Weekend in Jersey

I spent the weekend in New Jersey for my annual fantasy/rotisserie baseball league draft. This year marks the 17th year of the league and my 16th year as a team owner (I have never won). I’ll write more about my team momentarily, but the draft weekend is one of my favorite events of the year. I enjoy the strategy (or for me, the lack thereof) in preparing for the draft, selecting the players and then spending the next five months following the players. More importantly, this is an opportunity to catch up with friends, many of whom I have known since high school or even elementary school, since I rarely see many of these folks any other time during the year.

As a special treat, a few of us traveled to Atlantic City on Saturday night. I spent most of my time playing Three Card Poker at the Tropicana. After quickly being down $80, I recovered to be up $120. I ended the night up $40, which basically covered most of my gas for the weekend. While I am very happy to finish ahead, I should have played Double Attack Blackjack since my friends seemed to do very well there.

This was my first trip to Atlantic City. While I certainly enjoyed gambling for a few hours, I’m not sure if AC is a place I would go for more than a night. I can spend an entire weekend in Vegas not only gambling, but going to shows, shopping and watching sporting events in the sports books. It did not seem like there was much to do in Atlantic City besides gambling, especially in cold weather. Although one thing AC has that Las Vegas does not is a crazy clock in the Wild West Casino that you could only “understand if you are drunk.” (Inside joke that is not that funny.)

As for the draft itself, while I know no one cares about other people’s fantasy teams, I still wanted to share the stars of my team:

Miguel Cabrera (Marlins)
Juan Pierre (Dodgers)
Jeff Kent (Dodgers)
Xavier Nady (Pirates) – Nady really is not a star, but he’s a Pirate, so that’s good enough for me.
Chad Cordero (Nationals)
Dontrelle Willis (Marlins)
Roy Oswalt (Astros)
Chad Tracy (Diamondbacks)
Takashi Saito (Dodgers)

I have a good feeling this year. As the saying goes, 16th time is the charm!