Week 1 - Chipper Stolen Away

Week one is here and we are going to start our Baseball Prospectus writing contest. I am still looking for many more stories and now that your draft is over you should have some entertaining stories. Perhaps the home team homer ruined his team by drafting his players much to early or your league has an interesting draft setup that would be differentto the rest of us. Please forward all stories to TroyPatterson@RotoSavants.com

This story comes from Steve and about a long term league and what happens when youngsters get involved.

I am in a 13 team NL only league that has been around since 1987. 8 of the originals still play and it is a live auction and over the years owners have brought their sons w/them to the best day of the year happenings. We have seen grade schoolers grow up and head off to college and it has provided some fun moments at the auction.

One year an owner was allowing his 7 year old son to nominate his players when it was his turn. The young lad obviously had a few favorites but when he nominated Chipper Jones, he was wriggling w/excitement. His dad kept the bidding going and it stalled at $19 w/the boy about to acquire his favorite player. The auctioneer said going once..going twice...when another owner leaped in w/ a $20 bid. The boy gasped and audibly let out a prolonged AWWWW!! after an uneasy silence, the owner of $20 chipper turned to the boy and said, "hey, there's no crying in baseball"