Late last week, in a 24-hour span, I got a letter from the IRS saying that my 2006 taxes were done improperly and that I owe them several (several, several) thousand dollars, took the first steps to bring suit against my landlord, and learned of one of the more ridiculous family developments just about ever.  The stress of all this has been so great that recently I woke up in the middle of a night from a dead sleep, believed someone was in my bedroom, screamed "What are you doing?" and dove out of my bed and into the darkness to tackle this person, only to grab air and slam myself into my wall.  So if you’re keeping score at home, that’s fractured ribs from a bachelor party and a hurt (let’s say, "partially dislocated" for effect) shoulder from having a nightmare and tackling an apparition.  Whoops.  So needless to say, this weekend I needed to blow off a little steam.

[By the way, we're going to have a Jerry Lewis/public television-style "Help Jason Mulgrew Beat IRS" fundraiser soon.  Good god.  I don't really have much to offer, and anything I'm able to offer you can probably get for cheaper during my eventual estate sale, but I will certainly be able to send you pictures of me in various stages of disrobing based on donation - and I work cheap.  Alternatively, if any of you are wealthy and need an in-house blogger/fuck-up/masseuse/fantasy sports guru/poor musician/bearded guy, please contact me asap.  In exchange for free rent, a monthly cash stipend or a large single donation, you can do pretty much whatever you want with me, but please, no greek.] 

[And while we're here, ever since my dad started taking me shooting, I've been thinking of getting a gun, since it really makes you feel like a man.  However, Exhibit A as to why I cannot get a gun is these nightmares that I have that now physically make me leap from my bed to fight something.  The way my luck is, I'd buy a gun, finally find a nice lady to spend the night with me, and then in the middle of the night when she gets up to go to the bathroom - or more likely, spends two hours in the bathroom alternatively sobbing and vomiting - I'd be mostly asleep and shoot her when she walks back into the room.  So I don't think I'm going to run out to buy that gun just yet.]

Fortunately, this weekend was a good one to blow off some steam, as my buddies and fellow members of my fantasy league, Iron Sheik, descended upon NYC from Boston, Jersey, Hartford, Atlanta and Chicago for our first-ever live draft.  Joy.

My love for fantasy sports is well-documented.  I love sports, but since God didn’t bless me with grace, athleticism or the ability to shower in front of other men without a necessary minimum level of GHB in my system, I never really played them growing up.  But I am good at numbers, better at studying, and best as dominating opponents to feed my ego; in short, I’m an insecure nerd.  In shorter: I’m the guy fantasy sports was made for.

But even more than that, it’s not just about the sports, but the camaraderie.  There are ten guys in my league, one of whom I met for the first time this weekend, and if I were getting married, I’d invite all of them (since my wife will be rich, because somebody’s gotta pay these back taxes).  Our league is like a social club, but without the drinking and the seeing each other; we have a common interest which we explore together year-round in the form of baseball, football and basketball leagues.  And of course, it gives you something to do at work to kill time.  Which is key. 

On Friday night, it rained buckets.  Though on Saturday night six dudes (including me) would be staying at my place, only my friends Joe and John made it in from Boston on Friday.  It was a low-key night, as we were joined by our friend (not Site Guy) Brendan and spent the night in my apartment drinking, the torrential rain keeping us in.  Brendan left at 3am and Joe and John and I stayed up until 5:30am, drinking and talking sports sports sports sports sports sports.  So…awesome.

On Saturday, it was go time.  The rest of the guys arrived via car, train or plane and at 3pm we met at the Sixth Ward in the LES to get the draft underway.  Prior to the draft, I really liked the Sixth Ward (and the bartender Tina) but I had two concerns: one, there was no private room for us, but rather a back area; and two, the beer prices were a little expensive.  Not necessary expensive by NYC standard, where $5 for a Bud draft is considered ok, but these guys were covering from all over the place.  The draft figured to take several hours and we would certainly order food, so I was concerned that when the check came and I said, "It’s $1100," there would be an actual riot in the bar.  But for the moment, I did not let it bother me, and a-drafting we went.

Eight of the ten IS members were there, two were not.  Missing was Ricky, who’s a sportscaster in Austin and could not get away from covering UT.  In his place we had Ace Cowboy, friend to all and former driving force behind Slack Lalane.  Missing also was Site Guy Brendan, who for womanly reasons I shall not disclose, could not attend.  In his stead was Don Fiedler, friend to all and named charter member of Slack Lalane.  The beers were flowing, the giant draftboard was taped to the wall, the stickers (colored by position) laid out on the table, and the drafting began.

The technical stuff: This is the first year of our three player keeper league, so each team started with three guys from last year’s roster.  Our rosters include 23 total players, and the position breakdown is C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, OF, OF, Util, Util on offense and SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, P on pitching.  That’s 18 starters to go with 5 bench spots.  We use standard 5×5 categories for pitching – W, K, Saves, ERA and WHIP – but slightly different categories for offense – Runs, RBI, Stolen Bases, Total Bases and OBP.  I won’t argue the merits of using TB instead of HR or OBP instead of AVG except to say that a single and triple should not be counted the same and if we learned anything in Little League, it’s that a walk is as good as a hit.              

Yours truly had the 6th pick in the draft.  Also, because I so dominated last year and had such a deep pool of players on my roster, I was able to get three extra picks for the draft: one in the second (when I traded Erik Bedard away) and two in the fourth (when I traded BJ Upton and Chone Figgins away in two separate deals).  Because of these extra picks, I forfeited my last three rounds pick (roster size is 23, remember).  Below is how my team turned out.  "K" stands for keeper and the numbers in parens are the rounds in which that I made the picks.   

C: Joe Mauer (5)
1B: Lance Berkman (1)
2B: Chase Utley (K)
SS: Carlos Guilen (4 – 1st pick)
3B: Ryan Braun (K)
OF: Alex Rios (2 – 1st pick)
OF: Hunter Pence (4 – 2nd pick)
OF: Corey Hart (6)
Util: Chipper Jones (4 – 3rd pick)
Util: Torii Hunter (8)
B: Kosuke Fukudome (14)
B: James Loney (16)

SP: Brandon Webb (K)
SP: Carlos Zambrano (2 – 2nd pick)
RP: Billy Wagner (7)
RP: Bobby Jenks (9)
P: Aaron Harang (3)
P: AJ Burnett (10)
P: Chad Billingsley (11)
P: Ted Lilly (13)
B: Rich Harden (14)
B: Matt Capps (12)
B: George Sherill (15)

I won’t dissect the team too much – I’m doing my humongous fantasy baseball preview tomorrow, so I have to save my energy for that – but I’m happy with the team.  It’s a typical Mulgrew team: don’t sacrifice the power categories for speed, try to draft a top six guy at each position, take a lot of high-K pitchers, and walk away with two closers who are very safe in their jobs.  Every single guy on my offense is capable of 100 runs and 100 RBI, and every pitcher on that team averaged .8K/IP last year and did not have an ERA over 4 (it’s only one year, but still, that’s pretty solid). 

The draft took nearly five hours, during which Tina served us beer and food and took care of us like the gentlemen we were.  Needless to say, we got properly drunk.  I was drinking cans of PBR the whole time to get that "sitting around the living room" feel going, and twice I walked up to the bar thinking I was walking to my fridge to get another one.  My concerns about not having a room were forgotten immediately; the bar wasn’t that crowded and those who were there ignored us or looked at us curiously.  And as for the bill…let’s just say that Tina is amazing and really, really hooked us up.  We drank and ate so much I was concerned that I was going to have to personally subsidize part of the tab (hence another reason for the canned PBR), lest I be embarrassed to ask these out-of-towners for so much money.  But it was affordable.  Definitely.

After the draft, the local guys headed home, buddies Jon and Ryan stayed out with some friends, and me, Joe, John, Bill, Don and Ace went back to my place (after stopping to get pizza) to watch the Duke-UNC game and have some beers.  After the game, Don and Ace went home and the rest of us went out to meet Jon and Ryan and we drank liters of beer until 5am (daylight savings time).  Then we got more pizza.  I had an incoming call from Bill at 6:27am, as I had just laid down to sleep and he was stuck in my bathroom.  Fat bastard. 

It was a solid fourteen hour drinking day that featured a five hour fantasy baseball draft, and not one, but two drunk visits to Rosario’s to get pizza/chicken rolls/frankie and cheeses/beef patties.  I don’t think we talked about anything but sports, I don’t think a woman came within twenty-five feet of any of us, and I think I must have drank five gallons of beer.  It was easily the greatest day of 2008, and arguably the greatest of my life.

And next year: Iron Sheik comes to Austin, Texas.  Mark it down, and God help the beer and late-night pizza of that fair city.