Welcome to tornado alley

The condo market is in the crapper in Atlanta. There are condos in former cotton mills, schools, and warehouses. I'm guessing that an enterprising land developer decided to go retro by having a condo complex that's constructed of double-wide trailers. That's my only explanation of how downtown Atlanta was tornadoized last Friday night. Despite that, the University of Georgia won four games in four days, including a two-fer yesterday, to win the SEC tournament. That was like Vandy winning the SEC football title. Georgia only won four regular-season conference games.

Why do two teams that won their conference tournament have to play in the play-in game? Neither Mount St. Mary's or Coppin State won their regular-season conference title. MSM finished fourth and Coppin State went 7-9 in the MEAC, a conference that seems to play in this team every year. Still, they cut down the nets and teams like Miami and Texas A&M finished .500 in their "power" conference and get to play in the regular tournament. Give conference champs the bye and make the middling teams duke it out. To make things more interesting, I'd let only conference champs go to the dance and let every non-champ play their way in. That way we'd get another round in this best of all tournaments.

I'll do my annual one or two brackets and call it a day. I haven't won a bracket since Michigan (pre Fab Five) won in 1989.

Part of the "fun" of a dynasty baseball league is putting together a squad with a long-term view. I felt like a real GM when our league was renewed and I had the option of renewing two contracts. I picked Carlos Guillen for 4 million (cap is 110) and Francisco Carmona for 5. Carmona cost me .5 million last year. I'm going to keep things short tonight and just highlight one team that got lucky, or the owner is just a genius. You pick up players through something called the Free Agent Blitz. It's a timed auction which gives you 24 hours to bid on players. Whoever has the best offer wins. There were five "waves" in last year's FAB. At the end people were running out of money or contract years so bargains were had. Here's what this guy ended up with.

Russ Martin .5/1
Ryan Braun .5/2
B.J. Upton .5/2
Delmon Young .5/2
Cole Hamels 2.5/1
Chad Billingsley .5/1

He took chances on nine guys with minimum contracts for maximum years. The reward is a pretty stout team with $75 million left to spend. I have 43.5 million to spend. My needs include catcher, two power bats for 1b/dh/of, and a couple of starting pitchers. Things should get interesting.