![\"\"](\"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/1992-Topps-FrankThomas-300x214.jpg\" "\\"1992-Topps-FrankThomas\\"")
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20 years ago today, January 18, 1993, five kids met in a basement to try out this thing called fantasy baseball.\u00a0 Of course, I, and some of you, were those kids.\u00a0 The league didn’t even have a name yet, but with the kick-off of the inaugural league draft that day, the Dream Team Baseball League was officially launched.\u00a0 Two decades later, here we are still taking part in what has to be one of the longest running fantasy baseball leagues to have been started by a bunch of junior high kids.<\/p>\n
Sometime soon, I need to put all of the early history of the DTBL in writing before it completely escapes my memory.\u00a0 But for today, I’ll just write about some of what I recall from that inaugural draft.\u00a0 It will be a quick trip down memory lane for some of you, and for the rest, you may learn a little bit about how this whole thing got started.\u00a0 That first draft was extremely significant not just because it was the beginning of the league, but because one team used it to build the league’s first dynasty.<\/p>\n
It was Martin Luther King Day 1993.\u00a0 Current DTBL members Kelly, Charlie, Greg and myself, along with former member Peter, gathered in my family’s basement.\u00a0 It was the last day of a three day weekend.\u00a0 Four of us were in seventh grade and one in sixth at the time.\u00a0 My youngest sister, who is currently a sophomore in college, was born three weeks after the draft.\u00a0 Obviously, we all had a keen interest in baseball, but I don’t think any of us knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into.\u00a0 We had certainly never played fantasy baseball before, and I think only I had even heard of it.\u00a0 But I explained to the others what I had learned from reading about the game, established some rules, and organized the draft.<\/p>\n
In preparation for the draft, I attempted to set up the basement to mimic the NFL draft rooms I had seen on TV.\u00a0 Each person had a table\/desk with a team placard to mark their spot.\u00a0 There was a makeshift podium from which the teams announced their selections.\u00a0 When picks were made, the selected player’s baseball card was taped onto the wall next to a team pennant:\u00a0 a draft board, of sorts.\u00a0 I had printed out “newsletters” for each owner, containing the list of eligible players and stats.\u00a0 As I type this, I’m staring at my old copy of that original newsletter.\u00a0 Reading through it, some of it is quite embarrassing, until I remind myself I was 13 years old when I wrote these things.<\/p>\n
Although I don’t remember how long the draft ran, it could not have been short.\u00a0 It lasted 28 rounds, allowing each team to fill their entire roster.\u00a0 Our naivety towards fantasy baseball was evident right from the start.\u00a0 The first round was filled with picks of personal favorites (Choppers:\u00a0 Greg Maddux, Kings:\u00a0 Frank Thomas) and past-their-prime stars (Gators:\u00a0 Kirby Puckett, Cougars:\u00a0 Joe Carter).\u00a0 We drew numbers to determine the draft order, but wisely used a serpentine draft order for the only time in league history.\u00a0 Greg selected Puckett with the first pick, effectively making him the league’s first official player.\u00a0 Maddux went second, Ken Griffey Jr. third (to the Panthers), Thomas fourth and Carter fifth.<\/p>\n
Joe Carter may have been a questionable choice by the Cougars in the first round (although he was the World Series hero that year), but the totality of their 1993 draft was the best dynasty building event this league has ever seen.\u00a0 They heisted Barry Bonds in the fourth (!!!) round.\u00a0 Yes, this was pre-steroids Bonds, but he was already well established as one of the best players in baseball, and especially in fantasy baseball, coming off a 34 HR, 39 SB ’92 season.\u00a0 Their next pick after Bonds was quite a steal as well:\u00a0 Albert Belle.\u00a0 Then came Barry Larkin in round six.\u00a0 But they weren’t done drafting potential future Hall of Famers.\u00a0 In round 18 it was Craig Biggio, Ivan Rodriguez in 19 and Kenny Lofton in the 22nd round.\u00a0 Though Kelly was the youngest one in the group, she certainly outsmarted the rest of us that day.\u00a0 The end result of that super draft class?\u00a0 Three titles in the league’s first four years.\u00a0 This season will also be the 20th anniversary of the Cougars’ 1993 title.<\/p>\n
As we progress through 2013, I may have some more 20th anniversary features, but I figured it would be nice to take a quick stroll down memory lane on this milestone date.\u00a0 Looking ahead to our 2013 season, roster cuts will be due soon.\u00a0 I will send details in an email.<\/p>\n
Happy Anniversary!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
20 years ago today, January 18, 1993, five kids met in a basement to try out this thing called fantasy baseball.\u00a0 Of course, I, and some of you, were those kids.\u00a0 The league didn’t even have a name yet, but with the kick-off of the inaugural league draft that day, the Dream Team Baseball League […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=437"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":445,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437\/revisions\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}