Goodbye bigdaddybaseball.com Forum Index -> League announcements View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message STMZoots Guest Posted: 09 Jun 2004 09:43 am Post subject: Goodbye -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This will serve as my official resignation from the BDBL effective immediately. The reasons are numerous – too numerous to go into here in any great detail – but suffice it to say this is a decision that I did not take lightly. For much of the past 5+ years, the BDBL has provided me with some terrific times that had nothing to do with winning percentages or a silly (though much sought after) laminated card on a homemade wooden trophy. It was about competing at a high level against some very smart, interesting people who shared a love of baseball. Unfortunately, like all things (good and bad) this chapter in my life has to end. While I am sure few, if any, were faithful readers of my yearly post-season pretend “interviews” re-capping each season, one of the last questions I answered each year was “what does the future hold for you?” Each year I would pretty much say the same thing…that I was going to sit down with my wife and decide whether being the GM of the Zoots still made me happy…yada yada yada. What began as a joke to sneak in a couple of “good Lord willin’” references and give a little tip of the cap to my ever-supportive wife, took on a whole new meaning these last couple of years. Simply put, the BDBL just started to be less and less fun for me over time. Friendly competition turned inappropriately personal and the thrill of winning no longer made up for the emotional rollercoaster of doing simple things – like reading the message board – that I used to enjoy. By the time this past off-season came around, I was pretty miserable and about to drop out of the league only to be talked into staying by the most unlikely of sources, the recently departed (from the league that is) Phil Geisel. That, combined with a competitive spirit that was tweaked by those saying I did not have a chance in hell of even fielding a competitive team this year, finally convinced me to give it another month, which turned into two months, which turned into three months. When my request to change leagues, or even divisions, in yet another effort to defuse conflict was rejected, I decided to just lay low, play my games and see if I could get re-energized from a competitive standpoint and just let some of the personal feelings go…and I really tried. As always, I played hard and tried my best. Unfortunately, however, half-way through the season (and despite a relative level of continued success that would typically re-charge my batteries) I am exhausted – exhausted from pretending that I can look past all the things that have happened over the past several years – and this prevents me from giving my team the type of effort needed to succeed at the absolute highest level – the only level that is (and ever has been) acceptable to me in anything I do in life. Essentially, the league, which for years was a somewhat stressful but welcome diversion from the “real” stress of everyday life, has become just one long chore for me – something I do because I have to but get no sense of pleasure from. I don’t have a lot of hobbies, but that just doesn’t seem to be a hobby a sane person chooses to continue with. During this offseason, there was a long period where I was very angry about things that occurred in this league. I wrote and re-wrote departure letters that, in hindsight, I am glad I did not send. In the end though, I’ve gotten to a happier place – a place where I can honestly say that, in many ways, this is a great league and I hope it continues for a long, long time without me – perhaps even improves now that the source of so much apparent controversy over the years has moved on. Unfortunately, the ultimate irony of this league is that its greatest strength – passion for baseball and this game – is also its greatest weakness. Some will say I should just “have thicker skin” and that this is just “lively banter” that is part of the “fun” of the league. I respectfully disagree. There are boundaries in life. Where we set them are subject to some reasonable degree of interpretation. That they have been trampled beyond recognition over the course of the past few years is not reasonably in dispute. If I were the CEO of a publicly traded Company, a politician running for office or even a professional baseball GM, I would expect, particularly in this day and age, this level of “discourse.” I was not. I was a guy playing in a pretend league for nothing more than bragging rights and a wood trinket. Will the “passion” of this league ultimately be its downfall? I don’t know, but it has already ruined at least two friendships and caused its fair share of hard feelings. What I do know is that as much of a pessimist as I am (I prefer realist, but so be it), I know I have a terrific life overall filled with a wife and children I adore, an extended family that is second to none, some wonderful friends, a job that challenges me – I really do not have a leg to stand on in the complaint department. The BDBL was a blip – a fun, often consuming, always challenging blip, but a blip nonetheless. I leave it with many things – an even richer love for a game I never even played, a number of new acquaintances, more than a few new friends and the knowledge that I competed successfully against some of the smartest baseball guys around. All in all, not bad. Thanks for having me. I can’t say it was always fun, but it was certainly memorable.