LAST YEAR'S MONEY WINNERS
New Tex/Steve: Hey, that's me! I'm your commish, which means I have to deal with all of the bullshit rulings and I also tabulate the updates each week. I'm the current defending champ of this pool, and one of two two-time winners over the pool's 10 year history.
Da Bandit: Also referred to as Da Boca Bandit, this is our career money leader, as far as I can tell. The first member of the two-time winner club, Bandit has cashed in this pool each of the last four years, including a 2nd place finish last year. His nickname comes from his penchance for stealing other player's picks.
Excal/Joel: The man who founded this pool, and also made a late charge last year to finish in da money. The man loves to bet, smoke cigars, drink beer and play golf, although he's only proficient in two of those activities. When he plays, he carries a minimum of 18 clubs, tees the balls from 3 feet in front of the markers, takes all putts inside 5 feet, and hollars "no justice!" at every bad bounce. He also has one helluva mime outfit.
Tev: This is Tev's sophomore season, after a "succesful" rookie season in which he won the Duffer Award, a one-time prize for the last place finisher in the pool. He's an in-law of Jeff, but is otherwise a good guy and pretty quiet. Don't expect a lot of chatter from Tev.
RETURNING VETERANS
Shades/Jeff: My right hand man at FPGP Central. Jeff is the person who maintains the blog and makes the updates "pretty". If you are ever on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, make sure you add Jeff to your "call a friend" list, because you might just get a question on the swing weight in Tag Ridings driver... and Jeff would know it. Jeff is 0 for life in the blog, which is to say he is our greatest contributor.
Murph/MG03/JG59: Murph is the money person making picks for a certain Tour family, who's name is never to be uttered on this blog. MG fears being the Janet Gretzky of the golf world. We thought this team would have a ton of inside information last year, but not so much. We expect big things out of them this year though.
Talonflier/Vic: This is Vic's 3rd season in the pool. Last year he had slight hold on 3rd place money, but his team collapsed after the Fed Ex Cup finals, prompting him to petition a "let's end this pool after the Fed Ex Cup!!!" request. Despite being a Yankee fan, he's quite funny. Some of you youngins may need a dictionary to understand his posts.
CASWAS: This is Jeff's second
Stevie V.: An FPGP veteran who was awful in his early years but has come into prominence as of late. He's a colleague of Rob/Rodent, he knows Bandit "professionally", and his brother is also in the pool. Needless to say, he is a great slinger of da smack.
Johnny V.: Brother to Stevie V., and legendary man about town in New Orleans. Let's his picks do the talking, and never contributes to the blog.
Rob/Rodent/Diddler: It takes a special man to have this many nicknames. I won't get into why some of his friends call him "da rodent", but he's known as "da diddler" for making late decisions and having to ask his wife if he can spend money. The man does like to gamble though, so if you are looking for side bet action, look no further. Robbo and I were in a virtual dead heat in the 1st ever FPGP with one week to go, a year when we played "winner take all". I offered him a draw right before the last tourney started and he declined... and lost his half of an $800 pot. Like I said... the man likes to gamble.
Stan the Man: A colleague of mine who doesn't contribute to the blog.
ROOKIES
Shane/Jay/Da Rooks: Shane is a friend of mine from Illinois who was too cheap/scared to enter his own team, so he hedged with his neighbor, Jay. Together, they are "da rooks". At least they got the "da" part correct.
David/Mark: Another two-headed team, David is a colleague of mine from New York (yes, another fucking Yankee fan) who pulled in his old college roomate to put together a team. Special note: Mark is running a death pool this year, so you know these guys are twisted.
Drew/The Shize: Drew is Jay's brother, and he wants to call his team "The Shize". Ugh. Thanks for the donations rookie.
Ryan: A co-worker of Jay. I know nothing of this man.
AND A SURPRISE...
Da Dummy: YES! Da Dummy is back! Old-timers may remember when I used to draw random players for a Dummy picks team. Dummy doesn't contribute or win the pool, but he does set the benchmark for awful picks. I mean, if you can't beat a randomly generated team of players, how horrible are your picks?
GROUND RULES
Feel free to egg each other on, talk smack, etc. If you personally know someone, feel free to flame them... but don't flame people you don't know. If the shit-talking gets out of hand between people who are strangers, or if anything truly offensive is put up on the blog, I reserve the right to kick your ass off the blog and make you sit quietly in the corner. That said, your money is in and no matter how much of a shit you may be, you're in the pool for the entire year. Just be cool on the blog. For example, it's ok for the Florida guys (bandit, stevie v., rob) to give each other all the crap they want... but if a rookie jumps on and goes over the line, I'm shutting you down. Keep the shit talking to comments about the picks, and all is well.
