Name: Dr. Kenneth J. Kuzdak (alias Jake Blues)
I-75 League team name: Detroit Demolition Dogs (formerly The Detroit Drill Team, pre-player retention era)
Birthdate: November 1957
Currently resident of: Novi, Mich.
Birthplace: Dearborn, Mich.
Family: yes
Occupation: Catholic Theology teacher (retired dentist)
Employer: self
Job title: Theologian
In plain English, what do you do: teach Catholic Theology to adults and high school age teens.
Real-life MLB teams you are a fan of: Tigers, Astros, Phillies, Diamondbacks,RedSox & NOT Yankees
Years in the I-75 League: 30
Left league: 2011 (see story)
Years playing Strat: 40
How you first were introduced to Strat: in the summer of 1970 my friend Gary Kicinski showed me the game on his backporch in Detroit. Been playing ever since.
How you became part of the I-75 League: Received a call from Gary wanting to form a league with some Strat players in Florida. Soon, nine managers, many of whom had never met, were drafting by phone, all night, from two locations (4 in my sun room in Mich., the rest in Florida). The rest is history.
Origin of your team name: My original team name, The Drill Team (nickname the Drillers) was inspired from my being a dentist. Once our annual, total redraft league changed to a partial player retention and redraft league, I settled on a team name-change from a line from the song Hard Drivin’ Man (“we got the Detroit Demolition here for you tonight”) by one of the greatest live bands ever-the J. Geils Band. The ‘Dogs’ because my son Christian and I love dogs and it’s a good, quick nickname reference.
Any Strat involvement outside the I-75 League? Yes. I started a local, Michigan based baseball Strat league that is still going today but in which I no longer play, due to time constraints.
Fondest I-75 League memory (related to Strat competition): very tough call, because my first World Series championship in 1986 over the Washington Senators was so exciting. But I have to say the 2008 I-75 World Series clinching game 6 which the Detroit Demolition Dogs won 3-2 in 16 innings over the Superior Titans (Alfonso Soriano walkoff hit) beats out the 2009 game 7, pennant clinching win for the Dogs (79 wins on the year) over the heavily favored Savannah Scorpions (95 wins).
Fondest I-75 League convention moment: very tough call here also, but I would say winning the 1st round rolloff for drafting Mike Schmidt in 1982.
Favorite I-75 League tradition: going to Spring Training games!
Trade or draft pick you made that you wish you could have back: At our first draft for retaining multiple players in 2003, my plan was to take Pujols in the first round if I didn’t get Bonds again in the inevitable rolloff (I won the rolloff for “73 homer“ Bonds in 2002 when we decided to try retention and retain only one ‘franchise’ player-but was asked to throw him back in the pool for a multiple player retention draft in 2003). But when Arod, Jeter and Tejada went in the first wave of the first round I took Garciaparra in the second wave and bid all my points for him, leaving none for Pujols in round two, and have been chasing him ever since in trade offers. Bosh!
Trade or draft pick you made in which you think you hit a homer: A definite “homer” was drafting Ryan Howard in 2004 with a late round pick amidst howls of “wasted pick, he’ll never play with Thome ahead of him”. A “homer” trade was trading (at a 2007 Tiger’s Spring game in Winterhaven)
Craig Monroe and a no-name reliever for Magglio Ordonez…who went on to hit .363 in real life that season and lead the Dogs to an I-75 title in 2008.
One thing you would do to improve the league: Have everyone attend the draft/convention and trade and play all March games face to face.
How to follow you: Website, Blog, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter… don’t like being followed…yet.
Your chance to self-promote: Have all men read, meditate and prayerfully contemplate the Gospels, especially John chapter 6, so we can achieve God’s saving will for us and transform this culture of death we live in into a civilization of love.
How you can be reached: bbdentist@aol.com
No audio file yet, I traded the microphone back for the Cadillac (and I’m puting the band back together).
