Fee Plea

 

The June 18th email has payment info. Or reach out and I can send the information your way. Thanks! And thank you to those who have already paid.

A look back at Hughes League Draft history (UPDATED...TWICE!)

Note: The Draft Locale info is linked over on the right side column under Important Links--->

June 15 Update...

Over the last few days, I have been talking to Mike Padilla and he mentioned that he had memories of drafting at Mark Kuhlmann's home. After some back and forth we are confident that the draft in question was 2005. Mike at that time was a 'co-owner' of the Strawmenn with Mark's widow, Sheri. Sheri had run the team as Mark's health declined. When Mark passed in 2004 Mike stepped up and was the defacto owner/manager. I have directories from as late as 2008 that list Sheri as a co-owner but by 2006 this was Mike's team.

As for the draft in question, Mike's memories made sense and aligned with Moose's comment that he recalled drafting at 'someone's house' other than the ones I had already listed. Hogan also had vague memories of a draft at a place I had not come up with.

As for me... I remember being at Mark's home for Hughes business, but I didn't think it was a draft. I spent quite a bit of time at Mark and Sheri's and we often talked football and golf. But Mike mentioned that he was there making decisions with Sheri and it all made sense.

Filling in the 2005 blank (there is a chance it was 2006) narrows down the number of 'open dates' in our draft history. Hopefully, I can nail them all down at some point.

June 25 Update...

Based on the information I received from Bobby and a couple of hunches I received from myself, I filled in all the locations for our drafts through the years. A couple of dates (marked with an asterisk) are my best guesses with my limited sources of evidence. I am certain that there are no unaccounted sites although the years may be incorrect. 

I got this picture from Dan Scofield in May. It's a shot of his 2016 draft setup as he made his selections from Cuba. Yup, Cuba!  I love stuff like this. I know Jack has drafted from a ship out on the Seven Seas. Years ago Rick drafted from various rest stops along the thruways from NY to Massachusetts. In 2019 Dan drafted from an isolated cabin in the Maine woods. 

That's the thing about the draft. You never know what might happen. This is why I worry that the whole thing might go to shit that night and leave us scrambling. You may recall that last year I tried out a new draft room, Primetime Draft, and hadn't realized that the customized settings for our league were specific to one computer..my desktop, not my laptop. Oops! A lot of work down the drain and I was scrambling to manually set the thing up minutes before the scheduled start time. 

I did a little draft history reminiscing in 2015 on the old blog site. Let me update it here with thoughts about the locales and some memories of each. These are not in any particular order. 

Oh, before I get into this, you can see the info on each season's draft along with some notes, by clicking the Draft Locale link over on the right column. 

'Club' Westcott... Jimmy O and I lived in the Memorial Club apartments on Westcott near Memorial Park for a few years. It was the site of our first draft and came when my life was 'in flux' to say the least. That 1980 draft was held in the middle of Tropical Storm Danielle and several of the crew came directly from a flag football game—quite a mess. Steve Heinan aka Buster drafted Wendell Tyler early. Tyler had broken both legs in a car wreck not long before that but not everyone had access to (or paid any attention to) that sort of news back then. That pick caused Heinan a lot of grief but it paled compared to a more infamous pick a few years later. More on that pick in a future post. But here's a photo preview:

We had eight owners that first night but added a ninth, Gary Hamman, who picked a roster from the NFL leftovers the next day and didn't do badly with them. He won a couple of money weeks with guys he selected at a table at Otto's on Memorial Drive while a bunch of us drank beer and ridiculed his picks. It turned out that Gary put together a better squad than several of the owners who had been drafting the night before. Three or four of those guys didn't win a dime that season.

A point of historical order...Earl Campbell was the first-ever Hughes League draft pick. He was taken by the Bushwackers, a team owned by Mike Fauser and Mike Andrich which only played that first season. 

Staffordshire 'Arms'... located on Staffordshire Blvd. which ran (back then) between Holcombe and OST, our Parkwood Apartments unit was the apartment version of a double-wide trailer. It was huge. The buildings, all four-plexes, were made of limestone (just like most of UH) and built to survive a nuclear attack. Our apartment consisted of the whole top floor of one 'four-plex' buildings. 

Sam, Moose, Jimmy, myself, maybe Hogan, and/or Hamman lived here at various times with some non-Hughes owners. Each draft we held here was a Labor Day affair and we took a 'barbecue break' most years to grill out back. Of course, Labor Day always meant the Jerry Lewis Telethon with Jerry getting more hysterical and incoherent by the hour. And the Telethon always meant that we were treated to Charo. Watch this video from the '83 Telethon (I bet you can't watch the full 4 minutes!)

Staffordshire was the scene of what is probably the single greatest draft moment of this or any other league's history. I alluded to it above and you likely are aware of it... Gary Hamman's pick of David Overstreet. That would have been a great pick had it not been for the fact that Overstreet had drawn his last earthly breath 74 days prior. I'll take a deep dive into the life and career of David Overstreet soon.

That pick eclipsed Hamman's pick, in 1981, of the Vikings Jarvis Redwine. Redwine had been a standout at Nebraska but did next to nothing over three NFL seasons. In 1981, when Hamman made him a first-round EHFL choice, he went for 20 yards on five carries over three games played. His son, Jarvis II, is currently employed in the personnel department at Nebraska. 

Here are our 'main' drafting sites through the years and a few notes on each...

Barry's Pizza on Richmond in the Windsor Center... Steve Barenholtz ran this place and we used it in 1983. We tossed Joe Pogge's girlfriend out of the draft (Joe was unable to make it there himself)  and Joe was rightfully pissed about it. Paz was on hand for the draft and he was instantly granted a franchise. He led his Blizzard to a 5-9 record without having prepped for the draft but went 16-10-1 over the next couple of seasons. 

Moose's house on Elm St in Bellaire and Sam/Moose's house on Endicott, also in Bellaire. I don't remember which one, but one of these places was where we first used a speakerphone to communicate with our out-of-town owner(s). It's also where 

UH Intramural offices and UH Intramural conference room. These drafts were hosted by Mark Kuhlmann. We drafted in the intramural offices themselves or in the conference room across the hall. Mark usually got a student intramural worker to 'run' our cardboard draft board. For a couple of years, we had food brought in by Paz and Keith which was nice. 

Bobby's MHMRA Offices on the Southwest Freeway This place was the beginning of our 'big time' drafting. Bobby hosted and provided computers for each owner as well as some nice groceries! It was quite a step up for us. 

Bobby's Offices in the Med Center at Texas Children's...The Meyer Building on S Braeswood near Greenbriar We were here in 2008 and possibly 2007. Bobby had changed companies so we moved along with him. I honestly have no memory of what this particular place was like and so I'm thinking it was a one-year spot after Bobby began working for Texas Children's. 

Bobby's Offices in the Med Center at Texas Children's...The Feigin Building. The highrise on the Med Center campus itself and probably the most NFL Draft-like spot we have ever used. Lots of elbow room, multiple computers, and $487 per hour parking! I felt like Pete Rozelle! I said then and I'll say now... no fantasy league anywhere had a more professional setup than we did in the Feigin Building. 

The specific transition years from MHMRA to the Meyer Building and on to the Feigin Building is murky but it happened when Bobby changed jobs so I bet he can shed some light on it.

Mike's office (and eventually his house) on Heights Blvd  Paz volunteered to host the draft in 2015 at what was then his Houston business office on Heights Boulevard. I had started to feel guilty about putting the burden on Bobby every year so we began what was going to be a rotation between the two sites. Paz had a nice layout with a big conference table and plenty of available owners's desks. He served up a nice spread including Torchy's Tacos which became a regular thing. We have been there for four drafts over the years and it's become our primary draft home since Bobby's retirement. 

One-offs and oddball places...

Kuhlmann's Home in the Heights... See the Update of June 16 at the top of this post. This was a one-time site we used the year after Mark's passing.

Russo's Pizza... This remains the most 'mysterious' of our draft locales. I'm halfway convinced that I've been hallucinating about holding a draft at such a random location but recently Hogan says we were out there. Moose, on the other hand, says he's never been to a Russo's. Maybe it was some other pizza joint. Whatever it was, the spot was way out west towards Mission Bend/Pecan Grove/Sugarland, maybe off Bellaire or Beechnut. The year was 1987, '88 or 1990. Those are the only dates I can't find concrete evidence for. 

If Russo's fills one of those empty dates then the other two are very likely to be drafts held at Staffordshire or the UH offices. There's also a chance that we held a third draft at one of Moose's homes. 

I have a league newsletter from the summer of 2000 inviting everyone to the draft to be held out here at my home. But that was changed because I have blog posts thanking Bobby for his hospitality. We never drafted from my place here in Channelview.

An email draft in 2002....my emergency gallbladder surgery forced us to scramble since the surgery was either on the date of the scheduled draft or a day before. We were still a year away from using the Myfantasyleague platform, so no live draft room alternative was available. We did everything via email and phone calls. It sure wasn't fun but, as always, we made it work. 

Online 'live' drafts...We've held three fully online 'live' drafts over the years. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey played havoc with the Houston area and people were still dealing with the aftermath so we all drafted on our computers from home or wherever. In 2020 & 2021 COVID made getting together less appealing so we muddled through with an online draft and we had some Zoom participants as well.

So there we are. Headed to our 45th annual draft at a place still to be determined. As noted above I have every draft site nailed down with a few 'date' gaps. Hughes League research is always a fun way for me to waste spend time! 😼

Here are some draft room pics I came across while doing this deep dive. Enjoy!

This next one is Dan's 'Cabin In The Woods' LOL

Rick checked in via Zoom or Facetime or something.

The next post here will be a look back at the infamous (and somewhat mythical) David Overstreet pick. I'll also have some additional thoughts on things like supplemental drafts and other league gatherings. Meanwhile, enjoy some girly photos.

And we're back!

Yes, indeed Hughes crew.. we are a full 'Go!' for at least another year. The league page is ready for your inspection, all the data/history links have been updated, the new banner has been tweaked, and a draft date has been VERY TENTATIVELY set for Monday, September 2*.

*=After setting this date I realized that this is Labor Day. That may not work for some people. But we have time to adjust. The normal date would be Tuesday the 3rd but I have something scheduled for that evening. (See the music corner below 👇 )

As promised, there has been only one rule change this year: a reduction to 17 roster spots from last season's 18 with an increase to two IR slots. I hope we can roll along without changes for a few years. 

You can get to the 2024 page with the link to the right or by a simple edit to your bookmark, changing the year to 2024. I will be paying for the league ASAP. And I will ask for fee payments from you sometime soon. Thanks in advance for your prompt attention to that little matter. The cost will be $18 per owner. That's based on my cost as follows...

League Fee to MFL (another price hike from them, this is 'early bird pricing!)....$90

Trophy including engraving + shipping (my average cost over the past four years)....$97

PrimeTime Draft (first used last season, including a $5 returning user discount)...$25

That is a total cost of $212. So calculating each owner fee...$212/12=$17.67

I had considered changing platforms to ESPN but that would involve tweaks and compromises that I'm not anxious to deal with.

I think I'll stay with MFL as long as I can continue to use free hosting services for pics and the data pages I put in the EHFL Links module. Nowadays free internet services are becoming scarce. If I ever have to give up my customization options I might as well go to a freebie site like CBS.com or Fantrax, etc. 

As for this news site...I will continue to post here but maybe not as often as I have in the past. These posts get minimal traction and much of what is here I also send out in emails. Or I may quit emailing and just hope everyone checks here for info and updates. We will see.

If you are contemplating dropping out I'd appreciate a heads-up. Otherwise, get your usual shitty draft prep lists ready and I'll see you in September. 

Oh, and if you have updated contact info please send it my way. 

You may have noticed that this post is chock full of banners. The one up top is a riff on the first banner we had when we ventured online all those years ago. The ones below are some I came up with as I was deciding about returning for 2024. 

This is the one that made the cut...

To The Victor...

...go the spoils. And so it was this past Saturday when the Houston contingent (6 of the 7 of us anyway) gathered at Cactus Cove for some fun stories, friendship, and refreshments, as we presented Mike with his hard-earned 2023 EHFL Championship trophy. 

I wasn't alert enough to snap some pictures(!!) but Mike was good enough to post this one showing him as he displays the hardware. He also took home a framed copy of the Hughes News Championship edition and a few Hughes-branded knickknacks I accumulated over the past year. 

Cactus Cove turned out to be a good location for us with large tables, plenty of TVs (we watched some of the UH-Cincy hoops game), and reasonable (and tasty) food and drinks. I'd rate the day as a success. The only thing lacking was the presence of Bobby B. who wasn't able to attend due to a bout with back issues. Bobby very generously kicked in towards our tab. Hope to see you soon, Bob.

The Owner Get-Together is my favorite league-related event. Draft night, with all the things I figure will go wrong, is too stressful and I don't get to appreciate the fun of it all. But this annual thing is always a good time. This year's event was made even better by a guest appearance from my granddaughter. Thanks to Keith for snapping this shot.

More Year-End Stuff:

Second Season Contest... Jack and James took the top two spots in the contest and will be rewarded with bonus waiver cash for 2024. That is if we return to MFL. More on that below.

This is the second straight year for a Scofield to win the contest. Dan took it last year. And it's James' second consecutive money finish. The site has a parallel playoff contest that doesn't restrict you to one player per playoff team. So if you want to go all in on a particular NFL playoff team you can. I might try opening up both types for us next year. We could pay the winner of each one.

Rolling Over to 2024... Last night MFL made the 2024 sites available. I went through the process to 'roll over' our league to the new season. That doesn't mean we will stay with MFL. Nor does it mean we will even continue the league at all. I won't pay for the season until I've decided on what I want to do going forward. The new site is available here. You can also easily get there by changing the year in your bookmark from 2023 to 2024 since the rest of the URL remains the same.

If we continue to play and move to another site I will figure out a way to reward the Second Season contest winners. It'll depend on the available waiver systems.

2024 Changes... Other than dropping a roster spot and adding a 2nd IR slot I seriously doubt we will make any changes, especially if we are on MFL. If we move to a different platform all bets are off as we may need to adapt to what is available wherever that happens to be.

I may experiment with a different template for MFL in case we stay there. I've had some issues with both of the 'hosting' sites I use, Imgur for photos and OOOwebhost for the stat files and a few other things. It's become a pain to deal with those sites and a new standard template might help me out.

Worst to First Quirks... I recently did some cleanup of a few of the stat pages (the ones found on our site in the Links module). As I was tweaking the All-Time Standings report it struck me that The Legend and Pirates both went from last place in their divisions to first from '22 to '23. In fact, they went from last to the top two seeds. Being the stat nerd that I am I knew I had to dig deeper and see how common that division jump was over our history.

I was surprised to see that it wasn't all that uncommon. Thirty-four clubs have made the jump from 'worst to first' since 1981. A caveat here...I went through the stat sheet pretty quickly and a team might have gotten past me. I was looking at win/loss only. Ties for the best record or worst record in a division both went into the mix. 

No need to list all the instances I found but I came across a few things worth mentioning...

-In 81/82 the Nationals went from last in their division to become an undefeated championship club.

-In 83/84/85 The Giants went from 3-11 to a title and then back to last in their division. 

-In both 94/95 (Knightriders & Attica) and 97/98 (Strawmenn & Giants) two teams pulled off the worst-to-first trick. Attica and the Strawmenn were champs on the back end of those. The Flyers (95/96) were another team in that decade to go from last to a title.

-In 06/07 all THREE last-place teams (Bombers, Bliz, Nats) won the division on the rebound. The Bombers won the 2007 title.

-Two teams have reversed their fortunes for the better in each of the last three seasons. Flyers and Sticks in 20/21, Heroes and Strawmenn in 21/22, and as mentioned previously, Legends and Pirates last season.

Happy Valentine's Day from Ellis Rose!

-

Change of Venue for Houston Meet-up

 

After checking the weekend forecast and scoping out the Nett Bar again I decided it would be best if we met someplace with more available inside tables and an atmosphere more geared to a bunch of old farts like us (not you, James).

So let's head for Cactus Cove on West 11th on Saturday, around 2 p.m. I'll be there early to grab us a table and to make sure everything goes on Padilla's tab. You're welcome to come early as well.

The address is 3333 W. 11th which will land you between Hempstead and Ella. Click the map above to expand it and see the location. The webpage is here: Catcus Cove

I will be emailing, texting and/or calling with this info a few times. Please RSVP so I know who to expect. Thanks and I hope to see everyone there.

Let's Celebrate Our Three Time Champs...the Strawmenn!

It's that time again! Let's get together and raise a glass (of iced tea of course) to Mike Padilla and his Hughes Champs, the Strawmenn. I'm keeping our options open but with nice weather, I'll head for the Nett Bar Shady Acres at 2 pm on Saturday, February 10. The address is 1717 W 22nd St. It's a fun place with good food, a coffee bar, and the usual beer options. I'll try to nail down an outside table for us so look for the trophy when you get there. 

SEE NEW POST ABOVE FOR UPDATE

The indoor seating is limited and the place is popular so I have a backup plan in case the weather isn't ideal. Please monitor your email, phone texts, and this blog for the latest updates. 

Also...heed the warning below. It's easy to end up in the wrong place. You can click the map to enlarge it.

Be aware, that there is ANOTHER Nett Bar, the original location, on Nett Street south of I-10 near Washington Avenue. If you are using a map app and put in 'Nett Bar' you'll likely have a nice time but it won't be with us. It would be best if you went to Nett Bar Sbady Acres. The place is just west of the intersection of Ella and 22nd. 

Parking can be problematic as it is at so many of these spots these days. You may have to park down the block.

A few tidbits about the Strawmen and/or the Hughes Bowl gleaned from the historical records...

This is the second consecutive year both Hughes Bowl teams entered the game as Wildcards. In 2022 the Bliz and Bombers got to the game after two playoff wins. Before that, you have to go back a decade to 2012 (Giants-Rbacks), 1986! (Sticks-Nats), 1983 (Bombers-Nats) and 1981 (Strawmenn-Flyers).

There have been ten occurrences when the two teams came from the same division. The last time was 2020 with the Nats and Giants. 

The Strawmenn are now fifth in playoff appearances with 21, and are tied for fourth in playoff games played (33). They are 3-5 in eight title games played, winning twice in five tries as a Wildcard, and once in three shots as a division champ. Their eight Hughes Bowl appearances are good for sixth among all franchises.

Enjoy this video featuring some of my favorite performers, Crosby, Stills, & Nash and Jackson Browne performing one of my favorite songs.

Putting a Bow on the 2023 Season

Looking Back, and (maybe) forward......

Well, our 44th season is now history. Gonna toss out some thoughts and ideas here in no particular order.

I looked at the Yearly Best chart in the EHFL Links on the website and this was the 15th time the team with the best record (or was tied for the best record) went on to win the championship. I'm not sure if that is surprising or not. And there have been 12 seasons in which the highest-scoring team became the title holder. I would have thought that there would be a higher correlation for that than the best record but whatever.

You'll probably be happy to know that I can't see any rule changes on the horizon with the possible exception of changing the roster limit. I thought 18 players was too many.  It puts a crimp into waiver claims which to me is a good chunk of the fun of doing this. I also got the impression that NFL players were falling by the wayside at an alarming rate. I didn't do any research beyond my team but at that the Flyers had each of their top 8 or 9 picks sidelined for at least a game or, in the cases of DHenry and Anthony Richardson, exit a game in the opening minutes (twice in DH's case). 

So dropping a roster spot but adding a second IR slot may be the way to go. I have a poll on the site but it got little response. I'll figure it out. 

I've updated all the stat files that I link in the EHFL Links section of the league home. I've created a banner for 2024's league page on MFL But that doesn't mean we will return to MFL. There is a chance I will move the league to one of the many other free options available. I've had teams on ESPN, Yahoo, CBS, NFL.com, and Fantrax (baseball). All have advantages and disadvantages. One thing they all have in common is they are less work for the commish. MFL has (by far) the most flexibility when it comes to rule options, customization, etc. But to be honest, I'm getting tired of maintaining the league site. 

I could go to ESPN and have a league up and running in five minutes and never have to think about anything except my lineup until I do a championship newsletter. The downside of that is those leagues are zero fun. Again, I'll figure it out. 

And there's always the chance that I won't feel like doing this anymore. I've gone back and forth over the last few years on continuing. I'll think things over and decide later this spring or over the summer. I will 're-up' with MFL when next season's site is available but I won't pay for 2024 until I know I want to push forward.

Speaking of stat pages (and we were just a bit ago) I recently got to thinking about the lineup options we had this year given the new 'two flex player' rule. That allowed for six possible lineup configurations. Those are:

1 RB 4 WR 1 TE

1 RB 3 WR 2 TE

1 RB 2 WR 3 TE

2 RB 2 WR 2 TE

2 RB 3 WR 1 TE

3 RB 2 WR 1 TE

So I spent (far too much) time building a spreadsheet to help me determine how the lineups were used and the results they produced in terms of W/L and PPG. I was mildly surprised to find that two of those options (in red above) made up 149 of the 178 lineups submitted through the Hughes Bowl, about 84%.  One of the choices (in blue) was not used even once which surprised me considering Brownstein is still an owner. 😅

You can check the complete results by clicking here or by going through the 'EHFL Links' section of the homepage. Just look for Lineup Data '23. I should have labeled the spreadsheet data better but I think you can puzzle out what it indicates. My take? To be honest I don't know what to make of what the data shows. I had a feeling going in that one config (1/4/1) would produce points at a higher rate than the more traditional 2/3/1 lineup. I was a bit surprised by how many times 3 RBs were used. Overall I think one season isn't quite enough to jump to solid conclusions. Anyone who dares to delve into the data and send along his thoughts will get a bronze star from me.

Other Stuff:

I'm pretty much done with my postseason work. The Hughes News Hughes Bowl issue is printed and framed. You can see it on the league page under the Championship News tab. Mike's trophy is here. All the stat sheets are up to date and posted. I even have the Team Profiles updated for 2024. I usually let that slide until August. The 2024, 45th season banner is ready if we return to MFL.

Saturday, February 10 will be the date for our Houston owner's gathering. Mark off the date with a tentative time of 2-ish. We'll likely meet somewhere on the west side of town as usual. I have a few locations in mind but I'm going to wait until the week of the meetup to decide on a location. I want to see what the weather will be. 

The Postseason contest is live. I've sent out invites via email. Request a re-send if you need another invite. You have until the kickoff of Saturday's first NFL playoff game to enter and choose your players. But I will be headed to the Texans-Browns game that day so I won't be able to help you if you wait that long and have an issue getting in. Waiver cash goes to the top two finishers ($30/$15). I found it particularly tough to fill out my team this year. A couple of the NFL clubs had crap for offensive options. Also..be sure you click through the lineup submission process. It's easy to skip over that last page after you put in your tiebreakers. Good Luck. 

Stevie Wonder and the late, very great Jeff Beck