Top 10 ways to spice up your fantasy baseball draft

Hey, one of the best days of my year -- Live Draft Day -- is coming up, and as always, I'm looking to bring it up a notch. Last year's had dry ice smoke, a championship belt, and entrance music for every owner, so the bar is already pretty high... but dammit, that's why I run the best damned league in the world. (Or, well, at least, my world.)

If you're ready to make the day more memorable, feel free to bring in any of these sure-fire strategies.

10) Hire King Kong Bundy. According to his site, he's available as either a wrestler or a comic (and if one believes his MySpace page, he's a Philly guy - shocking!).

Imagine the thrill that your league mates will have when their picks are insulted by a real live pro wrestling superstar, especially one that is likely to hit you with a steel chair if you don't laugh at his jokes. Just make sure you hire a second, emergency back-up wrestler for the run-in if things go badly.

9) Strippers. This one's obvious but easy, and particularly effective as a counter to the guy that always brings porn. It can be pricey, but what's money compared to mamm... err, memories?

8) Spike the food and booze. Go creative here. Laxatives or pot in the brownies, extra liquor in the punch, or good old acid in the salsa. It's why they call it gambling, folks.

7) Go upper tank. My old rock band had a guitarist that used to do this at the end of every long-term session in any recording studio that we worked in. It wasn't one of his more endearing traits. But hey, you want to win, right?

6) Competitive eating. Works best with ribs or some other food where you've got visible remnants of your gluttony. If your opponent has the meat sweats and no feeling in their left side by Hour 2, you've won!

5) Owner Strife. Got co-owners who are reaching that divorce stage? Push them along with a well-timed whisper campaign. Got a league that's antsy about personal conflict? Convince the co-owners to stage a fight -- the more over the top the better, for the fear/hope that it will turn real halfway through -- that will have the shy violets in your league staring at their shoes in embarrassment.

If you can get thrown dishes (preferably not yours), that has to mean your sleeper will slip into the late going.

4) Midgets. If dumb guy television (and, well, my own unfortunate life of being shorter than Muggsy Bogues) has taught me anything, it's that guys will give way too much attention to the little people. Hire one to come by and help with the draft, or just to stand in the corner looking ominous, like they are an extra in a David Lynch movie.

And if they can dance around a miniature Stonehenge, so much the better.

3) Pets. Know a man with a snake, and have no snake phobias of your own? It's time to draft with that bad boy on your shoulders. Can you stand the smell of feral ferrets? Drop on by the pet store and bring a few of your new babies with you. Ready to put on an eyepatch, have some crap everywhere bird on your shoulder, and scream Arr! a lot as the fantasy pirate? Ye hearties, man!

Just remember, you tried to leave your pet home, but that darn wife/ girlfriend/ cellmate wouldn't stand for it. Look, he's so cute! He likes you! Why don't you hold him for an hour or two while I draft?

2) Sideshow. Can you draft while on a rented bucking bronco machine? More importantly, can you possibly avoid making a draft pick while on a rented bucking bronco machine? How about your skills in a never-ending Pop-A-Shot battle, preferably with some neighborhood kid who isn't actually in the draft, and has been paid to egg you on by the commish for the entire draft while the rest of the league drops magnets on your laptop?

It's all fair in love, war, and fantasy nerding.

1) Midget Strippers. The nuclear winter of draft distraction. Use at your moral peril, because once you've gone to the Midget Stripper option, nothing else will compare. (And no, the Shooter Wife isn't available.)