Auction memories

[DMT]

Interesting list so far, nearly all of my greatest memories from our live auctions have had nothing to do with the actual auction.

Here's an exception. A guy who joined a few years ago asked the following question when he had just one spot left (after drafting mostly Rockies players since he's from Denver): 'so we can draft anyone we want?'. This is indeed the case in our league. So, the wise-ass says my wife's name for $1. And the bastard kept her on his team all season!

[heyelander]

Interesting list so far, nearly all of my greatest memories from our live auctions have had nothing to do with the actual auction.

Here's an exception. A guy who joined a few years ago asked the following question when he had just one spot left (after drafting mostly Rockies players since he's from Denver): 'so we can draft anyone we want?'. This is indeed the case in our league. So, the wise-ass says my wife's name for $1. And the bastard kept her on his team all season!

Did your wife take your name, or by chance did she keep a maiden name beginning with QUIZ or Y?

[umjewman]

Interesting list so far, nearly all of my greatest memories from our live auctions have had nothing to do with the actual auction.

Here's an exception. A guy who joined a few years ago asked the following question when he had just one spot left (after drafting mostly Rockies players since he's from Denver): 'so we can draft anyone we want?'. This is indeed the case in our league. So, the wise-ass says my wife's name for $1. And the bastard kept her on his team all season!

A story like that reminds me of my pre-internet 1993 auction, where I battled as an 8th grader against my brother and his friends who were seniors in high school (2nd place finish, with a memorable visit to the high school to get a ride home from my brother where I was lifted up and pinned against a locker by one of my brother's friends who said "you better ****ing beat Adam" because they wanted one of his other friends to lose so badly).

Anyyyyway, we're sitting around, reaching sort of the tail end of the auction and this guy says "Whoa, this guy had 29 saves last year, nobody has draft him yet? Steve Olin, eight dollars" (I think it was $8, either way, it was considerably more than $1). Everyone starts snickering, since of course, Steve Olin had died a week or two before the auction and was not the best use of $8.

[mgwiz22]

I went into an auction years ago having kept two shortstops. My strategy for bringing up players to be bid upon was "the best shortstop available", which I would proclaim each time I did it. My fellow league members got pretty sick of it after a while and when I brought up the next shortstop for $10 they all decided to stick me with him. He had been injured for part of the preceding few years and was no longer considered a premium player but Barry Larkin had a great, healthy, comeback year for me and I was turning down trade offers all season. I won the league that year.

[DMT]

Did your wife take your name, or by chance did she keep a maiden name beginning with QUIZ or Y?

Haha, no I'm an M and she's an S.

[Teenwolf]

I went into an auction years ago having kept two shortstops. My strategy for bringing up players to be bid upon was "the best shortstop available", which I would proclaim each time I did it. My fellow league members got pretty sick of it after a while and when I brought up the next shortstop for $10 they all decided to stick me with him. He had been injured for part of the preceding few years and was no longer considered a premium player but Barry Larkin had a great, healthy, comeback year for me and I was turning down trade offers all season. I won the league that year.

Very nice. I don't mind getting "stuck" with a 3rd catcher. If you can lock down 3 catchers at value, or even profit, especially in an Only league, it's one more catcher spot that another owner will have to fill with Craig Tatum or Drew Butera, earning negative value for that owner. Last year I did this and ended up with a $20 Mike Napoli as my 1B all season. It won't always work out this well, but sometimes you'll get lucky.

[Judge Jude]

1987 auction (a quarter-century ago, wow).
Two best pals sitting next to each other at the auction.
Nearing the end game, and one guy has a hunch about a Pirates RP named Barry Jones as a "closer-in-waiting" off a pretty good rookie year. So he bids a buck.

The other guy didn't even know Jones was, but right at "going twice!" he bids 2.
Hairy eyeball from the first owner, who angrily bids 3.

All eyes on the second owner. At "Going twice!" he does a Belushi eyebrow and says, "4."
Screams of laughter from the other 8 owners.
Of course there's a bid of 5 - and of course 'Belushi' goes 6.
First owner finally "wins" the forgettable Jones at 7 - then yells, "BUDDYFOCKER!" at his pal, but with a u instead of an o.
Jones had one SV that year with a 5.61 ERA, and both bidders finished well up the track.

Good times.

P.S. The "buddyfocked" guy is on WFAN radio in NY all the time. PM me if you want to know who it is (not a host).

I also remember a preposterous bidding war for Franklin Stubbs going all the way to 29, off a bad year and with another for that 'lucky' owner. Last hitter with a hint of power sometimes gets that love from the underspending owners.

[Erik]

P.S. The "buddyfocked" guy is on WFAN radio in NY all the time. PM me if you want to know who it is (not a host)

I would LMAO if it were Jerome.

[Grinch]

I owned Jeff Weaver in 2006----absolutely killed me. At the 2007 draft when I heard "Jeff Weaver $1" I ran into the mens room gagging as if I was gonna vomit.........he went for $5.

[Judge Jude]

"I would LMAO if it were Jerome."

hah, not the angry Knicks/Yankees fan from Manhattan.
not a caller....

[Erik]

Our league is about 50% Jewish, so there is always interest in Jewish players -- Shawn Green attracted quite the bidding wars in his prime, and our championship plaque has a Koufax card embedded in it.

The same year as the "bathroom teleportation" incident, two of our Jewish owners found themselves in a bidding war for -- David Eckstein, who usually went for around $10 (we're more or less a mixed league).

Bidder #1: $13!
Bidder #2: $14!
Another owner: Uh, guys, he's not Jewish...
Bidder #1: $15!
Bidder #2: $16!
Chatter: OMG, WTF, etc.
Other owner: Uh, GUYS, he's NOT Jewish...
Bidder #1: $17!
Bidder #2: $18!
Other owner... UH GUYS...

He ended up around $20, twice as much as he should have. Needless to say, the guy who won the bid did not contend that year.

[Fresno Bob]

Nice stories all....

I used to be in a degenerate drunks league, where normally at least one guy, and generally the same guy would be auctioning from the floor. The classic line from him was "oh ****, I think I'm going to get Keith Oooooooooosik" preceding his dash to the can. Another owner who was dialed into our live auction started out hammered, proceeded to pass out 2 or three times in the first 4 hours, then was gone for good for another three hours. Stunningly he reappeared in the last hour to declare that his knocked up live in girlfriend had come home, found him passed out on the couch and proceeded to destroy his Xbox and tv and the rest of the living room with the bat she found by him, he wasn't sure how many blows he took, but he got his neighbor to call the cops who showed up and took her away. Fortunately they were both journalists making their livings off their laptops, so she didn't go for those, so he was able to get back online and could someone send him their roster sheet

[TranaGreg]

well I was going to mention drafting a dead guy, but that's already been taken ...

I'll out myself in case there are any others from my league lurking around here, but this is a good story so here goes.

Late 90's, AL only. We had a owner who was only a couple of years into the league, but the ba$tard won the previous year - he wasn't exactly modest about it either so there was no love lost.

So we're well into the auction, down to 2 & 3 dollar players - most teams have less than $10 left, and someone mentions that this guy still has like $35 left ... and it's his turn to call out a name. He says "it's time: Mo Vaughn, $25". There's a long pause around the table, then someone very quietly says, "um, Mo went in the first round" ... followed by another long pause, then everyone howls & howls ...

Years later I'd still crack up every time I heard Vaughn's name.

[swampdragon]

well I was going to mention drafting a dead guy, but that's already been taken ...

I'll out myself in case there are any others from my league lurking around here, but this is a good story so here goes.

Late 90's, AL only. We had a owner who was only a couple of years into the league, but the ba$tard won the previous year - he wasn't exactly modest about it either so there was no love lost.

So we're well into the auction, down to 2 & 3 dollar players - most teams have less than $10 left, and someone mentions that this guy still has like $35 left ... and it's his turn to call out a name. He says "it's time: Mo Vaughn, $25". There's a long pause around the table, then someone very quietly says, "um, Mo went in the first round" ... followed by another long pause, then everyone howls & howls ...

Years later I'd still crack up every time I heard Vaughn's name.

We had the same thing with Hal Morris!

I also like when someone in the last few rounds asks "Has Albert Pujols been picked?" and then scratches him of his list with a great sense of frustrated purpose.

I think Chris Gomez was the last player picked for more than a few years in our league.

I added some random fun a few years ago to the draft by going out and buying a few packs of Topps cards - then once a player was picked there was a great ceremony of card presentaton - inversely proportional to the crappiness of the player. Ollie Perez got a great round of cheers!

[Todd Zola]

This was probably about ten years ago. My old partner and now Tampa Bay Ray scout Jason Grey and I were in a local league. It was frustrating because we were heavily shadow drafted by several of the other owners. No matter who we bid on, others bid us up, figuring the player had to be good. Of course the counter is sticking some scrubs with the shadow drafters, but it still took away from the fun and spirit of the auction.

So we devised a plan.

One of us would put out the name of a player that did not exist. The other would act pissed, and up the bid. We would go back and forth and sure enough, we got three guys to join the bidding.

If I recall correctly, Rob Leibowitz sold for $14.