink and snack stations, and this massive, professional draft boad, and seating for all 12 of us way back from it, like we were all watching the board as if it were a movie screen. Our seating was far enough from the big board that rather than make people sweat out the picks, all day we'd been calling them out as we walked up to the board and fastened them to this massive board. Very late in the draft--about two rounds from the end--one of our most dramatic owners started grinning for no apparant reason. When asked about it, all he'd say is "I'm not going to say until my pick is on the board" and it became obvious that he had a sleeper he was tickled pink about. Finally, it was his pick, and proud as a peacock he began the long, slow strut up to the big board. We started asking him who his pick was, but all he kept saying is "you guys are so dumb!" Slowly and with dramatic flair, he fastened the name to the board and then swiftly moved out of the way for the dramamitc reveal, both showing and shouting Manny Ramirez!" He was too busy gloating and mocking us to realize we were all laughing at him. 1996 was the year after Manny big 31 homer 107 RBI, .308 BA break out. This was a keeper league. Back then we kept 10 players each, 120 total gone. Those players were all made public long before, and listed on a typed list we were all given by our host to begin the day. Of course, Manny Ramirez was on the list. In an "you had to be there moment" the look of N64 kid elation to biting into a **** sandwhich disappointment was priceless.

[TyWebb004]

Here is an article from our league website from 5 years ago highlighting the best/funniest moments in our league's history.

http://hcbb.info/top15draftDayMoments.htm