[BigRed75]

Didn't do a beginning of season post for various reasons. So here's a 1/3 of the way post instead.

The focus team this week is the South Side Lumber Company (G306, 29-26, 2nd place, 4 1/2 GB) who rode a 50% chance of making the playoffs last September all the way to a Silver League title. They are off to a good start in Gold, as well. The franchise scored its 1500th win on April 18, which was good for 400 points. We are now just one player away from obtaining 99 Luke Appling and 100 Ed Walsh. I'm trying hard not to buy 90 Luke Appling and locking him just to get 99 Appling - I'm holding out for Ted Lyons or Shoeless Joe.

Once again the Cincinnati Redlegs (P420, 18-37, 5th place, 18 1/2 GB) managed to get hot in September and avoid relegation, and so will spin their wheels in Perfect for the 4th straight season. The awful start to the season all but guarantees relegation. I'm not sad about that. We are a much better team in Diamond, anyway. We'll just try to save up our money to buy Ewell "The Whip" Blackwell.

The other OL team, the newly-rebranded Reno Silver Sox (S327, 28-25, 3rd place, 2 1/2 GB) had a great plan - some quick back-of-the-envelope calcuations showed that "The Fastest" mission had a great +EV potential. Over a few days, we picked up seven cards. Then the Oakland missions dropped on Monday and blew that all to hell. On the field, the Silver Sox are acting just like they did last season - quick start in April, stinker of a May. Expect them to recover in June and July before crapping the bed in August and falling out of the playoffs in September. But we did beat some poor non-OL saps by a 16-0 score on April 27 and 86 OVR Dick Allen had a 10-game RBI streak that netted us a cool 1,000 PP.

(Ed. note: While writing this post, I noticed the Sox had a leftover pack from another mission, so I opened it. It netted a 69 Tony Gwynn. Which would have been nice, except the Sox already have 69 Tony Gwynn.)

Over in Bronze, the Everett Aquasox (B268, 38-14, 1st place, +6 1/2) are dominating the competition. No one player is really standing out, although Edgar Martinez won POTM for May, Marco Gonzalez is 7-2 with a 2.48 ERA, and, surprisingly, Ichiro is actually 2nd in batting with a .341 average. Will Jacksonville's Willie McGee be the player to end Ichiro's four-year batting title streak?

Meanwhile, the Thetford Mines Mineurs (B267, 36-18, 1st place, +3) would love for someone to make a mistake and post either Diamond Vlad Guerrero or Diamond Pedro Martinez really cheaply so we can go ahead and finish off this Expos mission. Joe Hesketh has been pretty awesome for the Mineurs. He went 11-1 last year in 16 starts, and was POTM for May this season. John Hiller's ERA is so small (0.45) you need a microscope to see it. Only a 5-game losing streak from May 22 to May 26 has kept this division as competitive as it is.

The third bronze team, the Nashville Game Theories (B213, 25-27, 3rd place, 8 1/2 GB) have an interesting little side project going. In addition to points generation (up to 76K+ so far) I decided to take the 2,500PP I got last year for one oddball accomplishment (I think it was Hi-Def inning? Definitely a pitching one) and see how many collections I can complete with it. So far, I have spent 173 points of the 2,500 and earned 4 packs. I'm focusing on missions with pack rewards for now.

The Charlotte Monarchs (S299, 32-22, 2nd place, 2 GB) pulled two gold cards out of their weekly pack haul (8 packs this week). Unfortunately, both were first baseman (Pete Alonso and Anthony Rizzo). Even more unfortunate, the Monarchs already had Matt Olson at first base and Nelson Cruz at DH. So taking a page from the 1940 Detroit Tigers playbook, please welcome our new left fielder, Pete Alonso. I'm sure this will all work out fine.

I'm not sure how the Baltimore Orioles (G305, 26-29, 2nd place, 11 1/2 GB) do it, but here they are, still in Gold, with G.H. Ruth continuing to dog it. At this point, I'd be better off dropping the Babe and picking up Michael Lorenzen. The Orioles become the second of my teams to get screwed by the new Athletics missions, as Lefty Grove became really cost prohibitive. Time to try and find another former minor league Oriole Hall-of-Fame pitcher.

However, it's not all bad. The franchise also recorded its 1,500th victory, this time on May 14. And on April 12, Grayson Rodriguez, who has consistently been one of the better pitchers, threw a no-hitter, the first in franchise history.

Oh, the Rottnest Island Quokkas (G353, 27-27, 3rd place, 3 1/2 GB). Did you know that the mini-marsupial, when faced with danger, has been known to throw its offspring at the predator so that it can make a getaway? I would like to throw the entire Quokka pitching staff at some predators. Instead, I tried getting rid of Wes Ferrell at the height of Collection Mania. Didn't work. It astonishes me that this team actually has two of my seven PT titles, including one at this very level they have been so mediocre at for the past three seasons. Not only that, our closer just got popped IRL on child porn charges. Swell.

Finally, you may have noticed that I mention my son's team, and that makes ten teams. What about the other two, you ask? Well, of course there's two more. It's just that I haven't mentioned them because I have been hoarding cards for future collections. But the cat's out of the bag on one team, now. Say hello to the Forest City Tribe (G333, 31-23, 1st place, +1/2). We started out with seven of nine missions complete, and have since acquired Tris Speaker for the eighth mission. However, I haven't submitted the 1948 mission yet because I'm not sure I want to lock 88 OVR Lou Boudreau, who has been our player-manager since the team's inception. So we might still need to get two cards.

As far as the season goes, we have been in a real back-and-forth battle with VCU Rams, and are currently just ahead. Our standout player has easily been SE Bob Lemon, 8-2 with a 1.83 ERA. Because he's a peak card, I've activated his two-way player status and am going to give him some reps in right field as well. We did have a 12-game winning streak, which was awesome.

And if you have a cheap Jose Ramirez or Corey Kluber historical to sell, hit me up.