The Natural Day

Celebrating the 27th anniversary of the Ryne Sandberg Game we have our 1st Annual The Natural Day wherein the team with the most TB+R+RBI on their ACTIVE roster wins a $25 gift card to mlb.com.

The evening started off slow since we had a partial slate of games. By 8:07pm (CDT) the totals were:

Ruffins - 13

Bulls - 12

Danger - 12

Red Hots (looking for a clean gift card sweep) - 10

Killers - 7

Revenge - 6

Clowns - 5

DoorMatts - 0

Rebels - 0

An hour later at 9:17 some jumbling took place:

Bulls - 17

Danger - 14

Ruffins - 13

Red Hots - 10

Revenge - 7

Killers - 7

Clowns - 7

Line - 4

DoorMatts - 2

Rebels - 0

But by the end of the night the Ruffins ran away to hide:

Ruffins - 23

Bulls - 17

Danger - 15

Revenge - 11

Red Hots - 11

Killers - 10

DoorMatts - 8

Clowns - 7

Line - 4

Rebels - 0

Congratulations to the Ruffins, winner of a $25 mlb.com gift card!

Next up, August 8th - Lights Out Loser (LOL) for the team with the lowest production from their active roster (both offense and pitching). No gift card, just the embarrassment of being on the CFCL Internet Headquarters Marquee for the rest of the season.

First Blockbuster Deal of the Season

Not waiting for the rest of the league to catch up now that Pujols has his wrist elevated for six-eight weeks, the Revenge pulled the trigger on a blockbuster with the Clowns. Here are the particulars:

The Clowns send Matt Holliday (.44 12+), Brandon Phillips (.29 12+), Javier Lopez (.10 13+), Ryan Roberts (.05 13+) and Ramon Hernandez (.09, 13+)

to the Revenge for Freddie Freeman (.05 13+), Pedro Alvarez (.05 12+), Francisco Cordero (.17 13+), Chris Heisey (.10 13+) and minor league pitcher Casey Kelly (.05 mx).

Clowns - Line Open Trading Season

The Candy Colored Clowns and Kenndoza Line have open Trading Season - CFCL 2011 by swapping pitchers of the present for pitchers of the present/future.

The Line trade Craig Kimbrel (.05 13+) and Jordan Lyles (.05 13+) to the Clowns for the Hudson brothers - Tim Hudson (.10 12+) and Daniel Hudson (.06 12+) [what Chicago company used to advertise with the deep voiced guy singing the phone number HUdson 3-2700?].

By making this deal Kimbrel and Lyles contracts move from 13x to 13+, but the Clowns start building an inexpensive staff of the future that will allow them to overpay for Cincinnati Red pitchers again at next year's draft.

Happy Father's Day and stuff

First of all let me offer a big CFCL Happy Father's Day to all you daddy-o's out there. I think the greatest father's day wish was posted on Facebook earlier today by our own Mike Bentel of the Twin Killers. His post? "Hey dad, wanna have a catch?" Brilliant on so many levels.

CFCL Reminder: This Thursday is June 23rd and thus is The Natural Day. To win the $25 mlb.com gift card your team needs to amass the most TB, Runs and RBIs on its ACTIVE roster. Unfortunately Thursday is not scheduled for a full slate of NL games.

Enjoy the weekend! Go have a catch.

The Injury Bug

The recent run of e-mail bemoaning injuries made me wonder if any one team is more affected by injuries than another. So I put together a list (below) of players that are CURRENTLY on the DL. This list does not take into consideration players that were on the DL but have been activated, players that were demoted to the minors or players that are under performing. It appears the Baseball Gods hate all CFCL teams.

Dem Rebels

LaRoche

McLouth

Bourgeois

Zito

Casilla

Parnell

Clowns

N. Morgan

Lidge

Chapman

Wainright (started season on DL)

Ruffins

Wright

D. Murphy

Beachy

Braddock

Red Hots

Broxton

Padilla

DoorMatts

Victorino

Thames

Blake

Uribe

J. Johnson

Killers

Heyward

Byrd

Pagan

Laird

Wells

Kenndoza Line

Contreras

Freese

Kuo

Punto

Soto

Demel

Revenge

Alvarez

Blanton

Schneider

Lyon

Bulls

DeLaRosa

Cashner

Sandoval

Santana (Started season on DL)

Garza

Strasburg (Started season on DL)

Stranger Danger

DeRosa

Hundley

I. Davis

Duke

Ohlendorf

Medlen

K-Wood Winner

There was stiff competition to win the first MLB giftcard via K-Wood Day. The DoorMatts missed out by a day with Halladay and Josh Johnson pitching on the 5th. The Clowns tried to channel K Wood karma by having the award's namesake active, lo Kerry logged only one strikeout, just nineteen fewer than he did thirteen years ago.

The Ruffins logged 17 Ks in 10 innings. The Revenge nabbed 20 strikeouts, falling just short. But ultimately the Red Hots nabbed the $25 prize with a total of 25 Ks, riding the coattails of Cliff Lee's 16 strikeouts.

Congratulations to Bob! Your mlb.com gift card is on its way to your e-mailbox.

Correcting some Issues

Proving that it's always a good idea to check your work, the CFCL Front Office has had to make some corrections to contracts on a couple of players. The DoorMatts noticed two mistakes on their roster. Madison Bumgarner was incorrectly assigned an 11 contract. Bumgarner was acquired as a minor leaguer in the 2009 Rotation Draft. He then was activated by the DoorMatts during the 2010 season which should have given him a contract status of 12x. That's not what happened and somehow the contract ended up as 11. The correct status (which is on the current Roster Excel Spreadsheet) is 12x.

Also from the DoorMatts roster, Jair Jurrjens was assigned a contract of 12!. Jurrjens was signed to a two year deal going into the 2010 season, so his contract status should have been 11! This also has been corrected on the spreadsheet.

I deeply apologize for the errors. Fortunately they did not impact that budget of the DoorMatts on Draft Day.

I would also like to pass along a HUGE thank you to the DoorMatts for their honesty. They could have kept their mouth shut and had Jurrjens for an extra year at a discounted price.

Probably the best thing about this league above all others - the integrity of the owners.

DON'T FORGET!!! Next week, Friday May 6th, is K-Wood Day. The CFCL team with the most strikeouts from the pitchers on their ACTIVE roster will win the first $50 gift certificate to mlb.com.