Surely everyone who reads this blog has been waiting in polite quiet to hear how my fantasy baseball team has been doing this year, after last season’s heartbreaking last-day-of-the-season half-point loss (Frank summarized it on the league message board thusly: “In the end, AKMA came up .5 standing points short of 1st place. That’s not the whole story, however. The DDs [my team, the Cambridge Doubledomes] could have gained back the .5 points with 1 RBI, 1 SB, or 1 K. They would have passed the Swamprats with 1 more W in the pitching column. That’s about as close as it gets”).
This year the disheartened Doubledomes have lingered in the nether reaches of the league, clinging to seventh place (out of eight) or stumbling into last place for a few days. In the past couple of weeks, though, we have staged an atypical rush to the top, reaching a moderately solid fifth place thus far, and not out of reach of fourth. There’s absolutely no hope of catching Frank’s first-place Dead Sea Squirrels.
My pitching fell short in wins; despite being at or near the top of the league in ERA, WHIP, and strikeouts, my guys are struggling to avoid finishing last in wins. Go figure. [Correction: This is incorrect; I just checked, and although my team had its ups and downs, our win total is actually pretty healthy, though not as strong as the other pitching stats might lead one to expect.] I had a hot-starting reliever in Al Reyes, but he fell off the table midseason, and he was my only closer (I missed out on the “bid on a Toronto closer in the second week of the season” derby, having picked the wrong guy a week early). As a result, I used my dodgy pitchers more, and was stuck with a very disappointing, over-priced Mike Mussina.
Travis Hafner and Vlad Guerrero had good seasons, but without as many home runs as I was paying them for. If they had hit even close to what I expected, I’d be several places higher in home runs, and probably better in runs scored and RBIs too. The guys I was counting on for miscellaneous stolen bases stayed at first, and none of them scored runs or batted any in (if it weren’t for Guerrero, I’d be dead in the water). So fifth place works for me, given what these slackers did this year.
Hey, at least we’re not going to get edged out of first place by one lousy RBI or steal or strikeout or win.
In a few minutes, we’re leaving Princeton for Maine, to wish Margaret’s mother a happy birthday. I’ll catch you later.