Q:  Wow, Springfield has posted three 100+ win seasons in eight years.  The bad news is there is no World Series banner to show for that effort.  What do the ‘Topes need to do to get over the proverbial hump, or is it more an issue of “the best teams make the playoffs, but the hottest team wins the Series”?

I wish that I could tell you Justin.  We only have two World Series appearances and have lost them both to the Spurs.  Maybe we need Barry Bonds to retire.  Seriously though, any NASBL team that makes the playoffs really doesn’t have a lot of holes that can be exposed during a seven game series since you really don’t need a deep bullpen in the postseason.  This may sound like sour grapes, but we just need to have the breaks fall our way one year.  That being said, maybe I just have my head in the sand ignoring a bigger problem with the way that the Topes are built for postseason play. 

I try not to get too negative about the lack of a title though.  I’m proud of what the Topes have accomplished and the team that we have.  The Topes, as an organization, were an expansion team that came into the league for the 2000 season with the Chicago Road Ragers (now the Grundy County Grizzlies).  We were put in a very tough situation, starting with only draft eligible players from the previous season that went undrafted and were not on any roster.  I had the first pick in the expansion draft and started building my team around Roger Cedeno.  I had a plan from day one and my first draft consisted of all players under the age of 26 (besides a few picks to fill out my roster).  The organization just got lucky that a couple of the darts that we threw at the board hit and a few of the young guys that we drafted turned into real players.  Whenever, I get upset about the lack of a title I look at the Topes 2000 roster and think of how far we’ve come.  The only remaining player from that team is Eric Chavez.

Q:  Was it tough letting Joe Nathan go?  He’s done so much for the franchise and is poised to pass Uggie Urbina for #4 on the all-time NASBL saves list (unless Uggie’s penal league saves are counted, obviously).

It wasn’t easy letting Joe go, but the emergence of Jonathon Papelbon as a dominant reliever made Joe a luxury for this team.  When we drafted Papelbon there was talk from our scouting department that he was going to be able to move into the rotation this season.  However, he was so dominant as a short reliever that we didn’t want to mess with that and he started closing for us in the playoffs last season.  Maybe I’m putting the cart in front of the horse, but as I said earlier, you don’t really need that deep of a bullpen for the postseason and we already had Rafael Betancourt locked up as a set-up man.  Plus, understandably Joe had some real trade value.  Our offense needed a boost and we weren’t going to get everything that we needed out of the draft, considering that I dealt our first rounder for Rich Harden.  When you look up the prototypical player to play in Montgomery Burns Stadium, you’d see a picture of Adam Dunn.  We just couldn’t pass up adding a big bat like that.  Plus his nickname is “Big Donkey”.  We don’t have many nicknames on our team and we couldn’t pass up a guy with light tower power and the nickname “Big Donkey” to boot.

Q:  Ace C.C. Sabathia appears ready to make another run at the Cy Young, will Berkman join him in the chase allowing SPR to pull off the unprecedented double-repeat?

C.C. has a definite chance to pull off the repeat.  He really turned the corner last season and the other big name pitchers in our league, Maddux, Randy Johnson, and the Rocket are all on the wrong side of 40.   It will be a lot tougher for Lance to repeat than C.C.  Lance is one of the top players in the league, but arguably the greatest position player since Babe Ruth is in our league and already has five MVP awards.  Obviously, I’m talking about the Heap’s Alex Rodriguez.  Until further notice, the MVP is his award and Lance and Manny Ramirez in 2005 simply rented it for a season.

Q:  With your brother now in the league, does that make for uncomfortable Thanksgiving dinners?  I mean, you are the mighty ‘Topes, surely that gets you dibs on the last turkey leg.  Is Brad’s jealousy transparent, or does he hide it and put on a smiley face?  Remember, in the immortal words of Frank Costanza, “Serenity now, insanity later”.

I can’t speak for Brad, but I believe that there is no animosity between the two of us.  Brad and I have made a couple of trades since he came in the league.  The jury is still out on who came out on the winning end of those.  I know that Brad was rooting for me to get knocked out of the playoffs early last season since he had my first round pick.  Otherwise, I think that we both wish each other success against the other teams in the league.  That being said, if he wins a championship with the Chows before the Topes get one, I may never speak to him again.  I was just kidding on that last point (kind of).

Q:  When looking ahead five years, what player on your team gives you the most cause for optimism?

C.C. Sabathia.  He’s still only 27 years old and I expect him to continue to get better.  It just seems like he’s much older since he was the Topes first round pick all the way back in 2002.

Q:  What do you enjoy to most about NASBL?

It’s a really competitive league with a great group of owners and a strong league constitution.  This will be my ninth year in the league and even when I was getting beat-up as an expansion team, there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t enjoy being a part of this community.  That being said, I believe that the draft is always the best time of the NASBL season.