A typical April showery Sunday in Dublin saw a group of sports fans arrive at Slattery’s of Ringsend, slinking their way to the upstairs bar. Most had told their other halves that they were just dropping down to the pub to watch a match. No, you can’t come. Can’t explain why. Just trust me.

The truth, like that scene in Knocked Up, is very hard to explain to anybody who doesn’t “get” fantasy sports.

Harnessing the power of technology and bloodymindedness, this small band of Irish baseball fans had been competing in online fantasy leagues with people in the USA for many years, some for upwards of a decade. For the Irishman, draft “day” usually meant huddling over the glow of a computer screen in the small hours of the night, their concentration levels maintained only by the ingestion of improbable quantities of caffeine and biscuits.

Online leagues being what they are, few had met even one of their leaguemates in person. Then along came 2010 and everything changed. After many years of fruitless effort, the Fantasy Baseball League of Ireland was properly born, the centrepiece being a live fantasy draft held in Dublin In all its sportsnerdy glory. And in a pub, no less!

Since a group of Irishmen cannot possibly meet in a pub and remain in each other’s company for upwards of four hours without having a few pints, this would be no different. Hours of baseball picks, jibes and chat, all over a few pints. And then a few more hours of pints to discuss the previous hours of drafting. For the Irish baseball fan it didn’t seem as if it could get much better.

2011 would happily see the return of all ten owners along with an expansion team. Slattery’s was again the venue, facilitated by the manager and barmen who, as before, kept an eye on the participants with no small amount of curiosity.

To the uninitiated, a fantasy draft consists of people picking the players they want for their team, which they then manage during the season. Each person picks in turn from the players available, with each MLB player permitted to be owned by just a single person. This is a key difference from the style of fantasy football played in this part of the world where everybody has the choice of the same players as everybody else every week. Permitting each player to be owned by just one person in a league opens up new worlds of enjoyment, in particular that of draft day.

Given the lubrication supplied by Messrs. Guinness, Heineken et al., it was testament to the knowledge and drafting ability of the lads that no truly extraordinarily bad picks were made this year. Certainly there was nothing to rival the tumbleweed, laughter and bafflement caused by this writer’s ill-timed pick of Mike Napoli in the 9th round in 2010*.

That being said, the draft dynamics were very interesting in their own right.

There was no sustained catcher or closer run. Instead we saw a couple of teams load up on outfielders very early, with other teams going heavy on star pitching. I had the #1 pick and had taken Albert Pujols, followed by Tim Lincecum in the second. My hitting and pitching lynchpins thus assured, I went for a stud-catcher strategy taking Victor Martinez and Brian McCann in the 3rd and 4th rounds.

After that things got a bit more thinky. With outfield depth now very thin for that point in the draft, there was no value to be found at the position. That being the case, I decided to leave everybody else at it and concentrated on my infield instead. Everybody was zigging, so I zagged.

Brandon Phillips, Alexei Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval quickly followed, interrupted only by my acquisition of the pitching artist formerly known as The Mexicutioner, Joakim Soria, the lure of whom I could no longer resist at the end of the 6th round.

After going fishing for a companion to Lincecum at the top of my rotation (Max Scherzer), Juan Pierre finally became my first outfielder. Purely a value pick, I couldn’t leave him there any longer and was happy that he would lock up at least a mid-table finish in steals to balance the power I’d already stacked up.

There the pick-by-pick commentary will have to end, simply because I’d prefer that readers might actually return to this blog from time to time rather than die of boredom. I will sign off by presenting the 2011 Irishtown Napolis, in all their glory…

C Victor Martinez
C Brian McCann
1B Albert Pujols
2B Brandon Phillips
SS Alexei Ramirez
3B Pablo Sandoval
CI Billy Butler
MI Rafael Furcal
OF Juan Pierre
OF Andres Torres
OF Jason Kubel
OF Coco Crisp
OF Alex Gordon
UT Kila Ka’aihue

SP Tim Lincecum
SP Max Scherzer
SP Colby Lewis
RP Joakim Soria
RP Matt Thornton
P Hiroki Kiroda
P James Shields
P Jake McGee
P Josh Beckett

Bench Danny Espinosa
Bench Javier Vazquez
Bench Tsuyoshi Nisyoshi

PLAY BALL!

*in my defence, he returned that value and more besides as the mighty Haddington Napolis slugged their way to the 2010 title. But in terms of judging a room it was an absolutely shocking call. I could have waited about another eight rounds and still safely picked him…