As always, SLPL league head honchos are excited by this time of the season. It will take just two days and two events -- today’s Home Run Derby and Tuesday’s All-Star Game -- to crown a champ and cut a check. None of this “waiting around for 162 games” stuff. None of that “playoffs” thingy. Nope. Two days. Two events. One champ. One check.

Here’s how points are awarded toward the All-Star Standings:

• If a player on your roster wins the All-Star Home Run Derby, your team picks up 250 points
• During the All-Star game, hitters on your roster earn 150 points for every home run hit and lose 25 points for every K during the All-Star game
• During the All-Star game, pitchers on your roster earn 25 points for every K and lose 75 points for every homer surrendered during the game

If your team has the most combined points, you will be crowned the 2011 All-Star Champ and collect $125.

Remember, points earned toward the All-Star Standings are allocated exclusively to the All-Star Standings and are not allocated to the Overall Standings.

First up: Tonight, the Home Run Derby!

Tomorrow night, the All-Star Game. Check the game rosters and your SLPL roster. While it’s too late to make trades for the Home Run Derby, you can make trades for additional All-Stars by midnight tonight so that they’re eligible for tomorrow’s All-Star game.

Good luck!
Standings: At-A-Glance | Overall | Division | Hitting | Pitching | Power Hitting Pitchers| Past Leaders
Pay Already!

The Santa Lechuga city manager informed us earlier this month that the City Council needed to spend the surplus before the end of the fiscal year, so Mayor Rube Furrow took his wife Esmeralda on a junket to the Midwest, allegedly to "scout" for a site to locate the SLPL Hall-of-Fame. His first choice was a dirt lot in Downer's Grove, but learned from a Sun-Times investigation that the property is actually the burial site of all those Chicago "citizens" who voted for Mayor Daley. As a result, Rube has narrowed the Hall-of-Fame site to Dan Klinkhamer's basement.

Rube wishes to thank the site-selection committee, comprised of Midwest team ownership groups, for sharing pizzas with the size and consistency of first base — and many many (many) beers. Special thanks to Tony Livernois, Kathy Livernois, Megan Pierce, Dan and Sue Klinkhamer, the Pankoke clan and Joe Kelly for hanging with the Rube, and especially to Kathy, Jim and Katie Jane for a rousing Cornhole match!

Standings: At-A-Glance | Overall | Division | Hitting | Pitching | Power Hitting Pitchers| Past Leaders
Pay Already!

In order to boost morale, the front office at SLPL yesterday staged a team-building exercise pitting the executive team (in white) against the office peons (in blue). The losers were sent to Los Angeles to run the Dodgers.

Standings: At-A-Glance | Overall | Division | Hitting | Pitching | Past Leaders
Pay Already!

I’m late with my traditional “Welcome to the SLPL Season” message, and for that I apologize. Being both the mayor of Santa Lechuga and the commissioner of SLPL can be a challenge, especially at a time when the City of Santa Lechuga is under such financial stress.

As you’ve probably read by now, we had to fire City Manager/Police Chief/Public Works Administrator Espy Espinosa after The Los Angeles Times revealed he was earning an annual salary of $850,000 and the feds showed up at City Hall one morning and hauled him off to jail. Wow! Who knew?

Fortunately, I managed to elude an indictment after the criminal grand jury determined that “Rube Furrow has proven to be so stunningly uninformed about the operations of city government that we are unable to prove that he had any idea that (Espinosa) was robbing Santa Lechuga’s residents blind."

As you can imagine, Espy’s departure left a big void around City Hall. Because he drained city coffers, Santa Lechuga now has an all-volunteer staff. In the last week alone, I was called out to repair the sinkhole in front of Rosie’s Tavern & Hardware Store. I also had to deliver layoff notices to the 16 malcontent teachers at Santa Lechuga Elementary School. And, with Espy gone, I was summoned to investigate the high-profile murder of Horace Spitz, who appeared to have been bludgeoned with a hoe handle (or stabbed to death with sheep shears).

With the murder investigation stymied, I have a few minutes to welcome team ownership groups to another stellar year of SLPL. The season has a lot of promise, especially with our mix of eager new ownership groups and grizzled Santa Lechuga veterans. We are excited by the terrific team names (Brandon Olivarria's Kirby Puckett’s Good Eye, Kathy Livernois' Sons of Pitches, Dan Klinkhamer's This League Blows, Tucker Vasquez's 1 Bad Mother Tucker and Sue Klinkhamer's This is Gonna Get Uggla are particularly good, though David Adrian’s Team Name That Can’t Be Spoken in Polite Company is especially inspired.)

Also, less than a month into the season, Rube is gratified with two mind-boggling developments: 1). Owners have already made trades worth $330! and 2). Rube Furrow is leading the entire damn league, the first time that’s happened in Santa Lechuga hist… Oops. Gotta go. We just got a call at City Hall from someone reporting that the municipal sewage treatment plant broke down. Apparently those things don't run themselves. Who knew?

Standings: At-A-Glance | Overall | Division | Hitting | Pitching | Past Leaders
Pay Already!