Holidays divide the year into manageable parts, commemorating all manner of religious and secular occasions.  There's one tomorrow, but you won't find it on any calendar.  It's draft day.  Roto draft day.

Since 1989 I've been part of the Carolina-Illinois League.  It started with myself and a local doctor.  We played pickup basketball together, and one day after a game discussed this new thing called rotisserie baseball.  This was before the internet.  The first year we copied stats out of each Wednesday's USA Today into a bizarre spreadsheet program on a Commodore 64.  We mailed the stats and standings out each week to seven members.

The first draft was held at the doctor's home, and included players in both North Carolina and his native Illinois.  Somebody drafted a hotshot rookie catcher named Craig Biggio, another (sitting with his back to the TV while the Cubs played on WGN, picked Andre Dawson as Dawson was being hauled off Wrigley Field on a stretcher. 

Since then we've had league members come and go, along with every player we drafted that first day (except Biggio).  But we've never had a draft that hasn't been a sort of Christmas for grownups.

It starts in January each year.  The baseball magazines start coming out late in the month.  Everyone denies buying them that early.  We all do.  Things pick up during spring training.  We set a draft date and time, which we usually change two or three times.  Argue about the rules with all the intensity of the US and Korea meeting in the DMZ.  And read everything we get our hands on about every team in the National League.

Why the National?  Because the Illinois contingent consists of Cubs and Cardinals fans.  Here in the east we've got five teams in North and South Carolina, but our team loyalties aren't as pronounced.  One of the Illinois guys (a Cubs fan) relocated with his company to South Carolina.  We've got a Reds diehard in Raleigh.  I'm partial to the Astros, but seldom (for reasons I don't even understand) draft any of their players.

Tomorrow we'll all dial into a conference call that spans 3 states and 10 teams.  We'll laugh at each other's picks, heckle the guys who take too long to make a choice, and generally have a great time. 

I've got the sixth pick.  Odds are it will be a Met.  I figure Pujols, Howard, and Soriano are locks for the first three picks.  Next should come Cabrera, Berkman, and possibly Reyes of the Mets.  Which should leave me with Reyes, Beltran, or Wright. 

All over the country the process is being repeated.  Men and women gathering together, swapping stories, picking players.  It's not on any calendar, but it's a holiday.  And one of my favorites.