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ESPN -- 20 Team Keeper - 2 owners NEEDED

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:28:49 EDT

Hi. Are you interested in joining a competitive 20 team points based keeper league? Now's you chance to be a part of a fun, active league entering its 5th year! The draft will be Sunday morning at 10 am EST!

Please see the two available teams below and the 5 keeper selections for each. Team #1 is more established and offers less rebuilding while those fantasy owners looking for a challenge would pick Team #2.

Team #1 -

Kobe Bryant

NBA KEEPER LEAGUE[YEAR#4] -- OWNERS NEEDED!!!

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:10:35 EDT

In search of four replacement team owners for a Yahoo! NBA Dynasty/Keeper League entering it's fourth season! It is a competitive and friendly league. Please stay active and draft with the future in mind. All of these teams are in pretty good shape and you will note there aren't lacking any talent or big name stars - Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade, , Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul & many more. So if you are interested please check our the four teams below, and if you want to be take over one of them just let me know. Thanks for interest!

Hope to see you in the league for year #4!

**** PLEASE SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE TO VIEW THE AVAILABLE TEAMS ****

Please note that the Draft is scheduled for Sunday, October 16th @ 8pm EST.

2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft #5

Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:58:19 EDT

The 2011 MLB season has finally begun & the good news is this will be my last fantasy draft post related to Baseball! Last weekend I participated in my 5th and final Draft. Please see the draft results below. This draft was the 2nd of my two money league drafts that I am participating in this year. It also happened to be through Yahoo! Sports and is a 10 team H2H league ($25 buy in). This will be my third season taking part in this particular league, and the first year that it will have a cash prize. I should actually state that this will be the first year with a buy-in to participate as in the past it was a free league with the rare or unheard of cash prizes!! It is always a highly competitive and really requires that the team owner stays active and works the free agent wire frequently in order to gain a slight upperhand on the rest of competition. I have little doubt that the excitement and competitive nature of the league will only increase with the cash payments, etc. The other unique aspect to this league is the fact that there are so many more bench slots than starting lineup positions so it definitely requires research and frequent player comparisons/stats in order to determine who to play and who to sit. It can be frustrating to have a decision backfire or leave statistics such as HR's or RBI's on the bench, but it happens and is part of the game. The team owner who is able to minimize leaving stats or avoiding injuries will be in a good position to win the league or at the very least make the Playoffs. The other part of this league that is rare is the use of 5 DL slots on each team roster which can be a blessing if the injury bugs happens to hit your team, but can also make it tough who to drop when players recover or become healthy. I really enjoy this league the most because of the high level of competition as well as the need to really manage your team roster if you want to be successful and compete for the the league title and cash prizes.

2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft #4

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:16:09 EDT

With the start of the 2011 MLB season just days away I participated in my 4th Draft this past Sunday (5 fantasy drafts total). As with my past posts I will detail the draft results below. This particular draft was the 1st of my two money league drafts that I am participating in this year. It is through Yahoo! Sports and is a 10 team H2H league ($25 buy in). In the past this has been a free & highly competitive league, but this year we decided to make it a pay league to increase the excitement and competition even more! In fact this is the longest running league I have ever been associated with and it has become a tradition of sorts each season. I was fortunate enough to win the league last season and hope to defend my title, but it won't be easy! This will actually be the 6th season with the same group of owners! The other difference between this draft and the others I have posted on here is that my younger brother also competes in this league so the sibling rivarly is also there, and adds to the overall enjoyment of this league in what can be a dreadfully long fantasy season.

2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft #3

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 19:46:22 EDT

The 2011 baseball season is nearly here, and will officially begin March 31st. I participated in another draft last week, but haven’t had a chance to post the results until now. I was caught up in all of the March Madness and the NCAA Tournament!! My favorite time of year!! Unfortunately my bracket was busted along with my favorite team the Syracuse Orange who were upset over the weekend by Big East foe Marquette. I hate to see Rick Jackson graduate as he was the team's most consistent presence on both ends of the floor and the clear leader as a Senior. But with defeat and sadness brings hope for next season and the arrival of two 5-Star freshman recruits in Rakeem Christmas and Michael Carter-Williams. I look for the continued improvement of Brandon Triche, Fab Melo, CJ Fair, Dion Waiters, James Sutherland, and Kris Joseph already said publicly that he will return for his Senior season. If Scoop can limit his turnovers and overall poor shot selection next season could definitely bring potential for the Orange, but enough College Basketball. Let's focus on Baseball and below is another one of my fantasy teams and the corresponding draft results.

2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft #2

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:29:02 EDT

Baseball's almost here! As promised here is the second fantasy squad that I drafted last evening. I posted my first team Hanley Time that I drafted last month for CBSSports.com, and that team was part of a 10 Team H2H league. In that particular league I had the 3rd overall pick; however, last night when I drafted my second fantasy draft for Yahoo! I had the 10th overall pick in a 12 team H2H league. One other noticeable difference between last night and the February CBS Sports Draft was that every single team owner showed up to draft with the exception of one! They had informed the league owner that they wouldn't be there beforehand. It was an overall impressive showing and the draft took under an hour and a half to complete with 12 teams. It was an extreme change from the other draft where at most 3 team owners appeared at some point to pick their players and that was only 10 teams! Check out how I did drafting last night, and any thoughts or comments are welcome as always!

Hank Gathers - A Champion's Heart

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:37:30 EST

In light of the recent tragedy and Wesley Leonard death I am reminded of another tragic loss now over 20 years later. Below is the an article that I wrote back in 2009 as a tribute to Hank Gathers one of my favorite college basketball players growing up who also died of heart-related issues. May both Wes and Hank's memory continue to live on.

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“I have the heart of a lion.” - Hank Gathers to Bryant Gumble on the Today Show (1990). Those resounding words will haunt anyone familiar with his tragic death. It's hard to imagine that Hank Gathers has been gone for nearly 20 years, and yet his spirit and love of the game still lives on.

Eric Gathers, known as "Hank" to friends and family was born on February 11, 1967 in Philadelphia,PA where he later attended nearby Dobbins Technical High School. He was teammates with Bo Kimble and together they led Dobbins prep school to the 1985 Public League City Championship. But this was only the beginning of an everlasting friendship and eternal bond that Gathers and Kimble would share. Hank and Bo also decided to play their college basketball together as both were recruited by then Head Coach of University of Southern California Trojans Stan Morrison and his top assistant, David Spencer, however once Morrison and Spencer were fired following the 1985–86 season, Kimble and Gathers decided to transfer to Loyola Marymount University Lions.

Syracuse Orange: A Tale of Two 'CUSEs

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:31:55 EST

As a loyal Syracuse fan since the mid-1980's I can say that 2011 has not brought much joy to the Orange basketball team. If one only rewinds back to early January they would find a much different outlook for the team that was 4-0 in the Big East including victories over Notre Dame and St. John’s to start the New Year. However, then as the schedule and the teams got tougher the Orange got squeezed. The overall results were as gaugy as the snowfall totals with SU concluding January with four straight losses; the futility continuing to spread into February. No one was prepared for this drastic shift downward in both team moral and gameplay with the exception of Jim Boeheim. The Hall of Fame Coach reiterated the fact that this year’s team hadn’t been tested and weren’t as good as their record would seem to indicate. Despite his team's impressive 18-0 start which saw them rise as high as #3 in the Nation, Boeheim was quick to dismiss thoughts of a #1 Seed or the notion that this year's team was better than last year’s. According to Jim the expectations placed on SU's team last season were warranted and deserved. Fans and critics alike strongly believe that barring a key injury (Onuaku) that they would have reached the Final Four, and possibly even played for a National Championship. He was wary of their early season success and knew that the Big East would provide the barometer as to how good they really were, and then those questions about the team would answer themselves. The 2005 Basketball HOF Inductee knew that the Big East would be a monster conference again this year, and that parity would reign supreme further blurring the line between the top and bottom tiers of the league. Boeheim almost seemed to predict his own team's collapse or rather a crash back to reality. However, I doubt he expected things to get this bad so quickly. There’s little doubt that the Syracuse Orange have struggled lately, and the loss on Saturday to Louisville 73-69 just added insult to injury. The psyche of this team is at a low point, and they haven’t been able to find the answers. This latest loss made it their 6th L in their last 8 games, and yet the team doesn't seem to be responding to Boeheim's challenges in the same way that SU teams of the recent past have. These players seem too caught up in their own media hype and seem more preoccupied with their dunk or pass being a highlight on ESPN’s SportsCenter. They also tend to display their emotions more visibly than past teams whether they are positive or negative and it is impacting the decision making ability often in key moments. Their opponents seem to be feeding off the general lack of enthusiasm that has seemed to plague the ‘Cuse during this losing streak. There have been too many uncharacteristic mental lapses, lack of focus, and overall effort plays to list. These sudden hiccups tending to occur at the most inopportune portions of games, and unfortunately there isn’t one culprit to blame. The entire team has to take the blame and learn from their mistakes so they aren’t repeated. One of these reasons has to lie in the lack of experience in certain players positions in the 2-3 Zone. The biggest issue in this Zone right now lies in the middle, where they have asked Freshmen Fab Melo and Baye Moussa-Keita to replace one of the great defenders in Senior Arinze Onuaku. Fab Melo doesn't have the conditioning nor experience at this time to be effective in the middle and his lack of activity and discipline has shown. Boeheim doesn't trust Fab at this time for more than a handful of sparse minutes. I feel that the fan expectations on the big man are unfair and unrealistic. His conditioning will improve, but not until the Offseason, and he will develop into a force if he stays in College for several years. This year is definitely a development year as far Jim and his coaching staff is concerned, but the trouble also lies at the top of the Zone. Keita is a threat defensively with the ability to alter shots, but his lack of offensively skills has stalled the offense on occasions where he needs to keep a defense honest. The guards are not as active and the zone lacks the fire and intensity of last year's team. They often defend with their hands down making it easy for opponents to shoot over them and hit a high percentage of their shots.

2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 22:18:40 EDT

Baseball's just around the corner so I decided to take part in my first fantasy draft of the upcoming 2011 MLB season. The draft took place this past Wednesday on CBSSports.com, and below are the results. I had the 3rd overall pick in a 10 team H2H league. Any thoughts or comments are welcome!

Team Name : HANLEY TIME

LINEUP-

C - Buster Posey