The ambiguity about whether my team name is singular or plural was deliberate. I'm the guy who suggested Miami Humidity when they had a contest to name the Marlins, just because it would have been so much fun to say "The Heat isn't so bad, but the Humidity is brutal."

My players may be Walruses, Walri or even Walrera (think opus) but I am the Toronto Walrus, 2004 champion of the BBFL Alomar Division. Led by a slew of free agent pitchers who outperformed expectations, my club defeated Lars Kvale’s AGF 9-3 in the two-week final. The jubilation I was feeling on the weekend is muted today, and fantasy baseball seems trivial indeed, but it was a satisfying finish to a successful year, in which I took over the lead in Week 2 and never looked back.

It seemed unneccessary to post a new thread just to update the four remaining matchups in the BBFL Alomar Division, which continue for one more week. Then it occurred to me that Bauxites in other leagues might want to share their pennant race stories. Bear with me through an abbreviated update, then the floor is yours.

It’s come down to this — Lars Kvale’s AGF will meet my Toronto Walrus in two weeks of Head-to-Head combat. At stake is the Alomar Division championship and a place in league history beside last year’s inaugural winner Scott Lucas. No trophy, only a replica jersey, which I hope will be Jays home black, extra large.

There were no thrilling photo-finishes to dramatically alter the final standings in the Alomar division. While the regular season title is satisfying, Walrus management is well aware that we haven’t won anything that really counts yet. No matter how good any team has been so far, a considerable degree of luck is required in Head-to-Head playoffs.

Congratulations to Gwyn Price, whose Mebion Glyndwr earned the other first-round bye. In this week’s championship bracket quarter-finals, third-place AGF takes on the sixth-place Red Mosquitos for the right to knock me out of the semis, and the fourth-seeded Gashouse Gorillas do battle with fifth-seeded Chatsworth Halos, with the winner to face Gwyn’s squad.

The Coach-helmed Toronto Walrus still holds a seven-game lead after a 6-6 tie against Eastern Shore Birds, but all seven teams nearest the Walrus's behind gained ground. Mebion Glyndwyr, Red Mosquitoes and Gashouse Gorillas defeated their foes convincingly with ten wins or more.

Sunday, August 15 is the deadline for that big deal that will push you over the top, get you into the playoffs or escape relegation.

It was a relatively uneventful week in the standings with no really lopsided scores; good news for those of us who like our positions. My Toronto Walrus beat Garces_not_on_roids 8-4 to remain 9.5 games in front, as second-place AGF defeated the Moscow Rats by the same margin. There were no changes among the next four clubs, all of whom won by 7-5 or 6-5 scores. Baird Brain and the SABR Magicians each moved up a notch.

From the beginning of the season until the end of August, only 750 people can call themselves Major League baseball players. On April Fools Day, twenty baseball fanatics chose 500 of them in the 2004 draft for the Alomar Division of the Batter's Box Fantasy League.

The Batter's Box Fantasy League closed its offseason trading window on the 28th. 15 BBFL owners combined to consummate ten trades. Five owners declined to partake in the festivities.

So who went where?

I was a little worried that trade proposals would get lost in the noise of the other BBFL thread, so I decided to start a new one. If you've got a team in the Alomar Division please give us your trade offers!

By a 16-2 margin, current BBFL owners chose to double the size of the league and add a 2nd 20-team division that will start play this season. Eighteen of the twenty current owners voted on all 11 propositions, with one team abstaining, and one person simply not showing up. In a rather close vote, the league decided to have three teams relegated between divisions each season.

Now on to the important information!

I somehow got the dates mixed up, and thought that the voting was to start on the 15th of February. It turns out it was supposed to end on the 15th of February. Mea culpa. So I've changed the dates of voting from February 16th to the 18th, to give us a few more days to discuss possible rule changes. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Voting Period Has Started - Current Owners Get Your Ballots in ASAP!

The Box is not the only baseball web site with a new and improved look. RotoWorld, already my pick as the class of the fantasy reference league, is looking svelte with a tidied-up look, better navigation, and less prominent advertising.

As commish of the BBFL, I don't want to be too dictatorial. However I've decided to impose a little structure to this off-season, so we can get the ball rolling.

Gwyn made Vladimir Guerrero the first pick ever in the BBFL a few seconds after 9:55 pm last night, and a mere three hours later, Spicol took John Stephens to end the proceedings. We drafted 500 players and cracked a few one-liners along the way. I hope everone had as much fun as I did. The file bbfldraft.xls is on the server, and if you can't download it, e-mail me for a copy.