I woke up this morning a champion. \u00a0It has been 9 long years, but I’m
\nnow finally able to call myself a BDB champion. \u00a0My son, Harrison Allen
\nPaul Spoelstra, born on the 19th of March 2012, will be able to tell his
\nsons, and they their sons, that their grandfather and great-grandfather
\nwas once a Belted Deep Baseball champion. \u00a0Those children, years from
\nnow, will be regaled with stories of Jimmy Rollins and his 2-run jack
\noff of Mo Rivera in the 9th inning of Game 3 of the Semi-finals. \u00a0Of
\nJose Valverde earning 6 saves – and maintaining a 0.00 ERA! – through
\nthe Semfinal AND Championship Series. \u00a0And no one will be able to to
\nforget fat old Carlos Lee catching that Russell Martin fly to win the
\nChampionship against Montreal.
\nBut we’ve already gone too far into the future. \u00a0The only way to
\nproperly tell this story is by starting at the beginning. \u00a0And the story
\nof the Hamilton Splitterz began with one man – Ismael Valdes. \u00a0I was a
\nyoung, optimistic, and dedicated fantasy sports participant back in
\n2003. \u00a0The Splitterz – originally named the Hong Kong Splitterz – were
\nborn in a tiny apartment in the former British colony south of China. \u00a0I
\nhad some success with Yahoo! baseball leagues, and assumed that the
\nknowledge and expertise I gained would simply carry over to BDB. \u00a0I had
\nmuch to learn. \u00a0The North Bay Trappers and Ancaster Waterloo Langley
\nRoyals Spartans would teach me many hard lessons through the first
\nnumber of years. \u00a0So it was with my 1st overall selection in the 2003
\nExpansion draft that I took Valdes, who was followed in succession by
\nJimmy Haynes, Doug Mientciewicz, Carl Everett, and Tony Batista. \u00a0So,
\nuh, yeah, I didn’t have the strongest start.
\nFast forward to the 2009 season, where I lost in heartbreaking fashion
\nto the Sao Paulo Tricolor in the championships. \u00a0Tears were nearly shed
\nthat evening, but I knew that something special was happening in the
\nSteel City. \u00a0The groundwork was laid for this team to become world
\nchampions. \u00a0January 31, 2012 was another significant point in the team’s
\nhistory. \u00a0It was that day that I, along with Joe Rae, pulled off a
\nblockbuster deal that saw me acquire Albert Pujos and Dan Haren, who
\nwould eventually be instrumental in earning this championship. \u00a0Smaller
\ndeals that brought in studs like Jay Bruce, Mike Napoli and Zack Greinke
\nhelped, but in the end it was a true team effort with 7 different
\nSplitterz hitting 15+ jacks over the season.<\/p>\n
So it is with great pride and joy that I thank other General Managers
\nfor their well-wishes and congratulations, for this was a long road.
\nWhile I am contemplating if this current feeling is worth the hours of
\ntime I neglected my career, social and family life to determine mop-up
\nrelievers and analyze which backup left-fielder to draft, I can’t help
\nbut think to myself “Don’t overthink it. \u00a0Let’s go out and do it again!
\nThis has the makings of a dynasty!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I woke up this morning a champion. \u00a0It has been 9 long years, but I’m now finally able to call myself a BDB champion. \u00a0My son, Harrison Allen Paul Spoelstra,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.belteddeep.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}