The venerable Sun Baseball League conducted its 26th annual draft last night, and I’m sure you all are dying to know how a batch of current and former sports journalists divvied up the talent.

Here is the first round:

1. Hanley Ramirez, SS, Florida

2. Alex Rodriguez, 3B, NY Yankees

3. David Wright, 3B, New York Mets

4. Jose Reyes, SS, New York Mets

5. Matt Holliday, OF, Colroado

6. David Ortiz, DH, Boston

7. Chase Utley, 2B, Philadelphia

8. Ryan Howard, 1B, Philadelphia

9. Miguel Cabrera, 3B, Detroit

10. Jimmy Rollins, SS, Philadelphia

11. Johan Santana, P, NY Mets

12. Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis

I picked second and got A-Rod. I thought he would go first, but the guy at the top of the draft, Derek Rich, is a native of the Seattle area and may still be ticked off that Rodriguez ditched the Mariners for that $252-million contract the Rangers gave him. So he took the multi-talented Ramirez whom, I must confess, I preferred to A-Rod. Even though the latter is widely considered the greatest talent in ball and, in our league, which is different from traditional “roto” ball in that stolen bases are not quite as valuable … anyway, in our league ARod should be more valuable, if he performs to his usual levels.

I was a bit surprised Ryan Howard, the closest thing to 50 homers automatic out there, fell to No. 8 and to my arch-rival, Mike Davis … and that Albert Pujols, after a slight dimunition of his numbers (the man scored only 99 runs, for God’s sake!) feel from top-of-the-draft slotting to end-of-the-first round, going to Gregg Patton.

Ours is an all-players (AL and NL) league with 12 clubs, 25 players (16 position players, nine pitchers) each, so everyone should have a team mostly of stars.

My team, in the order selected (with draft position in parans):

Rodriguez (2), 1B Prince Fielder (15), SS Troy Tulowitzki (28), RP Jonathan Papelbon (41), OF Andruw Jones (54), OF Alex Rios (67), OF Gary Sheffield (80), SP Daisuke Matsuzaka (93), RP Mariano Rivera (106), RP Joakim Soria (119), SP Rich Hill (132), SP James Shields (133), OF Pat Burrell (146), C Benjie Molina (158), SP Ian Snell (171), SP Randy Johnson (184), 1B Carlos Delgado (197), 2B Mark Ellis (210), OF J.D. Drew (223), 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff (236), RP Carlos Marmol (249), SS David Eckstein (262), 2B Mark De Rosa (275), C Jason Kendall (288), OF Melky Cabrera (289). And taxi-squad starting pitchers Zach Greinke and Wandy Rodriguez.

I like my team. i always do, the day after. Then they start playing the games. Like the one in Japan in which J.D. Drew didn’t even make an appearance. (Though I did got a sloppy save from Papelbon, a non-horrible outing from Dice-K and a homer from Mark Ellis.)

What I would differently:

I could have gotten Andruw Jones later; his pick at No. 54 was met with hoots of derision; nobody seemed to believe, as I do, that his power numbers will return. I should have taken Adam LaRoche over the fading Carlos Delgado as my backup 1B; my personal fondness for David Eckstein isn’t matched by his performance, and I could have gone with several other backup SS; I took Sheffield too high, but if he can give me power and steals at age 39 …

But I like my team. (But I always do, and I’ve won exactly one championship in 26 years.)

All my pitchers strike out people, lots of my guys have a shot at hitting 30 homers. I’m not going to run much (Rios, A-Rod and Sheff are the only potential 20-base stealers on my squad), and that could hurt, and I need Mariano Rivera to hold up and Soria not to be a flash in the pan to have a useful bullpen.

Now we play the season, see what happens.

Oh, I will concede to this: I purposely drafted a batch of guys I don’t like, personally. Sheffield, Andruw Jones, Drew, Delgado, Rivera … because if they play below the standards I expect, I will enjoy complaining about them and attacking them in e-mail to other owners in our league.