Confession of a rotisserie nerd

FAIRFIELD, N.J. -- Last Friday night, in an office building a few miles from my home, I did one of the toughest things I've had to do in a long time. It wasn't quite up there with dropping my daughter, Laura, off at college, or putting our golden retriever, Woody, to sleep, but when you've been a Red Sox fan since the days when Bill Monbouquette threw to Bob Tillman, well, the pain is understandable.

I traded Pedro Martinez.

It was Peter Gammons' fault, really. But more about that later.

Anyway, I'm a rotisserie nerd.

List of the week Redskins rookie coach Steve Spurrier's thoughts of the week, gleaned from his hour with the media at the league meetings last Wednesday ...  1. On defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis becoming the first million-dollar assistant coach in football history: "I'm a big believer that Marvin's worth around a million bucks a year. If you pay your left guard or your backup linebacker a million bucks, why wouldn't your defensive coordinator make a million bucks?"  2. On golf: "There's a new course right near we practice, Belmont, that just opened. And then there's a course, Landsdowne. Both of them sort have a good deal for our coaches to come play. The other day I left the office a little before 3, played nine holes and got back to the office before 5. How about that?"  3. On the roads around Washington: "The highway system up there is excellent. They've got the toll road, 267, all the way from D.C. You get your little Smart Tag and you don't have to stop. There's one light between my house and Redskin Park, which is about 18 miles away. I'm living north of Leesburg, but I've got a Leesburg address."  4. On the impact he made on his sport while at Florida: "When we got there, all of you media experts said, 'Spurrier and that Duke offense don't have a chance. You have to run the ball and play defense.' That was the way teams won in the SEC before '90. But they were winning at other places in college football by throwing the ball and still playing excellent defense. Remember when I brought my Duke coaches down there and they said, 'Golly. He's bringing these doggone Duke coaches. He needs to get some SEC boys.' Joe Jacoby came in the other day and said, 'The Hogs. We had a reputation of [John] Riggins and run, run, run, but we threw the ball all over the place until we got the lead.' In the SEC championship last year, we threw one pass in the fourth quarter. When you're fortunate enough to get the lead, you run the ball, run the clock and move on."  5. On his involvement in the Washington defense this year: "I'll pat the guys on their backs when they make a good play. High-five 'em."  6. On working the insane hours of NFL coaches: "Do you think we would have done better at Florida if the coaches stayed until midnight? I don't think so. You can overdo it."  7. On importing the Fun and Gun offense into the NFL: "I hope it does well. We've got to find a new name for it. How about the East Coast offense?"

It's that time of year again. Fantasy baseball time. I read somewhere recently that three million of us play it, and that surprises me only because I figure that estimate is low. For me, the game -- competing with 12 physical therapists, businessmen and students in the Suburban Sluggers League, drafting 25 major league players and having 16 of them vie for collective points in 11 categories from batting average to walks-plus-hits-per-innings-pitched for the hurlers -- satisfies some sort of competitive jones after my athletic days have long since passed. At least that's what I tell myself. My wife, Ann, views it another way.

"You're insane," my ridiculously understanding bride told me the other day. "You're John Nash without the brain."

Enough psychoanalyzing. Let's get down to business. The draft!

I was in a different league a few years ago, but I had to get out because I obsessed. And in the days before e-mail, obsessing meant large long-distance bills, burning up the phone lines about trades. I got back into a local league last year, with the physical therapists who work on my daughter Mary Beth's pitching arm, because I can manage my obsession now. I think. Of course it's easy to do that when you finish 12th in a 12-team league, which I did last year. I stunk. Yeah, my guys got hurt, but I made a bunch of dumb trades (half my team for Pedro, right after he got injured) and almost all of my high picks (Preston Wilson, Darin Erstad) gave me nothing.

But after last season, I was in pretty good shape. We get to keep three players from one year to the next, then draft 22, and my keepers were Ichiro, Nomar Garciaparra and the great Martinez, who, until breaking down last year, was the best player in rotisserie history. Last year one of my players got hurt every 10 minutes, and I didn't want to go through that again. So I decided if I could get Greg Maddux -- surprisingly available -- or something very close to him in the draft this year I'd consider trading Pedro. Maddux, I figured, was 85 percent of Pedro if both were operating at peak performance, and Maddux never gets hurt. As much as it pained me to consider parting with Pedro, it pained me more to think how nervous I'd be before every start, wondering if this was the one where he'd leave in the third inning and say, "It's just a precaution. I couldn't get loose out there." Translation: Out for the year. I knew nothing, just like Red Sox Nation, about whether Pedro could make it through 33 starts. I just feared. And I started putting together a mental list of available pitchers I'd consider who, at their best, would be 80 percent of Pedro. I thought Maddux was the only sure thing. But Oakland's Mark Mulder was close, a big guy on a team that would win a lot with a 3.40ish ERA and not many walks. So was Mulder's teammate Barry Zito, with similar numbers. But was Mulder worth dumping Pedro? That's what I had to decide.

So, while I attended the NFL meetings in Florida last week, I ran into Gammons while doing an item for a column on the Indians taking a few pages from the team-first Patriots. "Peter," I said. "Who's going to have better numbers this year: Maddux or Mulder?"

He thought for a minute. "Mulder," he said.

If the great Gammons put Mulder over Maddux, then I knew a deal was worth it, if it could be had. With the eighth pick in the first round Friday night, I announced to those in front of me, "If one of the two guys I want is still on the board when you pick, I'll trade Pedro Martinez plus my fifth-rounder for your first- and third-round picks."

A hush fell over the room, but only because someone was trying to find the bottle opener for his Heineken. (We're not that serious.) The draft began. Maddux went first. Curses, I thought. Then Kerry Wood (I don't trust his health), Jorge Posada, Bobby Abreu (what a player), Magglio Ordonez, Bret Boone (how could he go sixth?!) ... and then the seventh guy, Rich Jacobs, said to me, "How's Pedro's health?" I told him The Boston Globe reported that Martinez said he felt fine after throwing four innings against the Cardinals the previous day and, hey, you never know. He took the deal. I was happy. I was morose. I was George Costanza.

I took Mulder with his pick and Zito with mine. I took Freddy Garcia in the second round, Jim Thome in the third, and Kaz Sasaki with the third-rounder I got in the trade.

Funny how these things go. Personally, I like to pick Red Sox players when things are remotely equal. The only one I got was Derek Lowe, my fifth starter, in Round 16. I'd prefer not to take West Coast guys, because I like to know how I've done before bed, but I ended up with practically nothing but PST players: Mulder, Zito, Garcia (with Atlanta's Jason Marquis my fourth starter), the Mariners' Sasaki as my lead closer, Seattle's Jeff Cirillo at third and AL West denizens Ichiro, Mike Cameron and Garret Anderson as my starting outfield.

I do like character players because they tend to play at all costs. I got a few: Mike Lieberthal at catcher, Thome, Craig Biggio at second, Nomar at short (I'll take the risk with him) and Cameron.

I like kids who haven't done anything yet. In Round 18 came San Diego third baseman Sean Burroughs, who sounds like the genuine item. Round 19: Cubs prospect Mark Prior, the next Seaver. Round 21: Houston's Morgan Ensberg, Jimy Williams' starting third baseman in the crackerjack Ballpark Formerly Known as Enron. When I picked Ensberg, one of the guys said, "Has he been Bar Mitzvahed yet?"

And I like luck. My sixth starter, pedestrian Dodgers righty Eric Gagne, was going to be strictly insurance for me. Until I saw a note Sunday in the paper mentioning that L.A. is making him its closer. Closers are like gold come June and July, when saves guys start breaking down, and I have five of them now: Sasaki, Antonio Alfonseca, Kelvim Escobar, Mike Williams and Gagne.

As I walked out of the place around 11 p.m., I said the same thing I said last year. I think I've got a heck of chance to win this thing.

Sure.

Jonathan Kraft, the vice chairman of the Patriots and son of owner Bob Kraft, almost pulled off his biggest coup since, well, the Patriots won the Super Bowl. Jonathan is a big U2 fan (I have actually attended a Foxboro Stadium U2 show with him and his dad, and he might like the Boys of Bono more than I do) and he recently asked the band to be the first event in CMGI Stadium history. That's the new football stadium in Foxboro, opening for business this summer. U2 really wanted to do it. One problem. The Edge is getting married this summer, and his honeymoon conflicts with every date they might have worked out. And so U2 won't open CMGI. somehow I get the feeling that the band will play the stadium sometime. Many times, actually.

1. I think the Giants sound like Team Harmony. Strange dynamic there. The defense has always held it against the offense for not keeping up its end of the bargain. Now it surfaces again, even though the defense was hardly Ravenesque last year. The D allowed the Giants to fall out of the playoff race, giving up 24, 24 and 34 points in the last three weeks of the season, and finished 14th overall in league rankings. And Michael Strahan wants the moon. I don't blame him for that, really. But then Tiki Barber criticized Strahan's contract demands, and defensive tackle Keith Hamilton brings up the defense-has-been-carrying-the-offense angle, and who is Tiki to talk, and blah, blah, blah. I smell 6-10 for Big Blue unless two things happen: Jim Fassel puts an effective lid on this (and not just a shut-up-fellas lid, but a peacemaker lid) and Kerry Collins has a top-12 quarterback year. I'm not confident about either.

2. I think these are my Final Four thoughts:

a. Isn't the Final Four devoid of real Cinderalladom, which it needs to captivate America, when the biggest surprise team is the quad-Big Ten regular-season champ?

b. And you, Mike Davis, have totally lost me. Giving the game ball the other day to the university president, Miles Brand, for having the guts to hire you? Talking incessantly about how you can coach? Buddy, I coach girls' softball, not big-time basketball, but I've learned one thing: It's not about the coach. It's about the kids.

c. All you need to know about the insanity of Final Four pools is this: I'm in Terps grad Ron Fisch's every year, but I've never come close. This year I gave the bracket to Montclair High sophomore Mary Beth King, who has never seen a complete college basketball game in her life, and asked her to fill it out. I looked at the bracket two weeks ago. Gonzaga out right away. Indiana over Duke in the round of 16. Cincinnati out in the third game. Silly things. But if UConn had hung on, she would have had three of the four Final Four teams (with Oklahoma and Kansas) and an excellent chance at the $500 pot.

3. I think if the Raiders were so hot and bothered about the tuck rule, why didn't they propose a rules change?

4. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

a. I finally saw A Beautiful Mind. Captivating. What a job by Russell Crowe. I was floored when I found out he was seeing things. So real. If any movie deserved Best Picture, that was it.

b. Get the feeling the careers of Halle Barry and David Justice, those ex-lovebirds, are headed in opposite directions?

c. The Oscars are fun, but I'd never heard of an actress named Laura Harring until now. I see where she was wearing million-dollar shoes Sunday night. Did anyone tell her how insane, stupid, absurd and over-the-top that was before she went and did it?

d. Coffeenerdness, sort of: The Woody tributes continue to pour in. An incredible one came in the mail the other day, from Anne Schaefer and Major Cohen of Newton Center, Mass., a card with a $20 Starbucks debit card enclosed. Wow. "May Woody now be running on fresh legs through fields dotted with his favorite treats," they wrote. I'll have my next latte thinking of you guys. My next five, actually. Thanks.

e. Hey spring: You out there anywhere?

5. I think the player who most overplayed his hand in free agency is tight end Ken Dilger. The market's passing him by. No, it has passed him by.

6. I think, after sitting with Minnesota coach Mike Tice for an hour last week, I found a coach who's easy to root for. Talk about having the old emotions on the sleeve. He says after the death of his student and offensive tackle Korey Stringer last year, "I didn't know if I could coach again. I was afraid to push anybody. Gingerly, I got back into it." He said during the last week of the season, when Dennis Green left as the Vikings' head coach, "There was hate in the building ... That last week was a culmination of 10 months of horror." He said after Stringer's death, "I cried a lot. I still cry." He said of his climb up the coaching ladder, "For a while, I was a hot coach. Then we lost to the Giants 41-0 in the NFC championship game and I went back to being a big, fat, tall line coach. People lost my phone number." When I called Tice, a proud Terp, Sunday for some clarifications for my NFL notes column in the magazine this week, he called back and said: "Hurry up. Three minutes to the start of the second half for the Terps." Interesting guy. He'll need some of those one-liners this year when his defense is giving up 28 a week.

7. I think, by the way, if I had Randy Moss in a fantasy football league this year, I'd be a very happy man. He'll catch 130 balls for 1,900 yards. Seriously.

8. I think I wish I could figure out why the Chargers are paying so many OK players (Tim Dwight, Stephen Alexander) big-time starters' money. It's a salary cap, men, not the lottery.

9. I think Drew Bledsoe plays in Buffalo this season.

10. I think Arafat and Sharon should go have coffee with Dan Rooney. He'd fix things.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space -- no kidding -- on Monday mornings.

 

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