How did you choose the players' names?

When I originally started this league, the line-ups of the original four teams reflected the team name:

• The New York Curmudgeons included people quoted in Jon Winokour’s Portable Curmudgeon series of books
• The London Scribes included British writers
• The Leningrad Bears included characters and authors from Russian literature
• The Morgantown Gutter Dwellers included the names of bars and clubs in downtown Morgantown.

When I added teams, I kept the same format. The original team included a group of players with a common link. For example:

• In 1902, when I added the Stratford-on-the-Avon Globetrodders, the team included characters from Shakespeare’s plays.
• In 1906, when I added the Yoknapatawpha County Scriveners, the team included American authors.
• In 1908 when I added the San Narciso 49ers, the team included characters from Thomas Pynchon novels.
• In 1908, when I added the Japan Monsters, the team included players named after monsters from literature, film, popular culture, and mythology.

The names are all mixed up now, so you will see players like [Allen] Ginsberg (Yok Co originally) playing for Morgantown. As the league has grown, players are traded, let go, picked up, and shuffled around from team to team.

Each year, I have random retirements. The older a player gets, the greater his/her/its chances of retirement. As players drop out of the league, I need to add more. Each year, I create a new team from scratch, and this is part of the draft pool. Draftable players also include free agents lets go by other teams. Past draft teams have included the African Brotherhood (African countries), the Harlem Renaissance (black authors), the Wheeling Friends (my friends), the Philadelphia Spectrum (colors), the Laurel Canyon Mothers (Fran Zappa-related people and characters from songs), etc. Cobain, Hendrix, and Morrison are a recent crop of rock stars. Jefferson, Clinton, and Ford are a recent team of American presidents.