By Rick Lavoie
While catching up on the MIPPACast, I heard someone mention that the blog had been silent. As MIPPA’s most prolific blogger, I took the time to compose another retrospective. I thought that 109 Tweets received such positive feedback, so the column must be popular.
The most significant portion of the 3rd podcast was obviously the talk about draft location. As last year’s reigning champ, I made a solid argument that the draft location should be chosen by the winner of the league. With history on my side, we held at least one more draft at Hooters Saugus. I am not really sure when we moved the draft to Hooters, but I know it didn’t start there. As I pointed out in the chat, the original draft was held in MetroBoston. More specifically, it was at Shawn’s old employer (I believe it was a text messaging app company) located in Watertown at the old Arsenal location.
The complex, for those who weren’t around, was as high tech as you’d find in those days. You needed to be buzzed in…the draft table had plug-in ports…and we projected the MIPPADraft Spreadsheet for all to see. The night always started with rules discussion, 7 layer dip, and BizzBot cookies (She may not be real, but the cookies were). Trades were conducted like middle school kids passing paper notes under the guise of secrecy. We were pioneers. The earliest email I can find regarding those drafts was dated August 24, 2007.
I responded in due time with keepers of Joseph Addai and Laurence Maroney. All of this reminiscing, led me down a rabbit hole filled with memories of poker, myspace, and days of yore.
Most of you newbies have been taught that our humble fantasy league started as a bunch of guys playing poker. The MIPPA wasn’t just a couple of guys with a weekly hold ’em game. It honestly was much, much more. As we embark on new media (podcasts, blogs, etc) we must look to our beginning as to not make the mistakes of the past. That brought me to my old friend Tom.
Long before messenger, long before Twitter, and long before Seth or Rooney, the MIPPA was on the world’s largest social media site – MySpace.
MIPPA’s MySpace was an amazing resource for our little poker league. We posted statistics for wins and losses, we organized Memorial Day events, and we shared photos, favorite songs, and everything in between. The MIPPA MySpace was groundbreaking.
Unfortunately, Zuckerberg stole the idea from a few twins, and Tom started selling out. MySpace began to liquidate (kind of). But the Retrospective team was able to access the archives and pull out some doozies.
The Top 8. The was one thing that caused much consternation with an emerging society based on ratings. Who were the MySpace Top 8 for the MIPPA?
- The Praying StormTrooper: Mister Tewstep hailing from Quincy, Massachusetts. Otherwise known as Mike Long. Mike boasts 164 followers.
- The Young Abercrombie Model: Matthew Gerrish from Lowell, Massachusetts. This PSMC0304 can brag about his 169 followers.
- Incognito #1: The Franchise. His 994 followers know that he was from North Weymouth, Massachusetts
- The Cup of Noodles Fan: Also from Lowell, Massachusetts William Northrup is proud to have 84 friends and he self identifies as a writer and a teacher.
- The Out of Place Red Sox Fan: Me. With 124 followers and still living in Saugus, lol.
- Incognito #2: Justin Adams. Living in Wollaston, Massachusetts, (Is that even a real city?) Justin had 108 followers.
- A Family of Three: 204076485 is also known as Chris Sylvia. Chris has 150 followers, but never saw the need to update his profile picture after the birth of his daughter.
- No One. Even though someone created this page, and it is followed by a Theresa, a Liz Caliri, and a Jamian Whiting, we don’t have any idea who might be the genius behind this page.
The one thing that is certain is that the folks in this group are more than just some friends. We are a collection of memories and laughter. The Rabbit Hole tonight took me down made me pause and reflect a few times. I smiled and chuckled at old pictures and profiles. I accessed the MIPPA Poker Rules:
The hope that one day we will play poker again still resides deep within my soul. Perhaps it will be a 14 player game after Conclave with Tom Shnorrenburger or maybe a few cocksuckers will get together when Deadwood’s movie shows up On Demand. Regardless, the memories were good. The times were some of the best times I’ve had. The trip down memory lane brought forward one other image, emblazoned in my mind.
The Rabbit Hole of memories is supposed to be pleasant. The image above shows a shirtless carpenter aboard an Alaska Air flight out of St. Louis. He was angry. He stormed the cockpit (pre-9/11) and attacked the pilots with his shoes. Ultimately subdued by a passenger with an axe, this man will never know how much pleasure he brought a few MIPPA members and their friends. No one knows why he was so angry, but his anger should make us pause anew.
The whole scope of MIPPA Retrospectives is to bring the history of this league alive. I hope this second installment has accomplished that feat. I will entertain suggestions about future topics of this column, of my Prove Me Wrong column, or of course more of “A Rant by Rick Lavoie”
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