For your updated list of certainties in life, we have the preeminent “death and taxes”, Tiger and Federer winning, and rounding things out, J.D. Drew getting injured. That’s right, in 8 major league seasons, J.D. Drew has never failed to hit the DL at least once in a year (until ’06). In fact, D.L. Drew has never played more than 146 games in a year. For perspective, the perpetually plagued Ken Griffey Jr. has surpassed the 146 game figure 6 times in his career.Â
Despite all this detail, I never expected the email I received yesterday to creep into my inbox. Forwarded from a colleague of my sister (who is currently stationed in New York oddly enough) was this gem:
“Hey everyone, it’s that time finally. As many of you know the Red Sox recently signed JD Drew for a disgusting amount of money despite his long history of injuries. Obviously, huge numbers of Sox fans have been very unhappy about this signing, while at the same time Yankees fans are overjoyed that he’s getting $70 million over the next five years. And since his injuries are inevitable, we may as well make them interesting. Welcome to the pool. For just five bucks you can make your prediction on when he gets hurt, and if you’re right, the pot is yours. Just on word of mouth we’re already up to about $50 for the winner, so join in and get the prize up even higher. And don’t be shy about forwarding this to every baseball fan you know. Anyone can join.”
Well, that is exactly what I’m doing. They have actually set up 2 separate pools.
- When will J.D. go down?   Only his first trip to the DL will be included in this pool. Any subsequent trips are only counted in the second pool. Here’s the caveat: The official date that will be used to determine the winner is the date they announce him going to the DL. So if he gets put on the DL retroactive to another day, it is the day they announce it.
- How long will J.D. be hurt? Predict how many games Drew actually plays (the original plan was to see how many days he’d spend hurt, but it’s too hard to track between the days he doesn’t play and the days he’s actually on the DL). The official number will come from JD Drew’s page on http://www.redsox.com/.
For the record, between fantasy baseball and all, I know D.L. Drew pretty well. In fact, I know him well enough to say that I don’t think he’ll be on the DL this year. I’m going with D.L. playing 138 games this year – he’ll just sit out his typical 1 game a week to make my total.Â
Submit a comment below if you want to go on record with your prediction, and indicate if you want in on the $5 entry fee and I’ll forward along the info.
