The 31st Sun Baseball League draft commenced at 5:30 a.m. today, in the UAE, which left me at a competitive disadvantage. I am not sharp at that hour of the day. Not a morning person.

But, then, in the first 30 years of the league I won the championship exactly twice. So it probably doesn’t matter when the draft began, in terms of my chances of winning. And I can’t really blame “pre-dawn” on a process that took five hours and ended at 10:30 — 11:30 p.m., in California.

Our first-round picks — 12 players — seemed to be the same first 12 being promulgated throughout the fantasy ball world. (The growth of fantasy ball absolutely has had the effect of homogenizing opinion, turning intelligent guesses into pseudo fact.)

Our first round: Miggy Cabrera, Ryan Braun (watch our for that 50-game suspension there), Mike Trout (had him last year; love-love-loved him), Robinson Cano, Joey Votto, Andrew McCutchen, Albert Pujols, Matt Kemp, Jose Bautista, Josh Hamilton, Prince Fielder, Giancarlo Stanton.

I will not take this any further. I am well aware of how tedious fantasy talk can be.

Back in 2010, I related an anecdote pertaining to the topic, from a conversation overheard at the 2006 Winter Olympics. I have never forgotten that. “The two things I don’t care about …”

I give Leah credit for sometimes pretending to be interested. Because even if we know on a rational basis that no one cares about someone else’s fantasy team, we care intensely about our own, and we think about it, and are prone to declaim about it. Often. And might do so even in an empty room.

For the next six months, I will be a very interested observer in the performances of a couple of dozen guys I have never met. Some of whom I may not have seen play, considering I have been in Abu Dhabi since 2009.

Among “my” guys: Stanton, Troy Tulowitzki, Adrian Beltre, Jacoby Ellsbury, Yu Darvish, Allen Craig, Alex Gordon, Melky Cabrera and Mariano Rivera, Rickie Weeks.

I won’t tax you with any more than that.

As the woman said, back in 2006 … well, go to the link, above. It’s the honest/brutal truth.