January 2019 Featured Team Owner of The MonthHi everyone. I’m Vera-Julia Sakins. My family comes from Latvia. My mother, who was a dentist and lab director, was from Riga, Latvia. My father who was an estimator, was from Bakarov, Latvia (eastern Latvia). Both went to Germany during WWII. They met in the Displaced Persons Camp in Germany. My father had a toothache and he went to see the dentist, who was my mother.

My parents came to USA in 1950, and were married on December 29, 1950. For a few years, they lived in Brooklyn. My mother became a very big fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers. She went to many games in Ebbets Field during those years.

Vera-Julia Sakins

On June 19, 1957, I was born in New York and the three of us moved to Freeport, New York. I am a lifelong resident of Freeport. I am an only child, but grew up in very close-knit family environment and with relatives and friends. We kept up with the Latvian traditions. We had cats and dogs.

My mother taught me how to watch baseball, and she explained all the rules. My love of baseball comes from my mother. We became Mets fans from 1962 on.

My family went to numerous games at Shea Stadium throughout the years. I remember 1964-1965 World’s Fair next to Shea. My father also watched, but he did not get excited as my mother and I did except for a few times.

My father died in 2003 at the age of 89, my mother in 2010 at the age of 87. I miss them very much.

I am now carrying the tradition of following the Mets and baseball. I am an avid fan of the Mets.

I am excellent in numbers from school age on. I used to know so many statistics when I was younger. I kept score of Mets games for a few years.

I went to parochial schools. I graduated from St. John’s University in January 1980 with a B.A. in Public Administration and a minor in Government.

In the 80’s, I used to work for banks as a Head Teller.

On May 31, 1988, I started to work at my current job – Town of Hempstead (municipality). I work with reports, special projects, and customer service. I am there over 30 years. I plan to work for a few more years.

30+ Years of Fantasy Baseball

I have been involved with fantasy baseball over 30 years. In the early days, I had teams with STATS (DOS, no Windows). Then, I think STATS went over to Diamond Legends and then to the current Image Sports. I had teams with other sites, but the other site currently that I have teams (6) since 1998 is Score-sheet. It goes from the length of the baseball season

I like playing Imagine Sports because you can use your favorite teams, players, variety of Custom Leagues, stadiums, use of strategies, etc. To me, it never gets old.

I have my favorite players who I have used from the range of 100 times to 300 times. (For example, I have used Tom Seaver over 290 times) Then, I go into a  league where I can try out players. I like to use players from the 1950’s to 1980’s and Mets players. I like to use Normal to Iron category players, though I use prone players too. I like offensive-minded stadiums, though I use pitching parks too.

I looked at my Image Sports archive and the first game was from 2006. I started much earlier than 2006 and I started out playing the Standard Leagues. Then I stopped with the Standard Leagues and began playing Custom Leagues. Single Season Leagues came later.

Vera’s Stats

Playoffs              Titles

Standard  19761 W    23655 L      .455              16                        3

Custom  138158 W   167222 L     .452              139                    17

Single      21825 W      30681 L      .416               7                        0

Overall     179744 W  221558 L     .448              162                  20

I also belong to many continuing leagues.

I look forward everyday and reviewing the games and players. I like making changes when needed. At present I have over 10 active teams. I also like going through manual drafts at times. Each week, there are new ones starting. 7 ended the season on 10/6/18. Over the weekend, I review all teams.