Yesterday, I posted some photos of last weekend’s Illowa APBA League postseason play. Today, I continue with photos of last weekend’s draft and beyond.
One note before I continue… I had a thought today. If any of you are interested in sharing photos of your league’s convention or get-togethers, feel free to upload them to The APBA Blog’s Facebook page if you have an account. I can probably link to the photos from here so everyone can see them.
It would be fun to see how other leagues celebrate the game we play.
Photos of the 2011 IAL Draft Weekend
Before the draft, we handed out the awards for the 2010 season. Keith Smith received the IAL Championship Trophy as he won the World Series the night before. Congrats, Keith!
…and Tedd Mallasch was presented with the Dale Smith Memorial Manager of the Year Award. Tedd deservedly won it based on his 102-60 record. Tedd has won ten championships in our 36 year history but this was the first year he won 100 games.
On with the draft… I love the hectic atmosphere that accompanies it. From left to right it’s Marcus Bunch, Tedd Mallasch, and Don Smith with AABA’s Nick Tegeler in the background.
Here are the first picks of our draft. With the fourth pick of the draft, I had already given up any hope of getting Buster Posey before the weekend. However, I was quite disappointed to not get Mike Stanton with only four outfielders on my roster. That said, I’m pleased with my pick of Strasburg (I did get some “ohhhhh?” responses when I announced it though).
Chuck Lucas is on the clock.
We allow a time limit of five minutes though this year nobody really took advantage of the time. Everyone seemed to know what rookie players they wanted to pick.
One of the biggest compliments a manager can receive while drafting is when a fellow manager expresses frustration or even mock anger after his pick.
Obviously, somebody else had Kimbrel penciled in for their roster when the Beanos picked him.
Chuck Lucas and Don Smith give each other the glad hand after the draft.
The full draft board. I’ll post a link to a text version once I get it up on the IAL website. For the record, my picks were Strasburg, Colvin, Tabata and Niese (outfield problems solved!).
A couple oddities from the draft:
1. One team (the Green Rock Bombers) had 10 of the 37 picks (consider that we have 26 players on our roster… the Bombers will certainly have a young team).
2. Usually draft picks are traded left and right especially during the weekend. Not this time. Only one pick was traded from its original team.
3. There was plenty of bullpen to be had. The last pick (Sale) was a AYW.
Our weekend isn’t over after we draft. We have 30 games scheduled to play before we go home. So on with the 2011 season…
… and we played into the night.
By the next morning, this graph was added to the whiteboard. Maybe I’m glad I don’t drink when I play APBA :)
Before it was time to go home, IAL commish Mike Bunch made a trade of a different type. He gave up a few APBA past football card sets to Chuck in return for this 1963 original baseball card set. I had fun looking through the set.
You’re looking at a few of the Philadelphia Phillies here.
Hope you enjoyed the photo gallery. I think we all had fun.
