[Jiggs McGee]

December 5, 1934

Another FABL drafts is in the books and everyone in the league deserves credit for plowing through 10 rounds of human selections in matter of about 48 hours. That is both a testament to the quality of GM's in the league and also the excitement level the annual FABL draft creates. With no ratings visible the draft is much more of a challenge as it is not simply pick the guy with the most potential stars and every pick can mean something. In this case the challenge was compounded with it being the first draft in a league that no longer includes feeder college and high school leagues. Instead we used game generated players (along with a number of holdovers from last seasons feeder clubs) so it was a new experience for each GM as they tried to decide how much weight to give the game created stats verse the scouting reports - and do you trust your Scouting Director or the OSA league scout more?

This draft, like the past couple of years, was expected to see the early rounds dominated by pitching and the first 3 picks certainly followed that script with everyone's number one Bobo White of St Blane College going first overall. White, who played at St Blane last season when they were a feeder league school went to Washington and his Fighting Saints teammate Gus Goulding was selected immediately after him by the Baltimore Cannons. Detroit kept the pitching trend going but went off the books a bit by taking a third former feeder league player, in this case a high schooler, by the name of Del Burns third overall despite the fact that Burns did not appear in the OSA's five round mock draft. That is the beauty about no ratings, as each GM values certain things a little more than others and it will be very interesting to see how Burns' career pans out.

We finally had the first game created (non-feeder player) taken fourth overall when Toronto - under the guidance of the league office after their GM disappeared prior to the draft - selected Lebanon, Tennessee High School shortstop Charlie Artuso.


Here is a list of first round selections from this year's FABL amateur player draft.

PICK TEAM	NAME	 POS	SCHOOL			HOMETOWN	  MOCKDRAFT PROJ
1  WASH	  Bobo White	  P	St Blane College	Fairfield, CT		 7
2  BAL	  Gus Goulding	  P	St Blane College	Indianapolis, IN	17
3  DET	  Del Burns	  P	Houston HS 	        Green River, WY		Not ranked
4  TOR	  Charlie Artuso  SS	Lebanon HS		Lebanon, TN		 5
5 Chiefs  Bennie Griffith CF	All Hallows University	Yonkers, NY		 3
6  MON	  Adam Mullins	  C 	Eastern Oklahoma	Memphis, TN		 2
7  PIT	  Lew Seals	  CF	Bluegrass State		Hinsdale, IL		 4
8  PHS	  Woody Stone	  C	Dunlap HS TENN		River Grove, IL		 1
9  PHK	  George M Brooks P	Georgia Baptist		Rochester, NY		23
10 NYS	  Lou Barker	  P	Lubbock State		Montgomery City, MO	22
11 BOS	  Bob Donoghue	  LF	Iowa A&M		Indianola, IA		11
12Cougars Carlos Montes	  CF	Citronelle HS  		Cienfuegos, CUBA	12
13 STL	  Art Cascone	  LF	Bigsby College		Brooklyn, NY		16
14 BKN	  Dan Rogers	  RF	Canton South HS		East Canton, OH		 9
15 BAL	  Jim Hensley	  SS	Walton HS		New York, NY		 8
16 BOS	  Joe Nichols	  2B	Golden Gate Univ	Oakridge, TN		13

The breakdown by position for the first round was 5 pitchers, 2 catchers, a second baseman, 2 shortstops and 6 outfielders. Last year the first outfielder was not selected until the opening pick of the second round and it took until the 42nd pick before the 6th outfielder was drafted. The last time 6 outfielders went in the opening round was 1929 when Vic Crawford, Dan Fowler, Amos LeBlanc, Bobby Many, Nellie Dawson and Lou Williams all heard their names called in the first round.

SOME RANDOM OBSERVATIONS FROM THE DRAFT

A year ago we had 3 pitching teammates from Hartford High School selected very high in the draft with John Edwards going 3rd overall to Baltimore, Al Miller 4th to the Chicago Chiefs and Pepper Tuttle going in the fourth round to Brooklyn. These year a trio of St Blane Fighting Saints collegians did even better with Washington selecting Bobo White first overall, Gus Goulding going second to Baltimore and Brad Daniels going in the third round, 38th overall to Montreal.

The first round was likely a record setting one for the state of Tennessee. No fewer than 4 Tennessee natives were taken in the opening round led by Lebanon High School shortstop Charlie Artuso at #4 to Toronto. Adam Mullins, a Memphis native playing for Eastern Oklahoma University was selected 6th by Montreal and Oakridge born Joe Nichols, a second baseman with Golden Gate University was the final pick of the first round by Boston. The fourth is Dunlap High School catcher Woody Stone who went 8th to the Philadelphia Sailors. Stone, who was number one on the mock draft, was born in Illinois but grew up in Tennessee.

Outfielder Carlos Montes became just the fourth Cuban born player to be selected in the first round when the Chicago Cougars selected the 18 year old 12 overall out of Citronelle High School in Alabama. All three previous first round selections from Cuba were also outfielders: Carlos Cano and Sandy Lovelle, both in 1919 and Pablo Reyes, who was taken by Montreal third overall two years ago. We also saw Baltimore draft Mexican born outfielder Ruben Sanchez out of Hamilton High School in Los Angeles 18th overall. Sanchez will look to join Pedro Valenzuela as the only Mexicans to ever play in FABL. Valenzuela, a second baseman, spent over a decade in the league with the Chicago Chiefs after being drafted in the first round in 1911 out of Knoxville High School.


The biggest reach in the draft according to the OSA mock draft is Houston High School pitcher Del Burns, who was selected third overall by Detroit despite not appearing in the mock draft. He was the only first round pick ranked outside of the top 23 in the mock draft.

The biggest dropper in the mock draft was 14th ranked Heinie Billings. The centerfielder from Macon High School in Georgia was not drafted until the 4th round, 54th overall by Montreal despite being projected as a first round pick by the mock draft.

Two sons of former FABL players were taken in the opening 3 rounds of the draft led by second round selection Jack Goff to Toronto with the 20th pick overall. The high school pitcher is the son of former Brooklyn and New York Gotham ace and current Kings bench coach Danny Goff. Cleveland drafted "The Pup", Mel Hancock Jr. with the final pick of the third round. Mel Senior who was known as "The Bulldog" played in 1133 FABL games with Brooklyn and Washington. In addition Boston selected Howard Brown Jr in the third round. His father, like Junior, was an outfielder and spent time in the Cleveland system but peaked at AAA.

The New York City area dominated the early rounds of the draft with nine area players selected in the first 3 rounds led by Bennie Griffith, a Yonkers native taken 5th overall by the Chicago Chiefs. Brooklyn born Bigsby College outfielder Art Cascone, Walton High School in New York's Jim Hensley, Tilden High School in Brooklyn teammates Jack Goff and Bob Mullins, NYC native Dick Gentry of North Carolina Tech, Brooklyn born Bill Sorrells of Adirondack State, NYC native Jack Wood of Henry Hudson University and New York born shortstop Ivan Cameron round out the group.

I will have more on the draft over the next couple of days after the final 15 rounds are completed. This league has human GM's draft the first 10 rounds and then the game AI takes over to complete the 25 round draft.