I need to spend my time on other pursuits, and with some regret am dropping my two teams. I do have enough invested in them that I hope someone takes them over who will put in the time to keep them competitive, so I'm going to advertise them a bit here...

In Trad 1 98, the Baradur Nazgul have a great offense:
C: Piazza (Mirabelli)
1B: Bagwell
2B: Boone
SS: Eckstein
3B: Mueller
RF: Vander Wal
CF: Giles
LF: Bonds

That's a fun combo of power and OBP and should put a hurt on many teams. R Palmiero and Jason Michaels are the key bench players (I'd play Palmeiro in the OF - I did last year in LF and he was fine - or try to trade him or Bagwell for pitching help).

The team has pitching problems though. A decent 4/5ths of a rotation - Wakefield, Wells, D'Amico, Wilson - but not much in the pen. And the draft picks are poor as most were traded off last year. The team is in a very competitive division, so its fun, but frustrating, to possibly win 90+ games and not be in the playoffs. Anyway, I think the team can tread water or better until draft pick trades are opened up.


On the other end of the age spectrum is the Real Time 1 99 team, the Timbavati White Lions. This team is totally under 30, mostly coming into the prime 26 to 29 age range.

On offense:
C: R Hernandez / B Scheider
1B: C Pena / T Hafner
2B: B Hill / R Santiago
SS: R Vazquez / J Uribe
3B: H Blalock / W Helms
OF: A Dunn, C Crawford, B Wilkerson, J Guillen, R Hidalgo

On Rotation:
F Garcia, J Pineiro, T Lilly, G Meche, K Benson, and C Hernandez

In the Pen: F Heredia, B Lyon, J Towers, J Kennedy

If these guys all get to play and improve as expected, that's a fun team to watch grow. Finished at .500 this season as the pitching tailed off at the end of the year and the offense got tired as the young players didn't get enough PAs.

Anyway, those are my soon to be former teams - I wish everyone at Purebaseball the best, hope you all continue to enjuy it for years to come. I enjoyed my 5 years playing, but I need to use my time better and this is a casualty.

Fred Cline