PARTICIPATION IN SCORING ASPECT IS STRICTLY OPTIONAL SO FEEL FREE TO FIND THE CACHE AND WATCH ALL THE ACTION FROM THE GRANDSTAND. GAME ON!
Welcome to the 2024 Home Run Derby! Every Saturday morning a new cache will be released. After it is published you will have roughly a week to find it and select a slugger to represent you in that week's edition of the home run derby. Select one player and include his name in your log. The number of home runs he hits the following week (starting the Friday after cache publication) is your score; don't worry, we will handle all the scoring.
The series will be cumulative points from April through September with a week off over the All Star break. The "catch" is every player must be unique, so FTF has choice of any player, second to find will have second pick and so on. The cache hiders will also be playing so the cache owner will select fifth each week.
Scoring system is participants are only allowed to pick a player once during the season. In all subsequent weeks your pick must be different than any other player you had used in previous weeks.
This is week 6 of the series (6 of 25). All scoring will take place Friday, May 3rd through Thursday May 9th.
I was listening to the Effectively Wild baseball podcast last weekend and they had a fantastic interview with Rich Nye, who pitched in the major leagues from 1966-1970, then became a veterinarian, specializing in birds.
In 1971, he was winding down his career playing in the minor leagues for the Winnipeg Whips, the Montreal Expos AAA team. He talked to his teammate John Olerud, the father of the great Blue Jays player, about life after baseball and decided to follow his passion and study veterinary science. He is still practing 47 years after becoming a doctor.
He has many great stories, from facing his idol, Willie Mays, to examining bears at his exotic animal practice. I'm not sure which of those is more challenging!