Friday, October 20, 2000
Friday, October 20, 2000 |
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Local man plays in fantasy baseball league and wins the whole ball of wax By
MICHAEL BOYLAN For Jeff Klein of Peachtree City, it is a small world after all. Smallworld.com, that is. Klein, a baseball and fantasy sports aficionado, has entered the smallworld.com fantasy baseball league for the past three years. Over 550,000 people played in the league worldwide. Two years ago he finished in the 20,000 range and last year he finished around 1,200. This year, he finished on top to qualify for the grand prize an all-expense-paid trip to the first two games of the World Series with three friends. There was a slight snag with the award. Klein received a call on Tuesday from smallworld.com, telling him that they were unable to broker tickets to the World Series and that they could not legally award them as the grand prize for the contest. They are sending him a check for the cash equivalent of $10,000. Klein was obviously disappointed and though his father is a federal judge who wanted some additional information, the family won't press the matter after they receive the check. The game is played by picking a team of major league players that perform well. Each player in the contest starts with $50 million and is allowed three hitter and three pitcher trades a week, within their salary limitations. By the end of the season, Klein had amassed $150 million, which enabled him to pick many all-star caliber players. "I didn't hang on to many players for more than a month," Klein explained. "But I never missed a start from Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson or Kevin Brown." Those three pitchers performed exceptionally well during the major league baseball season and therefore gave Klein a lot of points in the fantasy league. Klein is a general business major at Georgia State University. He attended high school at Campbell High School, where he played baseball all four years. He then played for the College of Charleston for one year. His family moved to Peachtree City in 1997 and he has lived there ever since. Klein was hoping that the Yankees win the ALCS because he has never been to Yankee Stadium, but a subway series was never on his mind. "I don't really care for the Mets," Klein stated. "I'm a big Braves fan." Klein was ranked first in the game May 24. "I printed it out and thought about framing it," Klein said. "I never thought I'd be that close to the top again." Going into the month of September though, Klein was ranked as high as third and he realized, if he caught a few breaks, he could win the whole ball of wax. Thanks to the help of his Dad, who plays also (Dad finished 320th) Klein made some key choices and learned how to play the game better. Some of his key pick ups included Seattle's Alex Rodriguez, Cleveland's Manny Ramirez and St. Louis's Darryl Kile, who won seven games in a row at the end of the season. Klein's advice to people who might want to try their hand at fantasy baseball games is to stick with it. " A lot of people get discouraged and quit when they fall to 80,000th. You can move up quickly and the more you play the more you learn." Next up for Klein is playing in the fantasy football, basketball and golf seasons. |
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