Our History It’s a kid’s game, they say – baseball – made for kids to run, throw, and hit. Made for enjoyment and exercise, but ultimately leveraged as a man’s interest with billions of dollars at stake. Baseball creates legends and heroes like no other sport & helps build friendships next to the water cooler, which is really where the game we play begins; our game was developed in the early years of online fantasy baseball and fostered by kids not yet fifteen who loved those heroes. Our league was the creation of boys. The Salmon League, as we call it, was created & developed by our current commissioner, Jeremiah Graves. Pulling resources from the small town many of us grew up in, Hartley, IA, he built something with the 10 people who originated the league that would become one of the most important forces keeping most of our friendships strong. The Salmon League, as we aptly call it, was created because a handful of boys had an incredible interest in Major League Baseball. It also didn’t hurt that, growing up in a town of 1,200 people; we had a ton of time to spare. The league’s name has nothing to do with the group’s interest in fishing or their location to any type of Salmon. As the story goes, Jeremiah was reading through a popular magazine, Nintendo Power, and read a story about a game Nintendo was developing that allowed players to create & manage their own teams. The league’s name in the game Nintendo was developing was called the Salmon League. Apparently, our astute 15-year-old commissioner giggled and it immediately became our moniker. A moniker that eventually ended up having us all fighting over tiny fish trophies to hang in our trophy cases year-after-year. Over the years, the league has developed. We’ve shrunk from 10 teams to 8 and grown from 8 teams to 14. We lost players who wouldn’t commit and the friendships waned, we’ve had players stop for a year and come back reinvigorated, and we’ve gained people we didn’t expect and the friendships grew. We’ve revamped from a rotisserie league with far too many categories to a streamlined 7x7 head-to-head behemoth. The league has seen the development of a Winter Meeting where boys who are now men come together, drink beer, and think of ways to make this thing we all enjoy so much that much more enjoyable. We’ve added and taken away rules. We’ve increased league fees, made stakes higher, and added keepers, which helped create team unity and recognition. Draft weekend, developed in 2006, has become an event akin to the Super Bowl for our group. It’s a weekend where all of us come together from all over the United States, from Boston to Marshall, MN, and put the studying we’ve done for the better part of the previous three months to work. It’s the weekend in which most of our lasting stories originate. A weekend filled with laughter and grilling and, lets not forget, it’s a weekend filled with baseball. In a way, we as friends have become somewhat less ourselves and we’ve developed into something more. We’ve become a unit. A group of fourteen people who have created specific, individual, team identities; down to the very colors and logos that are laid out in this branding catalog. However, the most important thing we’ve developed with all of these iterations, fun, and work was lasting friendships based on one common goal – winning the next SLB championship.
2
-- Steven Kunkel, The Dominators
TABLE OF CONTENTS “THE ORIGINAL 8” Genies in a Bottle................................................4-5 Cracker Jack.........................................................5-6 Dominators...........................................................7-8 InSaNeAuDiO..................................................... 9-10 Money Grubbers................................................ 11-12 J’s Team........................................................... 13-14 Salmon League Disappointment ..................... 15-16 Sea Bass............................................................17-18
“NEW ERA TEAMS Radioactive Rush.............................................. 19-20 Zima...................................................................21-22 38 MPH Heaters..............................................23-24 Dome Dog.........................................................25-26 Captain Jack Sparrow...................................... 27-28 High Cheese.....................................................29-30
3
4
TEAM NAME Genies in a Bottle MANAGER Jeremiah Graves ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012 CHAMPIONSHIPS 2011
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Jared Weaver
3B | David Wright
OF | Jay Bruce
5
6
TEAM NAME Cracker Jack MANAGER Justin Kunkel ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS 2004, 2005
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Jordan Zimmermann
OF | Matt Kemp
2B/SS/OF | Ben Zobrist
7
8
TEAM NAME The Dominators MANAGER Steven Kunkel ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES 2010, 2013 CHAMPIONSHIPS 2003, 2006, 2013
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Felix Hernandez
OF | Mike Trout
2B | Robinson Cano
9
10
TEAM NAME InSaNeAuDiO MANAGER Jesse Graves ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS --
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | CC Sabathia
SS | Jose Reyes
3B/1B | Miguel Cabrera
11
12
TEAM NAME Money Grubbers MANAGER Mike Kunkel ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS 2001, 2007
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Madison Bumgarner
1B | Joey Votto
OF | Andrew McCutchen
13
14
TEAM NAME J’s Team MANAGER Jay Christiansen ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES CHAMPIONSHIPS 2002, 2008
SP | Zak Greinke
2013 SLB KEEPERS
3B | Evan Longoria
OF | Ryan Braun
15
16
TEAM NAME Salmon League Disappointment MANAGER John Kunkel ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS 2000
SP | Cliff Lee
2013 SLB KEEPERS
OF | Jose Bautista
SS | Starlin Castro
17
18
TEAM NAME Sea Bass MANAGER Craig Denny ESTABLISHED 2000 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS --
SP | Yovani Gallardo
2013 SLB KEEPERS
OF | Carlos Gonzalez
1B | Edwin Encarnacion
19
20
TEAM NAME Radioactive Rush MANAGER Grant Morfitt ESTABLISHED 2009 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS --
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Matt Harvey
OF | Adam Jones
1B/OF | Adrian Gonzalez
21
22
TEAM NAME Zima MANAGER Collin Brand ESTABLISHED 2009 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS --
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Clayton Kershaw
1B | Albert Pujols
1B | Prince Fielder
23
24
TEAM NAME 38 MPH Heaters MANAGER Morgan Lux ESTABLISHED 2010 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS --
SP | David Price
2013 SLB KEEPERS
OF | Giancarlo Stanton
2B | Dustin Pedroia
25
26
TEAM NAME Dome Dog MANAGER Adam Henning ESTABLISHED 2010 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS 2010
SP | Justin Verlander
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SS | Troy Tulowitzki
3B | Brett Lawrie
27
28
TEAM NAME Captain Jack Sparrow MANAGER Travis Morfitt ESTABLISHED 2000-2008, 2011 REGULAR SEASON TITLES 2008 CHAMPIONSHIPS 2009
2013 SLB KEEPERS
SP | Stephen Strasburg
C | Buster Posey
OF | Bryce Harper
29
30
TEAM NAME High Cheese MANAGER Levi Elgersma ESTABLISHED 2011 REGULAR SEASON TITLES -CHAMPIONSHIPS 2012
SP | Cole Hames
2013 SLB KEEPERS
OF | Josh Hamilton
OF | Jason Heyward
31