Statbook in the Car

Pre-draft Preview part II.

10. Steve Sabo. The obvious direction here is a flurry of Chris Sabo lame-ass jokes. Well, the bigger question here is how well does he know Brad and Darren and how much should we hold that against him?? I've heard that Mr. Sabo is a Red's fan so I'm fairly disinclined to do much ripping at this point---having Dusty Baker as your manager is punishment enough. Maybe he can take comfort that the last great Reds manager is managing the WBC team this year... although that's probably not comforting enough.

9. Hank Sherman. Well what can one say about the Mighty Doc himself?? The Doc franchise has moved around a bit (Peoria, St. Louis, Bloomington) and our own version of Al Davis has caused his share of controversy, but through it all Hank has kept true to his twin passions: beer and strippers. Team officials claim otherwise, but the psychic downfall of the Docs was the day that strip-club enthusiast Jim Thome was dealt. Hank lost a kindred spirit that day---a blow that the franchise has not yet fully recovered from. FWIW, Hank's pick at 9 is one of the bigger wildcards in the draft...expect zigging when zagging is called for.

8. Jim Burwitz is also an original member. Jim has passed into legend as the man who picked Earl Weaver baseball over a girlfriend...not that there's anything wrong with that. The Bur franchise has had its share of success winning the first ever HOJO Johnson championship and being competitive in most seasons. Jim is a tenacious GM whose haggling over trades for that last drop of value is legendary, it has also given rise to the rumor that his entire roster consists of '5 and 10' guys. Interesting tidbit: Jim once beat Brett Butler in a fifty yard dash.

7. Adam Feld is one of the quieter members of the league who prefers to indulge in his true passion: teaching teenage girls to play basketball. He took up the calling after finding cat herding too easy for his tastes. Adam very soon will uphold the male Feld tradition by being father to twin girls...good luck with that.

6. Jason Villar knows Jay Crawford which as we all know is referred to as 'strike one' in these parts. Jason is also rumored to be a Cardinal fan (Strike Two) and as it turns out in my division (Ummm, take a seat son). Apparently Jason lives in Springfield but was too lazy to drive to the East Side for the draft----maybe next year we can have it at Illini Country Club and have tea and crumpets served to us Mr. Fancy Pants!! In any case I look forward to many years of watching 'Dice-K' look up at the scoreboard and see that he has thrown 112 pitches in the 4th against my squad.