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7/25/00
Email Commish
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I live
in a very interesting part of the country. I live in Indiana, not
real exciting to most of you am sure. I live in a small, sleepy
river town. We are smack-dab in the middle of what I consider a
sports hot-bed. I am only 2 hours south of Indianapolis, 1 hour
and 45 minutes from Cincinnati and 45 minutes from Louisville.
I get the best of all sports worlds… high school basketball of course
(that is what we Hoosiers are known for after all). College basketball
(IU, Purdue, Notre Dame, Indiana State, University of Cincinnati,
Dayton, Miami of OH, Xavier, Ohio State, Louisville, my favorite
UK, and others within a short drive). Pro and minor league baseball
(Reds, River Bats, Indians all within a few minutes drive). Pro
Basketball (the Pacers and a WNBA team which I have no idea what
the name of the team is but I know behemoth Kara Wolters is the
starting center). Finally, Pro Football (The Colts and Browns) we
also have a minor league football team known as the Bengals, you
might not have heard of them.
At any rate what you can count on being so close to all of these
teams and sports are certain events happening each year and things
start getting into a pattern. I know guys who have had surgeries
planned around the high school basketball games and weddings moved
until the late afternoon so as not to miss college football games.
Right now my inner-clock is telling me to prepare for the Fantasy
Football draft. How do I know it's time? Well for one, the scars
are starting to heal from my inappropriate softball sliding (one
of these days I will learn that I am getting too old for that stuff),
also my golf game has fully gone to hell, my fantasy baseball team
looks like a MASH unit, and last but not least my local owners are
waking from their comas to ask when the draft is going to be here.
Let me preface my next statement by saying that I used to do nothing
for a living. That's right, I was a morning radio DJ and sports
director. I worked from 4:00 am till 3:00 pm playing music and reporting
sports then went home ate supper and went to bed. Now I have a real
job… in fact I am writing this at my desk as we speak so don't tell
my boss. I used to do all of my photocopying for the draft on the
radio station equipment. I'd do draft lists, reports and the whole
nine yards right there at 4:00 am. I figure the stats by hand pouring
over the morning paper and nearly go blind trying to read those
minuscule box scores. I'll never do it again. In this age of the
World Wide Web there is no need for it. I still read the paper but
I sure don't buy one just for the stats. My leagues are now all
automated. I want to do a shameless plug at this point and not
just because the service I use is an advertiser of the this web
space.
Commissioners if you are still laboring over newspapers and putting
together football reports by hand join the late 1980's and get on-line.
There are a ton of services that you can purchase and even some
you can get for free that will let you spend your time correcting
your poor draft and less time figuring out the stats of the two
last place teams playing each other this week.
It's nice to blame wrong stats on a computer instead of poor math.
But the biggest benefit of using a computer aided stat service is
the time that it saves you. I went from three days of stat keeping
and processing by hand to about an hour. I run two leagues but participate
in five. I will tell you unequivocally that the leagues that I run
are 100% more fun than the other leagues that I participate in.
Both of the leagues that I run are 100% Internet and the websites
that our leagues use everyday, don't cost us a dime.
I pay a tiny amount ($69) for the software and stats each season
and I put that software on both my computer at work and on my laptop.
One piece of software will run both leagues without duplicating
the cost. Each league I run has a different scoring system, rules,
draft style, line-up requirements and entry fee. One league uses
team defenses and the other individual defensive players. One league
is a modified dynasty league the other is modified re-draft league.
One league gives points for completions and rushes while the other
gives points for only yards and td's. The software I use creates
unbelievably professional web pages in 5 minutes and allows for
waiver transactions and line-up submission over the website. I take
5 minutes on Monday and Tuesday to download the stats from the software
companies website and plug it into the system to run the stats.
About one ˝ hour later I have the completed stats ready to upload
to my free page from geocities. My owners know the score of their
games Monday morning by 9am on most weeks earlier some weeks depending
on MY schedule not the software schedule or the paperboy's schedule.
Also my guys don't have to wait until the next day to add up that
late night West Coast game that missed the paper.
After all of this I hope you are wondering what software system
I use. I use Fanstar and the
owner of the Software Company is Mike Gregoire. You can download
your version of the software by clicking on the banner ad at the
top of the FFToday web page. I don't want to sell you something
because I get absolutely nothing for this. I know that three years
ago when I decided I was tired of running leagues by hand I went
looking for fantasy software and the only company that provided
what I was looking for was Fanstar. There are tons of stat services
and software programs but I have yet to find one that combines the
ease of use and the spectacular web output that Fanstar does. I
am a good customer but if you know of a better system let me know
I'd like to find out about it.
Fanstar does have it's problems and I'll admit that but Mike Gregoire
has absolutely bent over backwards in the past to individually fix
any problems I might have had. Most of the problems I have encountered
have been problems caused by me but he has been patient done whatever
is necessary to get the software working for my league.
A post mortem update to last weeks column:
I have had much response to my article last
week... people adding names to both of my lists, players that
they like and dislike. But no one got as much attention as Reggie
White. It seems that big Reggie isn't very well like by the Hispanics
and Asians and they told me about it. Go back and read my words…
I said I liked the man sticking to his convictions even if they
are stupid. I still am of that opinion but have revised it a bit...
is it all right to admire a man if the reason he sticks to his convictions
is because he is too stupid to do otherwise? I don't think White
is, but his decision to come out of retirement this week does make
me wonder.
Next week we discuss what you can learn from the Las Vegas betting
lines…
:: comments to the
commish
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