Andrew Schrauben

After spending all Saturday morning and afternoon at the Pet Expo, my day wasn't done yet. At 8pm was the annual player draft for my baseball league!

Ever since 1993 I've been part of a fantasy simulation baseball league. This isn't a rotisserie league; this is a keeper league that updates player stats every month and plays actual games using simulation software: the amazingly accurate and realistic Diamond Mind Baseball. Each week of the regular season we play six games for a total of 144 for each of the eight teams in the league. We use American League players only.

Mach League Baseball is our league; the name is an abbreviation of Machiavellian League Baseball, reflective of the ruthless tactics we used to use back in our high school and college days, exploiting every loophole and forming ad-hoc coalitions, etc. We've always had fun, but we're more laid back now. Since 2001 I've been the League President, which basically means I'm the one updating stats, playing the games, and most recently, organizing the player draft.

Each roster has 30 players, but in the off-season we can keep only 18 and thus have a 12-round player draft towards the end of Major League spring training. Back in the early years seven of the eight GMs (team General Managers, i.e. the league members) lived in Ann Arbor so we'd all get together and conduct a draft in person. It was great fun but soon we were off to college and scattered about.

Luckily the internet took hold around the same time and we began conducting our draft online using chat rooms. It was a great way to get people together but technical difficulties would bite us every year. This year we tried something new: a free telephone conference service and it worked like a charm!

It was strange to hear everyone's voice; many of my fellow GMs I haven't talked to in years despite keeping in frequent email contact. I was lucky to meet up with a couple of them over the winter holidays. In fact, a few of the GMs in our league I've never met in person before! We're not a public league and everyone who's been part has been a friends or family of someone already in the league; my high school friend Shane was one of the co-founders in 1990.

So there we were, all talking on the phone together and struggling to quickly learn how to recognize everyone's voice! It was a great time and you bet we'll be doing that again next year. Thinking about it, it blows my mind that I've been in this league going on 15 years now! We've seen many Major League careers come and go; I've watched as the rookies who used to be years older than me are now years younger!

We love baseball, we're great fans, but we're not obsessed. You can tell when a GM is having a busy few years of life when their team begins to tank; they just can't keep up with baseball news to make informed decisions. Even though we make sure baseball doesn't get in the way of real life, many of us have been in the league for several years and managed to keep it up. I sincerely hope that our current crop of eight GMs will be able to remain in place for years to come because they are all great folks and even if we can only talk once a year, it's worth it.