E-Town Diaper Dandies Fantasy League (EDDFL)

As promised, I’m here to write the 2004-2005 EDDFL Blog. I’ll be all over the place. A little note, for the non-NBA fans, you might as well just stop reading now. NBA is my life, some won’t like that, but not much I can do about that one. If you’re too bored to read it, you can at least check out the pics I have here and bust out some comments as usual.

This past Sunday was our local money fantasy basketball league. Yep, it’s the E-Town Diaper Dandies Fantasy League, better known as the EDDFL. This is the 15th year of the league. Yes, 15 years strong as my first league we had was when I was 10 years old. The crew we have now has been with us for a while. Spank has been in every single one except for two that he was in Iraq. I’ll give a quick rundown on everyone in the league, then I’ll go into my team and other things. Hopefully it all plays out by the time you get done reading.

We roll with 13 members this year, our highest we’ve had. We all throw in $50 for the pot and we have some decent money to fight over at year’s end. The top three spots get money with 1st Place getting $430, 2nd Place getting $170, and 3rd Place getting his money back. We run a straight fantasy based league, old school style by using Points, Assists, and Rebounds as our categories. Nothing tricky, but I think that makes things very competitive and we haven’t wanted to change for a while. Also, we start a weekly lineup of 6 players, with one of those having to be a rookie. So in this league, the rookie class is very important. You can win the league with a rookie that isn’t great, but it doesn’t hurt to cash in on that spot either. I think that helps our league each year get familiar with the new guys coming into the league. I’ll list the draftees in the order of our picks this season. We drafted at Damon’s, a sports bar about 20 minutes from me. We had a room reserved for us, TV projection screen setup, plus our draft board which we will definitely get for years to come.

Fleece: Fleece gets the 1st Pick this year. His first year was last season and he ended up in 8th Place out of 12. It’s always tough for the new guys in their first year as they adjust. Fleece goes with KG as his #1. I don’t have enough space to write everybody’s team out, so I might as well just tell about the person rather than the picks. Fleece is my age and a cousin down the line of the Italian Connection in the area. Since Flee had the first pick, he wanted a handshake pic with me beside the board as he made his selection. You can see that here:



Mudcat: Yes, pretty much everyone in our league has a nickname. Mudcat took Kobe Bryant at #2, who I think will just go insane as far as fantasy stats goes. Best player in the league and I still agree with that. Why draft Webber though? Maybe he’ll prove us wrong. Mudcat graduated with me and is a character to be around. He’s a hardcore Steelers guy and is one of the most knowledgeable on high school sports in this area.

TJ: Big T is a year younger than me. He’s also one of the four of the Italian Connection in our league if that’s worth anything. Probably not, but we always get a kick out of it. T’s birthday was on Draft Day, so it was an extra special time for him. He’s also in my opinion the funniest guy in the league (may be tied with Sidell, that's a good battle; it must run in the family since they're cousins) and brings a lot to the table at a live draft, loosening the feel. T’s main stud is Timmy Duncan.

Spank: Spank is back after a 2-year absence after doing duty in Iraq. Me and Spank have been boys since forever and he’s the resident head buster of our crew. I’m not sure any of the rest of us would be a mean fighter or not, but if we have Spank with us, we’re neva eva scared as Bone Crusher says. Spank goes with LeBron as his leader, a player I wanted really bad. Spank also has the first rookie taken in Dwight Howard, so he’s off to a good start with his team. You also can’t go wrong with a guy (Spank that is, not Dwight) who loves old school video games and rap.

ManDingo: Yep, that ManDingo. You all know of the infamous ManDingo from either my Blog, his own, Cork mentioning him, or in DerekHood’s. How else could I get plugs in for all of my Blog buddies?

A quick commercial break for those Blog mentions:

ManDingo: http://mandingo04.blogspot.com/

Cork: http://corkzilla.blogspot.com/

DerekHood: http://thekingofcrunk.blogspot.com/

Back to ManDingo. He takes $haq Daddy as his franchise. ManDingo is 2 years younger than me and I’ve known him for probably 8 years or so now. We met in #basketball on IRC of all places and he’s a local guy, so eventually he got tied into our crew due to that. In all of the years of the league, I don’t think anyone has said anything bad about Dingo, as everyone seems to get along with him great.

Fortdogg: Fortney’s first year was last season, as him and Flee Diddy were both rookies in that league. Fortney had the unfortunate time to be the cellar dweller last year, so hopefully he can go OTR (On The Rise for the non IRC fans) and capitalize this time around. Dirk Diggler is his main player, but it hurts that he drafted Jason Kidd early. Fortdogg gets bonus points for being a Celtics fan though, so fear that one. Fortdogg is 2 years younger than me if anyone cares and has been nursing a broken leg, which is healed, but not enough to ball on yet.

Dean: Dean is The Patriarch (I’m stealing Uncle Wilbur’s moniker for a few minutes) of our group and has been with us for a while. I started playing fantasy leagues with Dean when I was probably 15 or so. Dean is roughly 32 years old, but I’m not totally exact on that. I’m the 3rd oldest of this year’s crew for whatever that’s worth. Dean is married to the sister of a good friend of mine, Chooch Bell for the locals. Chooch used to run with us in our league for years, but he’s not much of an NBA fan anymore, the shame. Dean rolls with TMac as his boy to handle the squad.

Balky: Balky goes way back with us. He’s a year younger than me and when we were younger lived on my street since he was probably about 8 or 9 years old. Along with Spank, Riley, and myself, he was part of the E-Shinnston Gang, which is basically the crew we grew up with. Not many left in E-Town now though as far as that crew as they moved out, so I have to hold the fort down till this day. Balky has B-Diddy Baron Davis as his star. I’m not totally sure on the specifics of this reason, but Balky got his name from the show Perfect Strangers with the character Balki Bartokomous.

Sidell: One of our phone drafters this year. Sidelli graduated with me and is part of the Italian Connection as well. He’s now in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He has drafted over speakerphone the past few drafts, but has ran with us for years. He’s also one of the guys who can spice up the draft, even if he’s not actually at the draft. Last year we had this chick waitress and with Sidelli being on phone the entire time (we leave it on a table so we can all talk to him), he starts yelling all kinds of stuff at the chick and has us cracking up. Definitely not a shy guy out of our crew. His dude will be AI, Allen Iverson.

Me: I got the 10th pick this year and selected my boy Antoine Walker. With the trade to Atlanta, I’m even bigger on Walker than I normally am. I see big fantasy stats coming, so I hope I’m right on this one. I have one lone Celtic on my roster this year, that being rookie Big Al Jefferson. You know enough about me, so onto the next.

Riley: Riley graduated with me and we’ve known each other forever. Some may know him as The Governor, as he knows more people than anyone out there. He’s the PR guy of our crew and we always have a fun time with Clark around. If you ever read Cork’s Blog about a girl named Abby, that’s one of Clark’s sisters. Riley rolls out Starbury for his king of the court. Props to Riley for letting us use his phone for the speakerphone setup with Sidelli.

Cork: You all know Cork as well, but a few things you might not know. Cork is 3 years younger than me, but has been in our leagues for quite some time. Out of this league, him and Spank are the two guys I’m the closest to. They’re always hanging at the crib here or we’re into something together. And no, not in a porn sense you freaks. Cork’s main player is Jesus Shuttlesworth, also known as Ray Allen. For what it’s worth, #basketball’s own Kasher likes Cork’s team a lot. Yeah, that was just another cheap plug to throw in a #basketball reference, so deal with it. You know you like it. Besides, if you’ve already read this long, you either have too much time on your hands or you’re liking what I have here. Make your own judgments on that.

Posey: Posey got married the day before the draft, but there was no way he was missing this draft according to him. He was 2½ hours south of us on the day of and must not have been able to come up with an excuse to drive to the draft in person. So he was our 2nd phone drafter, props to Cork for letting us use his phone for that. Posey is the 2nd oldest dude of the bunch, as he’s a year older than me. He goes with the lethal combo of Paul “The Truth” Pierce and Elton “I’m so underrated since I’m a Clip, but can get 20 & 10 in my sleep” Brand.

If you’ve made it this far, congrats. If you’d like to check out our message board for the league, go here:

EDDFL Blog: http://diaperdandy.blogspot.com/

A pic of the crew as follows. I’m on the bottom left with the green outfit, representing the Celts colors and Balky is on the opposite side on his knees. Fleece is in the white above me, Mudcat to the right of him with the mustache, Fortdogg in the background with the gray shirt, Spank in front of him with the hat, Cork in front of the wreath with the WVU hat, Dean in front of Cork, TJ in the back with the doo rag, Clark to the right of him in red, and ManDingo on the far right with the backwards hat.



All through the year, I’ll be talking enough about this league to make you cringe probably, but that’s what I live for is NBA ball. Until next time, I’ll holla back. NBA OPENING NIGHT TONIGHT!!