Fantasy Football Draft Keeps Cubs Players Interested During Boring 2008 Baseball Season

Once again Mark DeRosa brings us some great insider stuff in his blog. (Thanks to Danimal for the link) This time he talks about the Fantasy Football league from the Cubbies clubhouse, as well as his own crazy fantasy league:

One of my favorite times of the year is coming around -- the start of football season is almost upon us. That means one thing for this guy which is studying up and reading my fantasy football magazines and going online and trying to set my lists of potential bests and sleepers in the upcoming draft.

I play in four leagues, which is a little too much, I think, because I have a tendency to not want the same guys on each team, so I end up rooting for the entire league, which is no good. There's nothing like fantasy football to make a Cleveland Browns-Minnesota Vikings football game interesting to me on a Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, Ga.

I definitely have my eye on Tony Romo. I don't know where I'm picking. We have an unbelievable fantasy football league with the Cubs. On one of the road trips, we'll rent a banquet room and have our draft. It's one of the highlights of the year for a lot of guys. We have a lot of guys who are into it. We have a lot of ribbing going on and have a good time.

I also do a league I've been doing since I first came up. John Burkett started it a long time ago, and we've seen it flourish from about 20 guys to now where there's 90 guys in the league, past and current players. That's probably the most important league.

I've finished in the top five a couple times. I'm always the guy who gets to the playoffs and gets bounced in the first round. Hopefully, this year, I'll go in with a plan. I have many strategies depending on where I draft. Obviously, if I draft early, you'd love to get one of the best running backs in the game. If I'm drafting late in the first round, I might try to get two wide outs real quick and throw a wrench into everybody's system.

It sounds like DeRosa is a shark about this stuff. He really knows what he's talking about. A few quick things though: Who is in this Cubs league? I would assume (in the most racist way possible) that most of the hispanic players are only interested in soccer, so they don't play. I am guessing Dempster, Theriot, Lee maybe, Reed Johnson, Edmonds possibly? Anyways, I bet its a great league. In line with StevieY19's earlier post about how to be a douchebag at fantasy football drafts, I wonder which guys are the ones making the smartass remarks? Is Derrek Lee so nice that you can bother him enough into making a shitty trade? I want in this league.

Second, how do you do a 90 team fantasy league? That I don't get. If anyone knows how to do that, please explain it to me. Anyways, I hope this all keeps the players busy while they are partaking in the slow, boring job of trying to win a pennant.