Alabama Truck Nuts League: Let's Play The Feud!
ICYMI: The Alabama Truck Nuts League Presented By ALABAMATRUCKNUTS.COM is a fantasy league unlike any other fantasy league because it’s not really a fantasy league, but some kind of chaos that’s being made up as we go along. This is the second entry in the league’s encyclopedic journal. Catch up with the first one here.
The second challenge for the Alabama Truck Nuts League presented itself in an odd way, when future WWE Hall of Famer Bayley tweeted from the set of Family Feud. That led to this TikTok…
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…and it felt right to do a Family Feud theme here as we expand rosters to five players. This challenge is called DING DONG HELLO.
The HELLO is because of Bayley, and also we needed to expand the league, because Family Feud means two teams of five players opposing one another, followed by FAST MONEY.
So, we now welcome the Ybor City Rockers and the force behind the hit God Caress America, Trevor Strunk (possibly better known as the author of Story Mode).
Let’s meet the Rockers!
Since we believe in rigging the league for maximum entertainment value at all times, it only makes sense that the Rockers’ opponent for this challenge is the Salinas Spurs of Bill Hanstock, author of We Promised You A Great Main Event and a contributor here (most recently right before WrestleMania).
The other matchups for DING DONG HELLO are based on the standings from the first challenge…
Forest Hills Fuzzballs (David Firstman) vs. Shreveport Sickos (Sickos Committee)
Mypos Mallrats (Herb Lawrence) vs. Gamymede Gals (Addy Baird)
Gelderland Trudgers (Britt Huber) vs. Chicago Gremlins (Parker Molloy)
And let’s see who these teams have added…
This is all well and good, but we should get on with this challenge’s scoring, shouldn’t we. Yes, we absolutely should. So, let’s get right to i—OH MY GOD THAT’S RICHARD KARN’S MUSIC
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The scoring system…
To honor Family Feud, we did surveys where we wound up asking more than 100 people, because they were Twitter polls, which also limited us to four answers per question, but so be it. Here are the results.
Coolest MLB Division, 1969-93:
Best Family Feud euphemisms are for:
If Steve Harvey signed with the Oakland A’s, he’d play:
So, for this challenge, we’re looking for the American League East’s sex catcher? What does that even mean? Let’s ponder that with the underrated Fountains of Wayne song California Sex Lawyer.
There are two American League Sex Catchers in this league, so special stars are awarded to the Salinas Spurs (Alejandro Kirk) and the Chicago Gremlins and Gelderland Trudgers (Adley Rutschman) for nailing that with their roster decisions.
And it turns out that the roster decisions this week were very good. The top six players in this challenge all were new additions.
Joe Kelly (GAN): 2,934
Brandon Marsh (YCR): 2,876
Kyle Bradish (GEL): 2,648
Paul Goldschmidt (MYP): 2,465
Anthony Rizzo (SXO): 2,353
Nico Hoerner (SXO): 2,322
Hoerner was one point ahead of Shohei Ohtani, who was Chicago’s top player this period, and also the second-best player for Ganymede, and also the third-best player for Shreveport, and also became a member of the expansion Memphis Meaties, but more on them another day.
Overall, Ohtani (4,831 points) has moved up a spot to fifth in the league, behind Captain Jack Glasscock (13,905), Bobby Murcer (13,312), Sean Doolittle (7,082), and Rutschman (5,125). This challenge required that players get their statistics from 2023 MLB games, which is why the top three accrued zero points. Good news is that Doolittle is on his way back.
DING DONG HELLO RESULTS
Salinas Spurs 10,265, Ybor City Rockers 9,892
Shreveport Sickos 10,264, Forest Hills Fuzzballs 4,557
Ganymede Gals 11,028, Mypos Mallrats 6,212
Gelderland Trudgers 11,065, Chicago Gremlins 11,059
That Trudgers-Gremlins score is why fantasy sports is such a nightmare. You’ve got the second-best score in the league, would’ve crushed any other opponent, and you lose by the slimmest of margins. Could’ve been slimmer if we’d had a Salinas-Shreveport game, but so be it. Special star also to Ganymede for the challenge’s high score.
The good news is that you don’t have to win your matchup to advance to FAST MONEY in this version of Family Feud.
For this, we simply asked Twitter for the best statistics in baseball. Being FAST MONEY, we’re narrowing the list down to five: xwOBAcon (number one answer!), BABIP, HBP, wRC+, and wOBA (no bacon).
Each team has selected two players, and those players have been scored on those categories. Here are the results.
Marsh/Julio Rodriguez (YCR): 2,485
Aaron Judge/Rutschman (CHI): 2,463
Kirk/Rowdy Tellez (SAL): 2,094
Kyle Bradish/Rutschman (GEL): 1,596
Rizzo/Taijuan Walker (SXO): 1,489
Kelly/Noah Syndergaard (GAN): 749
Doolittle/Kyle Hendricks (MYP): 0
Glasscock/Murcer (FHF): 0
Congratulations to the Rockers on winning FAST MONEY, which means an extra 20,000 points to match the $20,000 prize on Family Feud. The other teams get five points per FAST MONEY point, and that means our standings now look like this (for scoring purposes, Marsh and Rodriguez earned 10,000 points apiece for their FAST MONEY performance)…
Forest Hills Fuzzballs: 33,925 (0-1)
Ybor City Rockers: 29,892 (0-1)
Chicago Gremlins: 29,678* (0-1)
Salinas Spurs: 26,774* (1-0)
Gelderland Trudgers: 26,528* (1-0)
Shreveport Sickos: 23,471 (1-0)
Ganymede Gals: 20,813* (1-0)
Mypos Mallrats: 17,207 (0-1)
So, the Fuzzballs stay at the top, as do their two biggest stars, Glasscock and Murcer, despite this challenge very much favoring the living. Also, Rutschman becomes our first player with different stats for multiple teams, as the original Trudger also linked up with the Gremlins as they jumped up to third place. Rodriguez being 10,000 points better for the Rockers than the Trudgers also stands out. Tough one for the Mallrats, falling from top team with living players to the cellar.
What do the special stars and head-to-head records mean if the standings are arranged by points? Is it just a coincidence that the teams that won their Feud matchups also are the ones who got special stars? How can the Fuzzballs possibly be in first place when they have three dead players and didn’t add anyone to their roster for his challenge? Why do you ask so many questions?
The top 10 players…
Captain Jack Glasscock (FHF): 13,905
Bobby Murcer (FHF): 13,312
Brandon Marsh (YCR): 12,876
Julio Rodriguez (YCR): 11,934
Adley Rutschman (GEL): 11,135
Aaron Judge (CHI): 8,597
Anthony Rizzo (SXO): 8,528
Adley Rutschman (CHI): 8,275
Rowdy Tellez (SAL): 7,471
Alejandro Kirk (SAL): 7,092
The next Alabama Truck Nuts League Presented By ALABAMATRUCKNUTS.COM challenge will be called Dressed to the Nines. See you back here for it!