It’s late so I’m keeping this short. We’ve just retired from our first night of the Illowa APBA League Draft Weekend.
Congrats to Chuck Lucas (right) who won the IAL 2008 World Series. Here he is being presented the trophy by IAL commish Mike Bunch.
Mike Bunch and his East Moline Bombers picked Evan Longoria for the second pick of the draft.
The first 5 picks of the draft:
Soto, Longoria, Volquez, Jurrjens, and Chamberlain.
Despite what it says on Teddy’s shirt, that’s exactly what he did, losing in the first round of the playoffs. To add insult to injury, he’s currently down 2-1 to me in our first series of 2009.
More IAL draft weekend photos here.
Interestingly the three managers (DonS, Captain Will, & Teddy Ballgame) who were voted Co-Manager of the Year all made the playoffs, along with the guy who won it all (CLuke). It is a real honor to receive the Manager of the Year Award as it is a memorial award named after the late Dale Smith. Dale was a good friend of mine, who dealt with juvenile diabetes, who managed in the IAL, and four of his brothers have been IAL managers (two currently). When Dale first joined the league, along with me in the IAL’s 2nd season, he had Al Hrabosky hair & mustache, but always smiled. He won his first IAL game against me when Cesar Cedeno flied out using the error chart to end the game (we shouldn’t have been using the chart, but nobody told us). Dale’ll always be remembered for his BIG DICE, which were cut off fence posts, used when Graig Nettles was batting.