"I've never heard of half these guys. And the ones I do know are way past their prime."
"Most of these guys never HAD a prime."
"This guy here is dead."
"Cross him off then."
-- Indians owner Rachel Phelps and Indians GM Charlie Donovan, on how to build a team from scratch
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To hear Ken Zwiebel tell it, come tender time on March 2nd, he'll be dredging through California Penal League castoffs and old St. Paul Saints rosters to field a team that'll stay out of the 69 in 2003.
In an exclusive interview with the new GM of the Jerusalem Lab Rats at an Internet café near his bombed-out Ramallah complex, Zwiebel gave your humble servant unfettered access to his complete drafting strategies, a tour of his spacious War Room (the bunker from where he'll conduct his draft; known in the off-season as "my romper room"), and even an early peak at his projected keeper list.
The normally pollyana-ish Zwiebel, the bespectacled, clean-cut 32-year-old former pizza dough-tosser and soda jerk, looked forlorn and my-puppydog-was-just-run-over-in-the-street rueful when the subject of his chances in the 2003 season came up.
After crunching all 13 existing rosters on Christmas day, and having the night sweaty-epiphany that he - and he alone - will have first dibs on the 144th most economical keeper, Zwiebel said he openly contemplated playing Six Bullet Russian Roulette. Zwiebel was so down, in fact, that he ceded total Jerry Jones powers over the Lab Rats to his wife, a woman with 1989 Rene Russo's face and Suzanne Dorn's assets.
"She’s picking my team based purely on the cuteness factor and the size of their asses. What else can I do? Take a flier on Freddy Garcia at $24?"
With a soft spot in her heart for Bad News expansion teams, Mrs. Zwiebel’s preliminary keeper list for the Lab Rats looked something like this:
C Harry Doyle, 1989 Indians $5 SS Jake Taylor, 1989 Indians $3 3B Wade Boggs, 1998 Devil Rays $26 LF Marv Throneberry, 1962 Mets $18 CF Willie Mays Hayes, 1989 Indians $37 RF Pedro Cerrano, 1989 Indians $15 DH Hensley Meulens, 1998 D'backs $8 SP Eddie Harris, 1989 Indians $7 Henry Rowengartner, 1994 Cubs $29 Dick Pole, 1977 Blue Jays $1 RP Vinegar Bend Mizell, 1962 Mets $2
"Well, I've always been a sucker for a man who would chase after his woman in the bullpen car ... why don't you ever do anything like that, Kenny?" asked a suddenly curt Mrs. Zwiebel. "And Wade Boggs ... oh, that man was KIN-KEE! I'd let him wear cowboy boots in bed if he'd call me Margo. Giddy-up! My Kenny, he likes me to call him "Dick Pole" in bed, which is why I picked him. That cute, little kid from "Rookie of the Year" is adorable. Or was that in "Little Big League?" No, that's right, that one's just my little name for Kenny in bed. He really doesn't like it - just between the two of us. And Pedro Cerrano probably has the largest Jobu on the whole team!"
Zwiebel, 32, who considers his Army reserve days when his wife would read him box scores over the phone, painstaking line by painstaking line, the most "tender time" in his life with the missus, currently lives in Israel with his wife and their little boy - and another little bugger in the oven. Zwiebel said his firstborn child, now 2 1/2, "wants to 'play baseball!' all the time. He grabs any sized ball and throws it - lefty, of course - as hard as he can while screaming 'BIG UNIT!' as loud as possible. (All batters - me - are "Barry Bonds".) This is EXCELLENT ... except at 4 am."
The Zwiebels' next addition is due Feb. 6th, which, as Ken points out, is the birthdate of Babe Ruth. "I, of course, planned this ahead of time," Ken explained.
Also explored in our wide-ranging interview was Zwiebel's oft-tempetuous relationship with league champ Glenn Schroter. Zwiebel lobbed volley at Schroter, branding him the “Evil Empire of Gammons.” "From what I can see, Glenn’s tentacles extend into the Dominican Republic, Managua, and deep, DEEP inside Rishi’s pants."
"I like Glenn's, Gary's, and Kimo's team," Ken said, in a serious aside. "David's [team] is 5-1 odds and Chris has done the most to help out his team in the off-season."
And in a comment sure to bring much wrath and venomy vitriole, Zwiebel, a 15-year fantasy baseball veteran with two titles in 2002 as ammo: "Josh, Scarfo, and Rec will be challenging me for the bottom."
In his spare time from fantasy baseball, Zwiebel is the CEO of OpPublish, an electronic publishing company based in Jerusalem - all of which I'll be damned if I know what of any of that means. Zwiebel, you may recall, was the widely pilloried exec who cause a recent stir in the industry when he resigned from Versaware to become "HC of NY J". Word on the street is that Zwiebel's mantra "You supply the text. OpPublish, does the rest!" has been widely ridiculed in OpPublish's halls, even by Zwiebel's on-again/off-again affair with mistress Tammar Afriat (http://www.oppublish.com/who.asp).
Though haunted by his poor chance in 2003, Zwiebel, a Worcester native raised in Arizona, remains optimistic for the future: "I am a diehard Diamondbacks fan, and, therefore, believe that anything short of a championship by year three would be a disappointment. No Buck Schowalter here. I am going straight to the Big Unit/Curt Schilling strategy. I anticipate finishing in the bottom half in year one, top half in year two, and taking home the hardware in year three."
