My Dinner With Shark Cartilage, Plus Fantasy Football Draft Autopsy

Last week I decided to investigate yet another beach. I’ve been to the one right near my apartment, as well as a nicer one near City Hall called Goshikihama, but now I’ve been invited to check out Bashinji Beach, north of Matsuyama. The beach is calling out to you right when you step off of the train.

After a few hours of swimming, trying to avoid a sunburn, and getting lightly nibbled by small fish called kagokaidai, I’m ready for a cold beverage.

Tom from London is laughing in that picture on the left, but he wasn’t laughing when he saw how much larger my beer was than his.

That evening, we decided to take revenge on the fish that were nipping us while we swam by eating some of their relatives. Tom found an izakaya in Matsuyama that specialized in seafood, and away we went.

Oh, and did I mention that this izakaya had all-you-can-drink for 90 minutes for 2000 yen? A great deal, in my opinion.

The first dish to hit our table was this absolutely gorgeous potato salad. Potato salad is huge in Japan and it is made with kewpie mayonnaise, which is much better than American mayonnaise because it is made solely with egg yolks instead of the entire egg, making for a richer, more flavorful condiment.

Eggs in Japan are just better. There is stricter salmonella control, so you can eat raw eggs with absolutely impunity. You can also see the higher quality reflected in the color of the yolk, which is a deep orange hue compared to our paler American yolks. My friend Gen told me that some Japanese poultrymen will feed their chickens togarashi, or chili peppers, to give the yolks a redder color (and chickens can’t detect capsaicin, the chemical ingredient that makes spicy things spicy), but then again, he also told me when we were kids that his cousin was the kicker for the 2011 national champion Auburn Tigers football team, so maybe take that anecdote with a grain of salt. Anyway, Japanese potato salad often contains mentaiko (fish eggs), carrots, corn, and other good bits.

Next up was these magnificent shumai, which had more fish eggs on top and a sauce that had a faint sour/pickly flavor, almost like ume.

It took us a few seconds to realize that this was the shark cartilage we had ordered out of sheer curiosity, which was chopped up into tiny bits and mixed together with umeboshi. Given that it was just chopped ume with some crunchiness, it was tasty, but they could have used cartilage from any animal. Why shark? No clue. According to some light research, shark cartilage was a popular medicine back in the 70s, to the point where it caused a decline in the shark population. Apparently people thought that sharks didn’t get cancer, so eating shark cartilage would prevent them from getting cancer. But sharks do get cancer, and there isn’t any proof that ingesting shark cartilage is beneficial to people. Sometimes I feel like people in our current moment are especially susceptible when it comes to falling for nonsense, but learning stuff like this reminds me that people have always been stupid.

This place is famous for their flame-broiled saba (mackerel), which they do at your table. The fish is sashimi-esque, tender and super flavorful. Plus, who doesn’t appreciate the pageantry of some tableside torching?

Our last dish of the night is yakionigiri, which are just grilled rice balls. Very simple, but the rice on the outside gets a little crispy and caramelized, like the rice on the bottom of your dolsot-bibimbap, served in a sizzling stone bowl.

While I bid adieu to Tom and Linus here, my night was just beginning. The last train back to Iyo from Matsuyama is at 10:30 every night, which puts a premature end to my nights out on the town. However, I had my fantasy football draft scheduled for 2:15 AM. So when I returned home, I hit my neighborhood Family Mart for some coffee and snacks.

My draft kicked off around 2:45 and wrapped up around 5:30. Despite my major sleepiness, I still think I drafted a decent team. This year we’re playing dynasty (meaning you draft your team and then you have that team going forward, plus an annual rookie draft) superflex (meaning one of your flex spots can and should be a quarterback) half-PPR (meaning each reception is worth half a point) TE-premium (meaning tight end receptions are worth a full point). I had the seventh pick in a ten-team draft, and after the commissioner vetoed a blockbuster trade for the first overall pick (I was gunning for my beloved Jayden Daniels), here’s the team I walked away with.

• QB:
  • Justin Herbert (LAC, pick 3.4)
  • Drake Maye (NE, pick 5.4)
  • Jaxon Dart (NYG, pick 14.7)
• RB:
  • Quinshon Judkins (CLE, pick 6.7)
  • Kaleb Johnson (PIT, pick 8.7)
  • Tony Pollard (TEN, pick 10.7)
  • Trey Benson (ARI, pick 12.7)
  • Ollie Gordon (MIA, pick 15.4)
  • Tank Bigsby (JAX, pick 16.7)
  • Woody Marks (HOU, pick 20.7)
  • Kyle Monangai (CHI, pick 22.7)
  • Roschon Johnson (CHI, pick 24.7)
• WR:
  • Ja’Marr Chase (CIN, pick 1.7)
  • Tetairoa McMillan (CAR, pick 4.7)
  • Jameson Williams (DET, pick 7.4)
  • Ricky Pearsall (SF, pick 9.4)
  • Josh Downs (IND, pick 11.4)
  • Kyle Williams (NE, pick 13.4)
  • Jalen Royals (KC, pick 17.4)
  • Jalen Coker (CAR, pick 19.4)
  • Roman Wilson (PIT, pick 21.4)
  • Keenan Allen (LAC, pick 23.4)
• TE:
  • Brock Bowers (LV, pick 2.4)
  • Harold Fannin (CLE, pick 18.7)

There were two more rounds in the draft, but I went to sleep and let autopick take them, and then I ended up dropping both of those guys for free agents. Remember, this is dynasty, so besides trades, claiming free agents on the waiver wire, and drafting rookies, this is my team for the foreseeable future. As such, you want to draft young, at least for the most part. I think I did all right.

At quarterback, I got a guy in his prime who has been a pretty dependable fantasy asset (Herbert), a young guy with rushing upside (Maye), and a rookie who has impressed in training camp/preseason and should take over the starting job sometime this season (Dart). Herbert and Maye were the 10th and 11th QBs taken off the board. I missed out on the elite QBs (which in superflex are of the utmost importance) because the top five went in the six picks before me, and I opted to take the first wide receiver off the board instead of reaching for a mediocre QB. I was high on Bo Nix and was hoping he would fall to me, but he was taken right before my second round pick, so then I took the first tight end off the board. Caleb Williams and Mahomes were then taken in the third before I took Herbert, and then I took Maye in the fifth.

Running back is a different story. Every year I walk away thin at RB, and then vow to stock up next year, and I never do. This year was no different, but I took a lot of rookies with upside. Judkins should be the RB1 in Cleveland this year once his off-field legal issues are cleared up. Another rookie, Johnson, is expected to be leading the backfield in Pittsburgh before the end of the season. Pollard will be the unquestioned leader of his backfield, but he’s old and has a lot of miles on him. Benson and Bigsby are the younger RB2s on their teams who are expected to be more involved this year. Gordon, Marks, and Monangui are rookies in murky situations who could vault up the depth chart in a hurry depending on their opportunities. In general, running backs have short careers, so I was loathe to invest major draft capital into any of them and instead opted to throw a bunch of darts and hope a few pan out. This is a long-term strategy, as for Week 1 I really only have one RB (Pollard) who is starter-worthy.

Wide receiver I feel great about. Chase was the first overall pick in most normal leagues (1QB, redraft), and is the second-highest favorite for Offensive Player of the Year. McMillan is a rookie who should dominate targets with a QB (Bryce Young) who showed some flashes down the stretch of last season after an abysmal start. Williams has been dubbed a potential league-winner by many pundits, but what the Lions offense will look like after the departure of boy genius offensive coordinator Ben Johnson is unclear. Pearsall should be another target hog given the injuries in San Francisco’s WR room, and played well as a rookie last year after recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. Downs and Allen are familiar faces in fantasy, and Williams, Royals, Coker, and Wilson are all rookies.

I considered taking Bowers with my first round pick, so I was ecstatic when he fell to me in the second round. Last year he broke the rookie record for most receptions, and that was with the three-headed shitastic spectacle of Gardner Minshew/Aidan O’Connell/Desmond Ridder. With an upgrade at QB and in a TE-premium league, Bowers is the favorite to lead all non-QBs in scoring. My other TE, Fannin, is the TE2 for the worst team in the league for now, but he has drawn rave reviews in camp, so who knows.

All in all, only Chase, Herbert, Pollard, and Allen have played more than three years in the league. My team is very young, with a lot of upside, but I also have the top picks at WR and TE. While the first year might not be pretty, the future is bright for Far Eastern Motors (a reference to the DMV’s Eastern Motors whose commercials feature Washington football players and a really catchy song, and to Japan).

Also, I’ve been reading a lot of Page 2 Bill Simmons from the ESPN archives during my desk-warming time at work, and I have been inspired to do a mailbag! Please comment with some questions below about anything and everything, and I will respond to you in detail in a future post. I’ll solicit some questions on my Instagram as well, and hopefully we can patch a few together for a post.

Peace!